3.21.2007

The Scottish Terrier from Hell

Every now and then, The Daily Show has a guest on who's actually affiliated with the Bush administration. I tend to enjoy the sparring, and I like when Jon Stewart has someone on whose opinions differ from his own (and most of the audience's), just for the sake of variety. And, sometimes, they don't even seem like complete assholes, just people who tried to do their job amidst ridiculous circumstances. Scott McClellan comes to mind...sure, he's a weasel, but overall, he came across as not so bad a guy.

Such is not the case with John Bolton. This guy really is an asshole, every bit as bad as I could've imagined. Watching the interview, where Bolton opined that anyone who disagrees with Bush's policy of installating cronies and yes-men who share his every ideological thought into every federal position possible, is "against the democratic process, since he (Bush) was elected by the people". He really seems like a guy who'd do anything...anything...the administration asked of him, no matter how vile. Kinda like Wilford Brimley's character in THE FIRM, only not as fat. But just as ugly. And not just on the outside.

EDITED to add a quick sketch I did of the hell-hound himself.

2 comments:

Richard said...

Watching this appearance made me wonder how this guy ever got such a reputation for being fearsome, intimidating his subordinates and insulting his colleagues, when he comes across as such a poor speaker with no discernible presence and nonexistent grasp of rhetoric. The surprise wasn't that he was obnoxious but that he came across as such an ordinary nobody. His responses to Stewart were mainly variations on "Nuh-uh, you're wrong" -- this is the terrifying Bolton?

His concept of democracy seems to be nothing more than "the people have chosen their absolute monarch, so anyone who tries to enforce rules against his whims is interfering with democracy itself" -- leaving aside that the whole point of our system of government is to prevent even the majority from placing themselves under an absolute monarch.

Robert Ullman said...

Thanks for the comment, RAB, and you're right...Bolton himself? Not really all that scary. Pretty meek, almost seemed kind of timid, all hunched over and so forth. His attitudes, though...really scary. I can't believe these guys think what they think!