Conservative Hugh Hewitt uses WaPo to talk about his high hopes for new National Security Advisor John Bolton:
What to expect from Bolton? The bottom line is that Vladimir Putin’s worst nightmare just walked into the West Wing. Bolton can outlast and outthink anyone Putin, Kim Jong Un or Xi Jinping sends to negotiate quiet deals before the public big ones. A housecleaning at the National Security Council is coming too. Bolton knows everyone in the foreign policy set in Washington. Look for his old friends at the U.N., State, Defense and Justice to show up soon in the Old Executive Office Building and to work towards the implementation of the comprehensive National Security Strategy put together by his predecessor, H.R. McMaster, and company. It’s a great day for Reagan-era realism of which McMaster was a superb steward during his tenure.
And war on the Korean peninsula?
Critics charge that Bolton likes war — a ridiculous assertion. As he told me in one especially memorable two-hour interview back in 2007: “Nobody should want a war on the Korean Peninsula.” Chew on that, critics. What he is, however, is a Reagan realist. About Kim Jong Un’s father, Kim Jong Il, Bolton said that “He’s very good at negotiating about giving up his [nuclear] program. . . . He’s done it four or five times in the last 15 years.” That pointed to Bolton’s conclusion: “He’s not going to relinquish those nuclear weapons voluntary. No way.”
Yeah. It was Reagan who lost 200+ Marines in a few minutes in Lebanon. I don’t get all that jacked up about “Reagan realism.” Still, it’d be lovely if Hewitt is correct about Bolton not being as aggressive as his talk has implied over the years. But Hewitt is a long term apologist for the conservatives, so I’m not holding out a lot of hope here.
