Let's get one thing straight: no one should shed a tear over the departure of John Bolton. The man was the epitome of a neocon. He never met a war he didn't like and he never saw a tense situation around the globe that he couldn't escalate into one. Good riddance, I say.
But here's the thing that's most troubling. It's not that Trump will now have his fourth National Security Adviser in less than three years, or that his administration has a higher turnover rate than Walmart. It's that Trump still doesn't know how to vet a member of his own cabinet. Seriously, you run for president promising to get out of stupid and costly wars and you hire somebody who thinks it's a bad day at the office if the United States isn't bombing half the planet. I mean, what part of Bolton's resume didn't Trump read? Oh, wait, I'm sorry. Never mind.
Look, I was a manager once. And I can tell you that the duty of every manager, apart from issuing instructions to subordinates, is to evaluate the qualifications of various applicants who are looking for employment. It's a laborious process that requires diligence and patience. You can't simply rely on gut instinct; in fact, I can tell you from personal experience that whenever I did that, I invariably ended up making a mistake.
To Trump, words like laborious, diligence and patience are about as far away from him as the moon is from the Earth. The man vets his cabinet officials the way people throw darts at a dart board. Indeed, the dart thrower at least aims at a target. With Trump, it's more like hitting a piñata blindfolded.
The adults, if you can call them that, are all gone from this administration. Since the departure of James Mattis as Defense Secretary last December, there isn't one person in Trump's cabinet who can stand up to him or keep him from acting on his worst instincts. Case in point, acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney instructed Wilbur Ross, the Commerce Secretary, to pressure NOAA to refute a press release from the Weather Service in Alabama which contradicted Trump's claim that the state was in the path of Hurricane Dorian, even going so far as to threaten people with termination if they didn't go along.
Let me repeat that: two members of Trump's cabinet, at his behest, intimidated the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration into challenging a legitimate weather report because his ego was bruised. Somewhere in hell, Nixon is saying to himself, "I had to resign and all I did was cover up a break in?"
The litany of transgressions that this president has committed is beyond alarming. Just last week, Mike Pence, while on a trip to Ireland, rather than stay in Dublin where he was speaking, trekked clear across the country to stay at one of Trump's golf resorts. A week before that, Attorney General William Barr booked a $30,000 Christmas party at Trump's Washington D.C. hotel. And now the Air Force is getting in the act, with several of its members staying at his Turnberry resort in Scotland. It's like he's not even trying to hide the corruption. The only thing missing is the "Impeach Me" sign on the back of his jacket.
And that begs the question, at what point will House Democrats grant him his wish? When will enough be enough? What more do they need to proceed with a formal impeachment inquiry? What are they looking for, an engraved invitation? Knowing Trump, he probably has one ready to go that reads something like this:
"Dear dickless and spineless Dems. I know you don't have the guts to impeach me because you're too afraid of what it could do to your chances of taking back the White House in 2020. So I'm going to keep doing what I've been doing. Besides, even if you do impeach me, McConnell will never let it come to a vote in the Senate. And that's because Republicans are even more afraid of me than you are. Face it: I've got the both of you right where I want you. Bite Me!"Don't laugh, I'll bet my house - and yours too - that Trump has probably said something very similar to his closest aids. Think about it: what he wouldn't dare do in his private life, he's more than willing to attempt in his public one. And with Barr as his wing man, he might just get away with it.
The House Judiciary Committee just announced it has approved a resolution "defining the rules of an impeachment investigation." Someone alert the press! Chairman Jerry Nadler vowed there would be an "aggressive series of hearings." So in other words, the investigations that Democrats have been conducting for the last eight months haven't been aggressive? To paraphrase every boss I've ever worked for, "What have you been doing all this time?"
The way Democrats are proceeding, Trump could take a piss on them and they'd say, "It must be raining in here." Jesus, I've never met a bunch of people so incredibly inept in all my life. Does anyone know how to read a calendar? It's September. In five months, the Iowa caucuses take place, followed very closely by the New Hampshire primary. What should've taken place four months ago, now threatens to take over and dominate the entire campaign. Instead of talking about the issues that matter most to voters, thanks to the shit-for-brains who comprise the leadership in this party, the candidates will face a non-stop barrage of questions from reporters on an inquiry they are powerless to affect. The RNC must be rolling in the aisles.
If these imbeciles had been in charge of the FBI during the reign of Capone, he could've run for president and won. Come to think of it, with Trump in the White House, he sorta did, didn't he?
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