Being the Story of the Worst Person in the World and the Time He Spent Working for Donald Trump

The below post is a review of "The Room Where it Happened" by former National Security Advisor John Bolton.

I struggled with how to rate this book. It contains important historical information. The writing style is vintage prep school/Ivy league. It is unadorned with digressions or excessive color. No infinitives are split and ending a sentence with a proposition is a a proposition up with which he will not put. 

But he's also a raging asshole. The books contains no grace notes. He rarely credits anyone with any good ideas or for being helpful to him in carrying out his duties. There is not a whiff of humanity on display here. If you think I'm exaggerating consider that he at one point complains that former Chief of Staff John Kelly spent too much time visiting the grave of his son at Arlington National Cemetery. 

The details of daily life in Trump world are about what you expect. The President is a deeply unserious person, filled with personal rage and unable of paying attention to any subject more complex than a personal insult or longer than a matchbook. Whenever the subject of Iran comes up, he goes on a tirade about wanting to prosecute John Kerry for talking to the Iranians. Whenever the subject of Afghanistan comes up, he rails about how corrupt the president of Afghanistan is. Small problem there-the stories he tells are about Hamid Karzai who was has not been president of Afghanistan since 2014. 

But we already know what an ignorant buffoon the author's former boss is. What he can't help revealing is what a malevolent, remorseless prick he himself is. At one point he describes the night that Donald Trump reversed a decision to strike targets in Iran because the lawyers told him it could cause as many as 150 human deaths. (The mission was to avenge the loss of an unmanned drone over the Persian Gulf.) Bolton counters that the more accurate number was probably closer to 100 because one of the 3 proposed targets would probably not be located in time. He describes Trump's decision to back down thusly, "In my government experience, this was the most irrational thing I ever witnessed any President do."

There is one slightly juvenile joy in this book. Bolton delights in shitting on the other members of Trump's inner circle. His criticisms of Nikki Haley wreak of sexism, but then again maybe she is a shallow egotist obsessed with her own political future. His treatment of Kelly and Jim Mattis are down right insulting. He is slightly ambivalent about Pompeo but ultimately throws him under the bus too. The only public figure that avoids Bolton's insults is Mike Pence. Some of that is probably genuine. Pence appears to at least be an adult and to have had some modest success in counseling against Trump's very worst instincts. But I suspect he real reason for this is much more base. John Bolton probably figures Pence is likely to be the Republican nominee next time around. And like any shallow egoist, he is a little too mindful of his own political future. 

The Epilogue is 12 page whine about why he was right not to testify in Trump's impeachment. His reasons for this decision are too stupid to detail but the short version is this-he didn't want to weaken the Executive branch. Because deep down, John Bolton is an authoritarian. He just was not happy about how reluctant the current authoritarian was to use military force.

For four years, I have tried to think of circumstances in which I might vote for Donald Trump. That has not been an easy answer. But I now have one that is easy to spot-I would vote for Donald Trump if the other candidate was John Bolton.