We all know how a right-winger’s book becomes a bestseller – it’s just another form of wingnut welfare. Bolton clearly won’t get a handout this time, so he’s gonna need to raise the cash to buy his T-bones and flat screens the old-fashioned way, by shilling his book. Unfortunately for him, since our democracy hangs in the balance, I don’t think this act will work:
When asked if Trump’s infamous phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky was as “perfect” as Trump insists, Bolton merely responded, “You’ll love chapter 14.”
He gave a similar answer when the moderator asked him how he dealt with Trump’s bonkers press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2018, during which Trump refused to condemn Russia’s election interference and instead attacked the U.S.’ own intelligence community.
“I could read a chapter from my book here and give you the answer to that question,” Bolton teased. […]
Bolton complained about Trump’s attacks on Monday night.
“He tweets, but I can’t talk about it,” he grumbled. “How fair is that?”
Go away and take your mustache of sadness and betrayal with you, you cowardly grifter.
MattF
Bolton should have done this before the Senate voted. Given the speed at which events are forgotten, the only reaction he’ll get is ‘Who is this Bolton fella, anyhow?’
Baud
@MattF: Where’s the profit in that?
Fair Economist
Bolton has missed the shift in nonfiction writing away from books. People don’t buy nonfiction books for the info anymore because they can get it faster and cheaper on the internet. Even if Bolton manages to suppress information until the release, people will still learn what they want to from reviews, commentary, and summaries.
People buy nonfiction books now as part of the “identity economy” – to show what they agree with and to support writers on “their side”. Had Bolton testified before Congress he’d have had a bestseller by these mechanisms. As it is he’ll just get summarized.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I overestimated his vindictiveness
Shalimar
If Bolton had actually testified before either the House or Senate, his book might have a chance of getting printed since the damaging information would already be out there. Can’t shill what isn’t available.
OzarkHillbilly
As I said elsewhere: “Pobrecito….”
He had a chance to talk, he chose not to.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I have to admit it took me a minute to get the Ramsay Bolton reference.
joel hanes
If he wanted to save the nation, he could still talk, and brave prosecution.
Mike in DC
The publication date will come and go without the book being published. Bolton will realize that they’re not going to let it be released, and then he will have a much belated epiphany and accept a subpoena for testimony.
laura
They’ll probably sell like hotcakes at CPAC – not. Who did he think the target market is for this book like product?
OzarkHillbilly
@Dorothy A. Winsor: It took me till comment #7 to get it.
oldster
What a despicable coward, and traitor to his country. If you have information that can save the republic, and you withhold it in order to earn more money, then you have sold America for cash.
He is doing an excellent job of showing his true stripes, and his true values. Here’s what he cares about, in order:
……..
n-1. the rule of law
n. the fate of America.
I always hated Bolton back when he was starting wars as part of the Bush war-crimes syndicate. Now he is even more detestable.
jonas
What does he mean, he can’t talk about it? He can say whatever the fuck he wants whenever he wants! Is there some NDA in his book contract that states he can’t discuss the contents of his own book?
Kraux Pas
America can be sold for cash, can’t it?
Barbara
Bolton obviously still hasn’t figured it out. My hypothesis is that Bolton is one of a number of people who thought that he could just slot their agenda right in the vacuum that is Trump’s knowledge of policy about anything, but instead got waylaid by the fact that while his brain might be an empty space where policy is concerned it is filled to the brim with concerns about his own self-interest. Where Bolton’s book threatens Trump’s self-interest, Trump will exert a high level of energy to squash him like a bug. Bolton’s only “chance” to get things in the open was to do so for free, under color of congressional authority. You are a stupid man John Bolton. Now the whole world can see that you are not just greedy, but someone who puts greed before the interests of his country. The Trump talent for exposing the shit beneath the shine of anyone who pledged allegiance to his misbegotten administration is the one thing Trump truly bests anyone else at.
Joe Falco
@Kraux Pas:
Only if you’re French.
Kraux Pas
@Joe Falco: Well, don’t tell Bloomberg. Let’s take him for all he’s worth before we don’t sell him the country.
oldster
@Kraux Pas:
In a sense, yes — though that tells us nothing about its actual value.
Even priceless things can be sold for cash — a grove of sequoias, a pod of blue whales. Your spouse and your children can be sold for cash. It does not mean that they are not infinitely valuable in themselves, it just tells us that some shitheads are so soulless and corrupt that they will destroy them if they can squeeze a little money from doing so.
I personally think that America is incredibly valuable — for all of its warts and flaws. The fact that it is currently being held hostage by a group of Russian mafiosi and their pawns is a tragedy, but not a reflection on the worth of America.
kindness
Bolton is unworthy. He’ll never be on the side of the Republic. He turned his back on her when she needed him. Instead he was counting his lucre.
I’m gonna need at least a 6 pack of beer to pay my proper respects to his burial site.
OzarkHillbilly
@oldster:
That would mean they have a price. Jus sayin’…
OzarkHillbilly
@kindness: A box of used cat litter will be enough for me.
Exregis
Bolton is superficially brainy but fundamentally stupid (because greedy). Democrats won’t buy his book because he’s a traitor to our country by refusing to testify before the House both before and after the impeachment trial. Republicans won’t buy his book because he’s a traitor to Donald Trump.
It’s not that often we see this kind of bipartisanship.
taumaturgo
A squabble among the right-wing elite which seems scintillating and for some in the MSM of primary importance. This is just another clear example of how we are kept “informed” while the show is on prime time and in the meanwhile the leaders of both parties go on in tandem supporting legislation that at best nibbles around the edges of rampant corruption, growing wealth inequalities, low paying jobs without benefits, unaffordable health care and medications, and coming to kneecap your Medicare and SS, but, here we are discussing the last chapter of “As the liars lied.” The elites do what they can and the working class suffers what they must.
oldster
Also, some of us old guys have been rocking bushy grey Wilford Brimley mustaches for decades now, and I hate it when people say mine looks like Bolton’s.
I’m not saying it’s a *good* look — the option of having a good look is many decades in my rear-view mirror. But it’s my look, and wish it were not Bolton’s look.
As if I needed another reason to hate that clown.
oldster
@OzarkHillbilly:
There’s nothing contradictory about saying:
Just because they jackass could not place any higher value on it than 10 bucks, it does not follow that that was its real value.
Remember your spouses and children, folks — they are pricelessly valuable if anything is. And yet there are jackasses in the world who will sell them or kill them for $10 if they can. No contradiction there at all.
OzarkHillbilly
@taumaturgo:
What’s that you say about the “leaders of both parties go on in tandem”?
Try again and this time don’t be such an obvious idiot.
Omnes Omnibus
@taumaturgo: If I can’t mock Bolton’s mustache, I don’t want to be part of your revolution.
OzarkHillbilly
@oldster: Once a price is put on something, it is no longer priceless. Or is that too hard?
cope
Ok, I’ve read through comment #24 and still am missing the Ramsay reference. Gordon Ramsay, volcanic TV guy? John Ramsay, British structural geologist and pal of my grad school advisor? That is pretty much all the Ramsays I know off the top of my head sans any research.
WaterGirl
@Exregis: More like dual partisanship? Or duel partisanship?
JPL
Bolton had a chance to right a few of his many wrongs. Fiona Hill had the courage, but he didn’t . I could continue to list all those that did testify, but you get the point. His book will consist of my time of service before trump. Afterwards I was to much of a coward to publicly testify.
Mike in DC
I assume that he keeps his advance even if the book is never released.
GregB
The Trump era is nothing but the end stages of the triumph of capitalism over humanity.
senyordave
Bolton is a true patriot, but for a price. Kind of like a patriot whore*
* Apologies to whores for lumping them in with John Bolton.
JPL
@cope: I googled Ramsay Bolton and so can you.
cmorenc
@MattF:
So…do you really think Bolton’s testimony would have changed more than zero to two R Senators’ votes on impeachment, since the already overwhelming evidence without his testimony failed to move any of them to move off craven fear of Trump’s impervious base being turned against them? Of course, this fact is no excuse for Bolton failing to voluntarily come forward with damning information that he instead hoarded to generate interest and potential sales of his book
Bolton’s testimony *might* have maybe moved Lisa Murkowski to join Mitt. Susan Collins *might* have furrowed her brow into a very deep forehead wrinkle, and Cory Gardener to have “grave concerns”…about the certainty of the R base in Colorado abandoning him if he voted to convict. Every other R Senator was like “Nya Nya, nya, we can’t hear you” in the face of overwhelming evidence of Trump’s traitorous treachery.
Ruckus
@kindness:
I’m thinking that battery acid would be a better message carrier, and more appropriate as well, it is of course not recommended as an internal wetting agent. Beer? I’d have to start drinking again. Hmmmmm……
Omnes Omnibus
@OzarkHillbilly: It depends on your meaning of literally.
Ruckus
@MattF:
I don’t think people will forget Bolton. Republicans will either forget that he ever existed or they will remember that he went against their savior. Democrats will remember his GWB years and the damage he did, and the fact that he tried to sell his bullshit instead of being a reasonable citizen. Of course he was never going to be a reasonable citizen, it’s not his nature, nor in his financial interest. He is a warmonger, for no reason other than pure hate. You don’t forgive or forget people who show you exactly who and what they are when that is a person like he is.
Jamie
Seriously, fuck that guy.
...now I try to be amused
@Barbara:
I suppose it’s one way Trump maintains his self-image as a success despite all his failures. As much as he loves to win, he also loves to see other people lose, and everybody who makes a deal with Trump loses even when Trump loses too.
Has anyone actually won against Trump? I mean, in a public way that Trump cannot deny.
oldster
@OzarkHillbilly:
Not too hard, just false.
You seem to think that “priceless” means “doesn’t have a price” or “could not be assigned a price.” But that’s not what it normally means in English. It means “could not be assigned a finite price that accurately reflects its value.”
If I offer to destroy the Mona Lisa for $10, that does not mean that the price of the Mona Lisa is $10. It means that I do not understand its true price (much less its value). I can *assign* it all sorts of prices — I can offer to buy it for $20 or a cold Budweiser. But those do not then become its true price.
Maybe you think that nothing is priceless, because somebody could slap a price-tag on anything. But that’s just a mistake about what “priceless” means in English. We can agree that someone can slap a price-tag on anything (e.g. your spouse or kids). But only some of those stickers will indicate the thing’s value. The stickers that are slapped onto priceless things will not accurately reflect their value — that’s why in English we say that they are “priceless.” And that’s why priceless things do not stop being priceless when someone puts a price-tag on them.
Honestly, you can look up the word if you have any doubts about how it works. I’m not saying that you cannot use it in a non-standard way if you feel like it — a lot of good jokes come from abusing English — but the normal, standard meaning is not “lacking a price.”
randy khan
I don’t feel any sympathy for Bolton, but I do recognize that right now it’s almost certainly literally true that he can’t talk about the actual substance of the book. Until he knows what the review people think is classified, he risks prosecution – and you know these folks would prosecute – if he reveals anything.
As others have noted, the solution to that likely would have been to testify before the book was sent for review, which is why we shouldn’t feel any sympathy for him (and, of course, because he’s warmongering neocon).
Citizen Alan
@JPL: So we’re to the point where Internet research is necessary to decrypt the headlines?
Kraux Pas
@Citizen Alan: Isn’t this place advertised as an almost-top 10,000 lefty politics, pets, and Game of Thrones blog?
The Moar You Know
Bots are really starting to hit BJ hard these days. Really hard not to notice. I wonder if those assigning them have any idea that just about everyone here knows whether a poster is a bot or no?
The Moar You Know
@randy khan: That is in fact true. Because…
They’ve said “all of it”. Seriously. So he can’t talk about anything.
Now, they’ve (again) abused the shit out of the classification laws, but this nation’s been doing that since they were written. Just not usually this overtly. Those laws need to be redone and rewritten top to bottom – but won’t be.
Miss Bianca
@Barbara:
Well put, alas.
Bill Arnold
Bolton did not testify under oath. His book will be dismissed as lies, or at best of uncertain truth value.
If he testified under oath to one on the House committees, he and his book would be a lot more credible.
This is a cold hard reality; I hope he sees that.
jl
@Bill Arnold: I can’t think of a way forward for Bolton unless he signals willingness to testify for House investigation. I can’t believe he didn’t foresee WH trying to quash his book, or low probability that Senate would have a real trial and call witnesses.
But AFAIK, Bolton still says he’ll fight appearing for House.
cope
@JPL: I understand that, thanks. I just thought that…never mind…