I resoundingly agree with this. After catching that interview (Zbigniew was an excellent guest - so well-spoken), I quickly sent my husband a link so he could watch it, too, and I have since looked for the book in a local bookstore, and I rarely read current non-fiction. I am dangerously close to worshipping Jon Stewart.
Jon Stewart vs. Ann Coulter? Hmmmmmmmmm…the old “battle of wits with an unarmed opponent” saying comes to mind.
“So, Ann, you are, apparently, how to put this? Batshit crazy?”
not to mention that Bolton was dead wrong re Lincoln and his appointments. Lincoln appointed men who actively had campaigned against him and who disapproved of his policies and (AFAIR) his personality–and yet it worked.
I also found it interesting that Bolton stressed (he must have said it 2-3 times) democratic theory. I kept waiting for Stewart to essentially say, theory is fine, but we have (or had) a democratic process, not just a theory.
I held my breath through most of the interview, and all I can say is that my respect for Stewart keeps going up–he is gracious, civil, but unyielding to his opponents. We need more people like him to have some REAL discussion on politics today.
Jon vs Anne? Why should he waste his time? Let Colbert play cat and mouse with her–that’s a feeding frenzy I’d watch…
Yeah, he kept saying that and I kept wondering what he was on about. Bolton seemed to say that once you’re elected it would be undemocratic if you can’t fire everyone who disagrees with you and those who do agree with you, should be immune from congressional questioning, at least on record, so they can feel free to “speak their mind” to the president.
Jon seemed to try to point out well sure, but there are parts of the government “bureaucracy” which are supposed to be able to remain neutral and/or accountable or something. Then Bolton would say that’s contrary to democratic theory, or some such.
It was hard to follow what Bolton exactly meant but it seemed like he was throwing democratic theory around like “unamerican,” and we’d tune out. Well I didn’t tune out but he did succeed in distracting me.
I couldn’t follow him either. It seemed like he was saying that the President should surround himself with people who think like he does, so that his policies can be enacted without any hitches.
But that didn’t jibe with Bolton’s response when Stewart talked about Bolton being appointed UN Ambassador. “That’s like Ahab being in charge of Save the Whales.”
So the President should have unquestioning support, but the bureaucracy – the people who enact the policies – should be staffed by people who don’t believe in the bureaucracy.
Tonight he called up Lincoln Historian, {Pulitzer Prize Winning, Baseball expert & Presidential Historian} Doris Kearns Goodwin to refute what Bolton said. Bolton is a scary and ignorant man.
I thought that Stewart hesitated as if he were going to say something like - are you sure you want to say that? Because it was so obviously and totally incorrect that it was sure to be the one line everybody would excerpt for the sound bite the next day.
Or he could have said - which one of us wrote an American history textbook, hmmm?
I thought the oddest bit was when Bolton made his remark about the need for accountability and Jon actually laughed in his face. That does sum up the two sides for the last six years in a nutshell.
I meant that I knew Stewart was not going to let that Lincoln quote go.
And (for me) the beauty of this? Is that I learned about Lincoln’s appointments from the TDS’ interview of Goodwin!
Subsequently, I had to look up something about Lincoln for a library school assignment, so the info got reinforced (and therefore stayed in my brain pan), but I learned of it all from Stewart’s interview with Goodwin.
I was not so thrilled about the Hansen story. I had heard him interviewed on NPR a few months ago and there is something about that show that disturbs me (I mean something besides the fact that there seem to be so many would-be sexual molesters out there).
Stewart schooled Bolton remarkably well. It was truly a thing of beauty, and by contextualizing it as “Bolton kept telling Jon he was wrong”, it threw doubt onto everything he might’ve asserted that night. It’s pretty easy for Bush’s defenders to glibly say “Nuh-uh” and “Not True” and few people really hold their feet to the fire. Bolton being so wrong about Lincoln simply seemed to suggest that when they don’t know their facts, they’ll make up their own because who’s really going to remember and call them on it anyway? TDS does, and it was terrific to watch.
I haven’t read Goodwin’s books, but I have read the extensive reviews of it in the Times and New Yorker, so I knew Bolton was full of crap. It was great that Stewart didn’t let it rest. How many people on “real news” shows care this much about the truth?
I’m sure he felt that as a comedian refuting Bolton would have been a me against him thing. What I was surprised took a day for him to say was the refutation of the curious contention that a president serves only the people who voted for him. It does amply illustrate the current Administration’s philosophy, doesn’t it.
In fact, I came away with the opposite impression. (At least, the opposite impression of the position Bolton was trying to defend. This could well be different than the position, or lack thereof, Bolton actually holds to in practice.)
It looked to me as though the idea is this. The constitution gives us a system of checks and balances. What this means is that no individual branch needs to worry about checking or balancing itself. Those in control of the Executive branch should do absolutely everything they can get away with, within the bounds of legality, to enforce their own political doctrine and further their own political interest. The system of “checks and balances” will prevent this from ending up badly.
On such a view, the system of checks and balances is held to be very important indeed.
This statement by John Bolton really stood out for me; I expected Jon Stewart to immediately say that the president serves all the people, not just those who voted for him.
I had trouble parsing what Bolton’s philosophy was, because he was speaking in slogans and slogans are designed to stop thought rather than promote it. I couldn’t tell whether he actually believed those slogans were true - frightening, if so - or if he is just so well-trained that he can spout them without needing to think about the question - frightening, if so.
Dewey Finn’s point is right on target. Congress represents individual constituencies but the President is President for all Americans. That fundamentally changes the way the office is viewed and the actions that can legitimately be taken.
True, but Ahab wouldn’t be working for the whales, just in support of them. I don’t think it is too much to ask an ambassador to the UN to be aligned with the general principles of the UN - and especially the US ambassador.
That point is very important, even in landslides. But I was surprised that Bolton would argue it when the President just barely squeezes through on the slimmest of margins.
