{"id":33147,"date":"2018-04-05T13:09:02","date_gmt":"2018-04-05T18:09:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=33147"},"modified":"2018-04-05T13:09:02","modified_gmt":"2018-04-05T18:09:02","slug":"coming-attraction-lunatic-loose-in-west-wing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=33147","title":{"rendered":"Coming Attraction: Lunatic Loose in West Wing"},"content":{"rendered":"<header>\n<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/2018\/04\/05\/coming-attraction-lunatic-loose-in-west-wing\/\">Coming Attraction: Lunatic Loose in West Wing<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<p>As Uber-Hawk John Bolton prepares to take over as national security adviser on Monday, Ray McGovern looks back at when Bolton was one of the \u201ccrazies\u201d in the George W. Bush administration.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>John Bolton\u2019s March 22 appointment-by-tweet as President Donald Trump\u2019s national security adviser has given \u201cMarch Madness\u201d a new and ominous meaning.\u00a0 There is less than a week left to batten down the hatches before Bolton makes U.S. foreign policy worse that it already is.<\/p>\n<p>During a recent<a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2018\/03\/28\/intercepted-podcast-donald-trumps-stache-infection\/\"> interview<\/a> with <em>The Intercept<\/em>\u2019s Jeremy Scahill <b>\u00a0<\/b>(minutes 35 to 51)\u00a0I mentioned that Bolton fits seamlessly into a group of take-no-prisoners zealots once widely known in Washington circles as \u201cthe crazies,\u201d and now more commonly referred to as \u201cneocons.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Beginning in the 1970s, \u201cthe crazies\u201d sobriquet was applied to Cold Warriors hell bent on bashing Russians, Chinese, Arabs \u2014 anyone who challenged U.S. \u201cexceptionalism\u201d (read hegemony).\u00a0 More to the point, I told Scahill that President (and former CIA Director) George H. W. Bush was among those using the term freely, since it seemed so apt.\u00a0 I have been challenged to prove it.<\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t make stuff up.\u00a0 And with the appointment of the certifiable Bolton, the \u201cthe crazies\u201d have become far more than an historical footnote.\u00a0 Rather, the crucible that Bush-41 and other reasonably moderate policymakers endured at their hands give the experience major relevance today.\u00a0 Thus, I am persuaded it would be best not to ask people simply to take my word for it when I refer to \u201cthe crazies,\u201d their significance, and the differing attitudes the two Bushes had toward them.<\/p>\n<p>George H. W. Bush and I had a longstanding professional and, later, cordial relationship.\u00a0 For many years after he stopped being president, we stayed in touch \u2014 mostly by letter.\u00a0 This is the first time I have chosen to share any of our personal correspondence.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Coming Attraction: Lunatic Loose in West Wing As Uber-Hawk John Bolton prepares to take over as national security adviser on Monday, Ray McGovern looks back at when Bolton was one of the \u201ccrazies\u201d in the George W. Bush administration. John Bolton\u2019s March 22 appointment-by-tweet as President Donald Trump\u2019s national security adviser has given \u201cMarch Madness\u201d [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[4102,130,135,6963,19695,3250,9909,4487,561,7000,694,13938,1174,862,865,19694],"class_list":["post-33147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-central-intelligence-agency","tag-china","tag-cia","tag-consortium-news","tag-crazies","tag-george-w-bush","tag-jeremy-scahill","tag-john-bolton","tag-neocons","tag-ray-mcgovern","tag-russia","tag-us-exceptionalism","tag-us-foreign-policy","tag-war","tag-washington","tag-west-wing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33147"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33148,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33147\/revisions\/33148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}