John Bolton (1)Critiques

Insightful, detailed, explicit and title believable. We have a President who is truly clueless, narcissistic, spiteful and cares only about himself. Me Boltono notes on the infamous Ukraine call that got Trump impeached is jaw dropping. He did ask for a favor in asking to have the Ukrainian president get dirt on Biden and Clinton in exchange for military aid.

A good insight into the operations within the USA government and particularly the Trump administration. A comparison of the sophisticated and insightful minds working within government and the purile minds of some politicians, especially Donald Trump.

I still despise Donald J. Trump for his willing ignorance, racism, cronyism, and keeping the poor and sick poorer and sicker.

Now that that's out of the way.

Narrator Robert Petkoff did a superb job pronouncing foreign names and terms. "The Room Where It Happened" was not easy to narrate.

Am I glad I read "The Room Where It Happened?"

No, and yes.

No. John Bolton rushed to get this out. It's choppy. I think he typed his notes and made a book. I know he could have written a much better accounting. His knowledge of politics in the nation and world, love of history and literature show through "The Room Where It Happened."

Yes.

I learned that John Bolton is intelligent and has his eyes open. He is not bound to a political agenda.

I learned about Steve Mnuchin in "The Room Where It Happened." Ridiculed by both media and by Trump, he turns out to be a neutral character, trying to keep the economy running. His errors come when he veers out of the realm of finance. In the end, if you want to praise someone for the good economy or the first round of stimulus checks during the pandemic, thank Steve Mnuchin.

Although I disagree with John Bolton's politics, I respect him. I didn't before reading his book.

Given all the publicity prior to the release of the book, I was curious about Bolton's story. Since there has been no real pushback from Trump or his administration, I assume that most of what is in the book is true. It's a very damning portrait of an incompetent president, mediocre cabinet officials and a lapdog administration. It's a very scary book because no one exhibits any confidence in this president's competency or credibility. General Kelly, Trump's ex chief of staff, shortly before he resigned, questioned how well Trump would perform or respond if there was another 9/11 situation.

I don't like John Bolton. I think he did a disservice to the country by revealing what he knew and thought of Trump in a book that he will profit from instead of testifying in Congress.

I have read a number of books about the Trump presidency and about Trump himself. I don't know if I have read anything that would give me any confidence that this man could handle a real crisis. I look at his response to coronavirus and realize his only concern is for himself and not for America.

It's a long book. Many parts of it are tedious recounts of discussions in meetings regarding North Korea, China, Syria, Venezuela and other hotspots.

I think you get the general gist of the book by watching Bolton on the news shows so unless you are a real political junkie, you may want to pass on this book.

This book should be titled, "I'm Throwing Away My Shot."

The whole world wanted to know what Bolton had to say during the Impeachment hearing, but instead, he chose to wait and publish this collection of notes far after the fact.

While reading it, I thought, "Wow. I can't believe this jackass was able to publish this while the President is still in office." He, of course, goes on to explain why he is able to publish this book in the last part of the book by including his review of a book by Robert Gates. Because he is nowhere near concise. About anything. And that is the summary of my review.

I read the entire book, but I can't tell you much of what happened in the room except that he is a warmongering clown, the President is a big baby clown, and this entire administration is a car full of dangerous clowns.

And here we are in a constitutional crisis, with over 130,000 Americans dead, an economy in shambles and our foreign policy and place in the world diminished.

Thanks a lot, Bolton. Thanks for leaving your notes for future historians.

Not recommended. Extremely self-serving, he was always right and everyone else was wrong. Does show the dysfunction of the Trump government. More times than not showed Trump with the attention span of a second-grade child. Conversations and briefings just go from one unrelated topic to another,

Somewhat of a biographical book about John Bolton, where you'll see Bolton's background as a lawyer as opposed to primarily being a diplomat. Lawyers are trained to argue FOR their clients, while diplomats might seek to find compromises through negotiations. Bolton is clearly of that first group. One gets the clear impression that during his time as U.N. Ambassador, he was an unapologetic advocate of U.S. positions as defined by President Bush, reinforced by his own conservative leanings, and not prone to seek compromise or conciliation. Bolton appears to be a firm believer that his world view is better than their world view, and discusses why in this book.

Bolton's book, "In the Room Where it Happened", has been one of the most talked about books prior to its release in June, 2020. In his book, Bolton not only describes his time in the Administration, but also makes a number of unflattering comments about the President.

So the question many will have is whether Bolton's claims are simply those of a disgruntled former employee, or if, as Bolton says, it's something he needed to write because he feels President Trump is a danger to the Country. If Bolton's claims are simply those of a disgruntled former employee, he joins a rather long list of ex-administration advisers and Cabinet members who have spoken out against the President's leadership and character. And the fact that so many former insiders, Republicans all, are making the same type of comments and similar claims against a sitting President is unheard of. Bolton's comments aren't groundbreaking, they're basically consistent with what others have already said about President Trump.

Of course, having seen the highest staff turnover rate in presidential history, Trump was bound to have a few disgruntled ex-aides. And while it's true that there are many administration officials who resigned or were fired and still remain loyal to President Trump, there's an increasing number of those who have become vocal in their disapproval of the President's actions. Bolton is just the latest. And while Bolton may have the motivation of making money from his book, most of the others once in Trump's innermost circle who have made similar criticisms are not authors pushing books, and have no financial incentives. Bolton, and others, have described the President as being impulsive, ill-informed, and someone who disregards advice, lacks adult sensibilities, and question his motivations and ability to lead.

For example, Former Defense Secretary James Mattis talked how Trumps Tweets create chaos in the Pentagon, and called Trump "the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people", and also described him as a threat to the Constitution.

Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told lawmakers in 2019 that Trump didn't adequately prepare for a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Germany, putting American officials at a disadvantage. Tillerson also called Trump "undisciplined", and noted that Trump would ask him to do things that were violations of the law. Further, Tillerson also questioned Trump's actions during the Ukraine investigation, saying that clearly asking for personal favors and using United States assets as collateral is wrong."

Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci initially continued to defend the President after being fired from his job at the White House. But more recently, he has blamed the President for saying things "... that divide the country in a way that is unacceptable. Eventually he turns on everyone and soon it will be you and then the entire country." As a result, Scaramucci joins a list of former supporters who no longer support Trump's reelection bid.

Former Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer, after the President's intervention in Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher's war crimes case, noted that the President has very little understanding of "... what it means to be in the military, to fight ethically or to be governed by a uniform set of rules and practices".

Gary Cohn, former National Economic Council director said last year that he was "concerned" there was no one left in Trump's staff to stand up to him and tell him what he didn't want to hear.

The anonymous author of a 2018 New York Times op-ed and a subsequent book titled "A Warning" claimed administration officials "are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of Trump's agenda and his worst inclinations," adding that "the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic." In the book, the anonymous senior administration official claimed that some in the President's inner circle worried he was in the pocket of Putin.

And of course, there are many others, including his niece, former employees, aides, journalists, who have made similar comments and accusations about the President's character. With that as background, Bolton's claims in his book "The Room Where It Happened" no longer seem outrageous or unbelievable. In some cases in his book, Bolton simply disagrees with the President's policies, such as how to deal with North Korea. That doesn't mean Bolton was right or wrong, it's simply a difference of opinion. But in other cases, Bolton documents very questionable behavior by the President.

Former White House chief of staff John Kelly has said he believes that Trump told Bolton U.S. security aid to Ukraine was conditioned on an investigation of the President's political rivals. With so many others, people who were close to the President saying the similar things, I think Bolton's claims stand on their own, and the book is worth reading for understanding the President, and for gaining insights as to how White House meetings are conducted, how WH decisions are made, and as to what goes on within the President's inner circle.

The Room is an epic horror show, oddly and well-written by a former trump Republican supporter.

Even more strange is that it does not appear to have deterred any of trump's other delusional members.

The book reads smoothly with impending disaster - like a novel with many long and boring interludes.

It is too bad that the author does not also renounce his own disastrous choices:
to bomb North Korea,
to end Obamacare,
to test even more murderous nuclear weapons....

Did not like.

Other than the amazement that the respected John Bolton would ever consider working for Trump, is the amazement Bolton lasted as long in his position of security advisor. Bolton did his best to advise Trump but it was a fool’s errand to try to attempt such with Trump who never read security briefings, didn’t have the patience to pay attention to any counsel other than his own opinion, and who had surrounded himself with cringe worthy yes men/women. Bolton knew he could never last long with such a volatile president so took voluminous contemporaneous notes of all events he attended in his security advisor role. This book is a data dump of all his notes, showing how incompetent the Trump presidency really was.

This is the most tedious book I've ever felt compelled to read. I probably would have skipped it if there hadn't been last-minute squabbles over prepublication security review, but in reality there was nothing particularly objectionable about the review (it was slightly slower than desired due to covid19, but made only the most minor of changes, all routine), and that basically summarizes the entire book: a tediously documented, probably entirely factual, and ultimately meaningless accounting of lots of decisions and discussions in the White House during Bolton's term as National Security Advisor.

My personal politics probably are fairly compatible with Bolton's -- while he's much more of a hawk/interventionist than I am, his analyses are generally reasonable -- you just need to apply a large correcting factor for the very high cost of most actions in blood and treasure, but he's at least reasonable at weighting different courses of action consistently.

Nothing in the book was particularly new -- that Trump makes decisions without a lot of deep discussion or debate, that his style is...jarring, and that he has been willing to do things which have been considered impossible or undesirable. Often, a lot of these actions have led to less-bad outcomes than the default or consensus action (particularly with respect to avoiding additional foreign wars), other times they're irrelevant, and sometimes bad (and then walked back or ignored by him, which seems to be a superpower most other politicians are unwilling to exercise themselves).

I really don't know of anyone who would enjoy the book. If you hate Trump, there's no real "dirt" on him in this book, and you presumably already hate Bolton. if you like Trump, Bolton isn't saying anything which will change your mind. It's probably a bit too narrowly scoped (and still unfinished) for someone interested in arms-length historical analysis of the geopolitics of the period. Maybe it's interesting to people who deeply care about the career of John Bolton, but given how he left, that career is pretty much over, so that is also a limited audience. Yet, large numbers of people will feel pressured to buy (and possibly read) this book, ultimately to disappointment.

John Bolton likes to bomb Iran and Cuba. That is my main Bolton conclusion from reading his book, The Room Where it Happened.

John Bolton was the US’ National Security Advisor (NSA) from mid 2018 to late 2019. The National Security Advisor is responsible for keeping the US president informed on national security issues and for executing the president’s orders. It means working closely with the president every day. In this case Donald Trump.

The book starts with the election of Donald Trump and how John Bolton did not become secretary of state, nor national security advisor. It then quickly moves on a year and a half and Trump decides, after watching Fox News, that John Bolton should be his third attempt at a manager for the National Security Council.

John Bolton was from the start critical of many other in the cabinet and around Trump, and in the book he calls them “democrats”, apparently his favourite insult. He does not explain how these “democrats” ended up in a republican government though. To me it seems like something he calls anyone that doesn’t want to bomb Iran.

Bolton is also a fan of removing bureaucracy. Whether that bureaucracy is doing anything useful or not does not matter as much as Bolten having a chance to remove people. This is where the experts on pandemics got fired or moved to the department for weapons of mass destruction. In the book, Bolton explains that it was an improvement, realizing that he has gotten some of the blame for the non-perfect response to the new coronavirus.

Once he had shrunk the national security council he started working on extracting the US from the deal the US had made with Iran to lift sanctions in exchange for Iran not developing nuclear weapons. In John Bolton’s view any deal with Iran is meaningless because they cannot be trusted so better to just sanction (and bomb) them.

As we now know, he managed to convince Trump that the deal was bad, which was very easy since Trump likes undoing anything his predecessor, Barack Obama, did. He only had to convince or override those in the government that thought the deal was better than the alternatives since those had, so far, prevented Trump from leaving.

Initially Bolton describes himself as the president’s right hand, strongly criticizing people that he thought undermined Trump’s authority by not presenting all options or by not executing the president’s suggestions. It did not take long for him to understand that he had been wrong and this might be only topic he admits being wrong on. When he joined the administration he thought that Trump was a rational person reacting rationally to input, but quickly gives up that notion. Instead he describes the president as a person who could change his mind on key national policy three times before lunch, depending on who he last talked to or who he last saw on Fox News.

In that environment, working on the execution of any order becomes futile since Trumps opinion will probably change before the day is over, or once someone has talked to Trump.

At the same time Trump could also have fix ideas which did not align well with reality. Not questions of policy but more questions about whether 2 2 is 4 or 5. One such idea is that the US pays for NATO, when NATO is just an umbrella where countries insert their own national forces. You can insert more or fewer forces, but nobody “pays for NATO” (except for the headquarter in Brussels for which the US pays about 20%, lowered to please Trump).

So when Trump threatens to stop paying for NATO, what does he mean? John Bolton did not understand. I don’t know if this is where he decided to make life simple for Trump by just giving him easy choices and by not executing clearly illegal or stupid orders.

Luckily for Trump, according to Bolton’s book, other authoritarian leaders understood Trump much better. Donald Trump is described as believing that if he, Trump, is friendly with an authoritarian leader, they would do what he asked of them. This is something Bolton doesn’t believe and Bolton is probably joined by about 98% of the world’s population in that belief.

This mix-up of person and country seems to be a common theme in anything Trump does. According to Bolton. Trump's first question whenever something is suggested is “how will it reflect on me?”. Bolton also describes a Trump that has big problems separating national security and trade deals, throwing in favors to China’s spy organisation as a card in trade deal negotiations.

All this combines to a situation where Bolton considers resigning through most of his 17 month tenure, but until the end, according to himself, stays onboard because he has so much to give to the country.

There are a number of bombshells in the book, of the kind that would become huge scandals for any other president, but for this one ends up being very predictable.

Bolton describes how Trump pleads with the Chinese leader Xi to help Trump in the 2020 election.

Bolton describes how Trump is willing to block the prosecution of the Turkish bank Halkbank in exchange for favors from Erdogan.

Bolton describes how Trump, purely based on fanciful rumors spread by Rudy Gulliani that Ukraine somehow manufactured Russia’s attacks on the 2016 election, refuses to pass on assistance Congress has ordered to be sent to Ukraine. And how the same rumors makes him fire an ambassador to Ukraine since that ambassador tries to reign Rudy in before he does too much damage.

Bolton describes how Trump tries to sell American military services at a premium, “cost 50%”, to allies (which includes some really unpleasant dictators). He seems to think of the US miltary as just another business asset.

Bolton describes how Trump wants to attack Venezuela militarily to get rid of president Maduro, which is kind of strange considering how little he is interested in using violence elsewhere.

Bolton describes how Trump uses his daughter, Ivanka, and her husband, Jared Kushner, as go-betweens with other governments, bypassing both the state department and the national security council, and quite often contradicting the US official position.

Mostly though, he strongly hints that Trump is just plain stupid, without using those words. Unable to grasp complex interactions, unable or unwilling to prepare for meetings and just in general ignorant (is Finland a country?). Bolton leaves it a bit open wether Trumps ignorance comes from stupidity or indifference but I think that is just to have a way to deny he’s calling Trump stupid.

One question many will ask is why Bolton did not help congress during the impeachment process and Bolton claims it’s because he wanted to have a court order to do so. Bolton also thinks we should blame the democrats for not producing that court order. (At the time, the democrats said that waiting for courts and appeals and courts and appeals and the supreme court would take too long and proceeded without it so we will never know how long it would have taken.)

He also attacks the House for making a too narrow impeachment. I guess he wanted Trump impeached for everything illegal he’s done or is doing, but the House decided to instead focus on just two main items.

Strangely, he has nothing negative at all to say about the 200 republicans in the House and 50 in the senate that elected to overlook the illegal things that Trump does and did. In general he keeps attacking democrats in general and Obama in particular for being democrats and Obama. Included in the word “democrat” is anyone that doesn’t align with his view of foreign policy. That becomes a bit tiresome.

Another thing in the book that become tiresome is John Bolton’s high regard of John Bolton, and John Bolton’s opinions. Rarely is John Bolton wrong or modify his stance because John Bolton is always right.

From an editorial perspective, the book is split up into themes. Iran, Venezuela, Syria, North Korea, and so on, and they all cover the same time frame, the 18 months John Bolton was NSA. I think it would have been much better to have the book ordered roughly chronological. I have a very hard time figuring out the ordering of events which makes it hard to see patterns in Trump’s attitude and behaviour.

There are many things that I miss in this book. One thing in particular is that the NSA (National Security Advisor) seems to have near zero contact with NSA (National Security Agency) or CIA or any other intelligence agency. I think this is because Bolton want the book to stay away from everything classified, but it leaves a glaring hole since interacting with the intelligence agencies should be one of his most important tasks. The closest he comes to closing that hole is in the afterword where he says he had to change some statement to “in my opinion X happened” to protect sources.

I am giving this book 4 stars, not because it’s a great book but because it’s a unique point of view into a unique situation in the US history. Unless you are interested in knowing more about what goes on in the White House under Trump, this book is not worth reading.

Meine Meinung
Der Autor ist kein Unbekannter auf der amerikanischen Politikbühne. Wenn man sich seinen Lebenslauf und all die Ämter anschaut, die er schon inne hatte, wird einem schwindelig. Dabei fällt eines auf, John Bolton ist Republikaner durch und durch! Er teilt zum Großteil dieselben konservativen Werte mit Donald Trump. Oftmals hat er sogar noch strengere und konservativere Vorstellungen / Einstellungen, insbesondere zu den Themen Krieg, Beziehungen zum Iran usw. Meiner Meinung nach ist er ebenso wenig ein besonders offener und menschenfreundlicher Zeitgenosse, wenn man ihn mit Trump vergleicht.

Wenn man sich mit der Person John Bolton und seinem Hintergrund etwas intensiver beschäftigt, kann man seine Aussagen und Intentionen im Buch besser einordnen und verstehen.

Wir erfahren, wie der Autor ins Team des damals neu gewählten amerikanischen Präsidenten gekommen ist. Der Weg war nicht unbedingt gradlinig, wie man der damaligen Berichterstattung entnehmen kann.

Bolton erzählt recht ausführlich wie Politik mit und unter Trump gemacht wird und es ist irgendwie genau so, wie man es sich gedacht hat hat: Von eine bestimmten Riege in seinem Umfeld fühlt er sich bevormundet, mit dem anderen Teil gibt es Besprechungen und Absprachen, die er wieder in Eigenregie teilweise nach Lust und Laune zunichte macht und seine Um-Entscheidung per Twitter für alle verteilt. Jeder neue Tag ist für die Regierungsmitglieder eine Art Überraschungsei. Wenn sie aufwachen, schauen sie Nachrichten und in Twitter, um zu sehen, ob Donald nicht etwas furchtbares fabriziert hat.

Nach all diesen Seiten wird deutlich, dass der Autor ebenso von sich überzeugt ist, wie wir es von Trump kennen. Bolton ist sehr von sich überzeugt, von seiner Intelligenz und seinem strategischen Können. Aus dieser Sicht war es deshalb sehr interessant als auch sehr beängstigend zu lesen, wie mit den heißen Themen Beziehungen zu China und Russland, Umgang mit dem Iran, der damalige Konflikt in Venezuela, Verhandlungen mit Nordkorea usw. umgegangen wurde und wer wie wann etwas zu sagen hatte.

Die Quintessenz dessen, die alle, die sich für Politik interessieren, schon geahnt haben, bekommen hier von John Bolton bestätigt: Donald Trump geht es nur um ihn selbst. Er versucht sich gut dastehen zu lassen, wie auch seine Familie. Bringt ein “Deal” ihn oder seine Familienmitglieder positiv ins Rampenlicht, war das Geschäft erfolgreich. Alles andere an Politik interessiert ihn nicht. Er hat kein echtes historischen Wissen und auch keine Ahnung von Geografie. Weltpolitische Abhängigkeiten begreift er ohne intensives Briefing kaum. Sein Verhandlungsgeschick ist begrenzt und man kann sogar dankbar sein, dass er manchmal so unenschlossen und sprunghaft handelt und entscheidet, denn das brachte es mit sich, dass unter Trump kaum Kriege geführt wurden. Wäre es nämlich nach Bolton gegangen, hätte es mindestens einen Krieg, nämlich mit dem Iran, gegeben, wie man seinen Worten im Buch entehmen kann.

Fazit
Ein Buch, von dem ich mir mehr versprochen hatte. Dennoch ist es nicht umsonst gewesen, sich durch all die Seiten zu lesen. Eine Qual war es nicht, keineswegs. Es war eher sehr beängstigend, wie ein absolut unfähiger Mann sich dennoch so lange auf dem Präsidentenstuhl halten konnte. Was noch schlimmer ist, alle wissen es, alle leiden mit und unter ihm und dennoch lassen sie es weiter zu, dass so jemand das einst bewundernswerte Land zerstört.½

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3429550.html

There have been a lot of White House memoirs in the last three and a half years. This is the only one I have read. I've been aware of John Bolton for a long time, as a particularly hardline (and reputedly unpleasant) activist on the Right of US foreign policy debates, who briefly served as UN ambassador under the junior Bush; and of course I've been in and out of the various Washington foreign policy institutions for years, but less so in the most recent period. This book, as if you didn't know, is Bolton's own account of his 17 months as National Security Adviser to President Trump.

I found it fascinating. I've seen a lot of reviews complaining that it is badly written. I disagree. I would say that Bolton takes no hostages - he assumes that the reader is already familiar with the ins and outs of US foreign policy, and with the detail of what Trump had done in his first two years in office (and what Obama did before him). Bolton barely even explains his own thinking on some of the crucial issues - he makes it clear that he hates the Iran deal and the Paris climate treaty, but only offers snippets of analysis in passing. So I felt some frustration about what is not there.

But what is there is fascinating. Bolton clearly kept good contemporaneous notes of all of his meetings and conversations, obviously with the intention of writing this book. (Trump even jokes with him about that at one point.) It's a dreadful picture of presidential disorganisation and ego, of decision systems which do not work because Trump himself refuses to be managed, of years of careful diplomacy up-ended by a single volatile outburst, and of opportunities lost. One does not have to sympathise with Bolton's political goals to sympathise with his frustration.

There are some very good set-piece accounts as well. The account of the NATO Brussels summit deserves to be made into a theatrical farce; very few details would need to be changed. The accounts of Trump's relations with North Korea are spine-chilling. The sections on Russia and China are very enlightening. The chapter on Venezuela is a record of a failure of US power projection, which Bolton attriubutes to mistakes largely made by Trump, but frankly from his own account it seems at least as important that the actors who the US supported on the ground were unable to deliver.

The chapter on Trump's last-minute decision in June 2019 to cancel a planned retaliation strike on Iran, with the title "Trump loses his way, and then his nerve", is particularly interesting because it actually shows a rather good side of Trump (which Bolton deeply disparages) - he doesn't actually like the idea of killing people, and the information that the US could be about to cause 150 Iranian deaths caused him to change his mind on authorising the strike. Bolton is of course right that the process of reaching the final decision was chaotic and wasteful of political capital, but I give Trump credit for his squeamishness. (Of course, this was motivated by the bad publicity that the casualites would generate, rather than any human sympathy for the potential victims, but we will take what we can get.)

Another specific point where (to my surprise) I found myself closer to Trump than to Bolton was the question of the planned Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany through the Baltic. It seems to me that this project dangerously increases Russian influence in the EU's energy market, and that there are many questions to be asked about it. Trump's hostility to it is more visceral, but comes from a similar suspicion of Russia (he is not as pro-Russian as some like to depict him, at least from Bolton's account). Bolton doesn't spell out his own position, but makes it clear that he disapproves of the extent to which Trump's attitude to Germany and to Angela Merkel is driven by this one issue.

I had hoped to see some discussion of a situation where I know Bolton's views are closer to mine than either of us is to the mainstream of EU and US foreign policy - the Western Sahara, where he worked with James Baker at the time when he came close to solving the comflict with Morocco. I had heard through the grapevine that he was exerting some pressure on Morocco at the time, but this may have been wishful thinking - there is no mention of it in the book, which suggests both that Bolton has moved on and that he did nothing about it when in the NSC, let alone bring it to Trump's attention.

Bolton ends by going into some detail on the impeachment process (which happened after he resigned in September 2019). Both left and right have attacked him for his behaviour here (he did not offer evidence to the House, but made himself available to the Senate, which did not avail itself of the offer). I found it difficult to get excited about the impeachment at the time - it was always clear that a supine Senate was going to acquit Trump, and truth be told the case was not as solid as it would have needed to be even in less partisan times. I also found it difficult to get excited by Bolton's account except to observe that his conscience clearly does trouble him, otherwise he would not have written at such length (and comparatively less lucidly than the rest of the book).

An interesting read, at least for those who are as wonkish as I am about international politics.

Trump's support base - like those in Bethel - are violent old men and women who can't cope with change. They grew old knowing that they could be boss without any effort other than getting fat and owning guns. They've taught their kids the same racist tropes that have given them a sense of superiority. Now it's all falling to pieces and they think they can do something about it. The USA is on the brink thanks to the Sons and Daughters of Trump - and we may have to fight our own battle against our own far-right idiots. Fascism just kinda creeps up on yer, doesn’t it? Johnny-come-lately reveals in his book, for which he received millions, how awful it was to work for his lying, self-serving, uninformed and ill-tempered boss, but when it really mattered refused to testify under oath before the House Committee on Impeachment. He hid behind his boss's order not to do so and then waited for an invitation that never came from the Senate during Trump's trial. How utterly suspect is this man who cheered the Bush/Cheney disastrous invasion of Iraq, trashed the United Nations even after he became its ambassador and urged Trump who he secretly distrusted to invade Iran. "Everyone knew" (Trump's favourite phrase) that Donald J. Trump was unfit for the office the Electoral College gave him, yet Bolton followed the lead of Tillerson the former Secretary of State, Mattis the former Secretary of Defense, Kelly his former Chief of Staff, Sessions the former Attorney General and numerous others, into the halls of power and ended up resigning or getting fired with their tails between their legs. Pompeo may be next. Adjacent to Trump's video tape filled presidential library (he hates books) will be a store filled with actual books written by former aides and appointees describing their horrible tenure with the most corrupt and dishonest person ever to hold the high office of President of the United States. But it's not jut Bolton. It's every one of Trump's cabinet who have been sacked along the way. They all sold their soul to Trump, and when it inevitably went sour, started dishing out the dirt on him while at the same time pretending they were powerless to do anything about it. The truth is they were happy to ride the tiger while it lasted.

Small people in every respect. Republican leaders are complicit in supporting this idiot, but they are doing it for their own personal gain. How normal Americans can support this moron is what puzzles me (Nah. It does not puzzles me. I’m only trying to be polite. Innit?)

I've read several books lately about US government and key players lately. I find them interesting. This one took me close to FOREVER to read. I just couldn't get interested. I borrowed a library ebook, and had to return it before I finished. The audio was available to check out before I could get the ebook again, so I finished it by listening to the audio. The audio is better.

The problem is Bolton can't leave out anything. This makes for an overly detailed and boring book. I don't like this politics, but I don't doubt that he is smarter than many who are or have been in the top layers of government right now. It's pretty obvious he has nothing but disdain for Democrats. He was snarky about both Democrats in general and Obama specifically. I like an occasional bit of snark when it is funny, but it's also pretty obvious that Bolton doesn't have a sense of humor. Also, I wanted to find more about the current president's actions and reactions, and while there was that, it was really more about Bolton than it was about Bolton working with the president.

While this is okay to read or listen to if you want his perspective, it's an excellent book to read if you have insomnia.

Bolton, John R. The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir. Simon & Schuster, 2020.
John Bolton’s The Room Where It Happened has received quite a few well-deserved negative reviews, but not all of them are fair. Some of them seem to be the sorts of assessment one could write of Bolton’s personality and policy preferences without looking into this book at all. The book has many faults that have nothing to do with whether Bolton is right or wrong in his approach to foreign policy. The question on everyone’s mind when the book was announced was what Bolton would have said if he had testified in Trump’s impeachment trial. Bolton says nothing about it, except that he does not think his testimony would have changed the outcome. He offers no clarity on the quid pro quo question. Did Bolton resign over Ukraine? It was one reason among many, he says. About the other reasons he leaves us guessing. Nor does he offer any insight into Trump’s bromance with Putin, except to say he never asked about it because he feared that the answer would not be one that he could live with. You would think a security adviser would need to know, whatever the answer. Bolton does do a good job of detailing the inconsistent, self-interested vacillation of Trump’s decision-making and the chaos of White House operations. Sadly, he offers little analysis of its motives or development. My own view is that it exists because Trump hires aides who are true believers or simple sycophants, or people like himself who use the government to pursue their own personal or policy interests, Bolton among them. Bolton does have a policy agenda that not all of his colleagues share. He does make a convincing case that Trump was not up to the task of negotiating with the leaders of North Korea and China, but I am not sure that Bolton or Pompeo would have done a better job on their own. Finally, one must note that the book is poorly written. It reads like a rushed job. It needs a rewrite to add necessary explanations, eliminate distracting detail, and add clarity and precision to its thesis, assuming that there is one. There is not much light in this picture of the room where it happened.

I just finished the Bolton book recently. It took a long time to finish.
It was not something that one could stand to read through cover to cover.

It was a difficult read because Mr. Bolton made so many pronouncements that something was either good or bad with the expectation that you will take his pronouncements at face value and agree with him. These pronouncements were usually just made with no substantiating facts or arguemnts to explain why something is good or bad. Anything not done by him, or proposed by him, is usually cast as something bad. He is too dogmatic and too much of an ideologue.

John Bolton did give some good insights into the lack of focus in the decision making processes of the Donald.

The Room Where it Happened should have a warning on it. It is basically a book justifying why the author,, John Bolton, did not testify before Congress. Additionally, it goes into John Bolton's work experience. The book is extremely difficult to read about the Trump administration and had to be read in bits and pieces. Just be careful and have a very strong personal sense of right and wrong before you read the book.

John Bolton is writing about the 1.5 years he spent in the White House as Trump`s National Security Adviser. The most interesting thing that he is a conservative republican who agreed with lots of Trump`s policies (leaving the Paris Agreement and the Iran Nuclear Agreement, etc). Mostly focusing to the foreign politics, North-Korea, Iran, Ukraine, etc, he tells (maybe sometimes going too much into little details) how the White House works under Trump. His most common descriptive word is for that is `chaotic`.

I am not a John Bolton fan. I do not agree with many of his policy stands. I also did not agree with how he positioned himself during the Trump impeachment trial. His failure to testify and speak publicly about all he knew might have made a difference. However, I did find this book fascinating due to the facts that he had an inside view of the Trump administration and obviously kept amazing notes on all that went on regarding foreign affairs during his tenure. While much is what I already knew about Trump, he reinforced directly several things - Trump does not read, he has the attention span of a kindergarten student, he has no overall foreign policies but instead makes "gut" decisions that benefit himself personally and not our country, he is easily manipulated by others who flatter him (Putin, etc.) and he has committed acts that if he was not president would likely be prosecuted. Bolton knows his stuff so definitely worth reading!

Although the book is a cleanly written self-congratulatory recount, it does expose the total chaos of the Trump White House. What turned me off from the start was how Bolton arrogantly sets himself apart from those he calls "the intellectually lazy" - he uses this phrase TWICE in the first couple of pages of the book. And what about a deviously constructed pretend "letter" from Chinese President to Kim Jong Un - that itself shows what Bolton is all about... And though he says that the "axis of adults" (or "Steady State", or "glorified government babysitters", as named by The Anonymous) at the White House was doomed from the start, Bolton pretty much was part of it himself, even though he joined the staff a bit later. Not that it helped much, a "hero" that he thinks he was while there.½

If there is one word that would describe my emotions at the end of this book, then that word would be ‘exhaustion.’

I started the book with some enthusiasm. There has been a lot of controversy surrounding this book, especially considering it has been published soon after John Bolton’s resignation.

People may ask if he has breached a code of ethics, wherein a person who has held such a confidential and critical post, would write about the happenings in the office of the President.

John Bolton dives into exquisite details of most of the meetings he attended. This level of detail was exhausting.

Mr. Bolton does not think highly of Barack Obama, but he does not explain why. He has dismissed Mr. Obama’s strategies and initiatives with a few terse sentences. Neither does he disclose – except in one case – why he thought that America’s position concerning the Paris Climate Change Agreement was the correct one.

I have the impression that John Bolton is hawkish by nature. He tried to draw attention away from any possible failures on his part by describing the events he was involved with, in excruciating detail.

If anyone buys and reads this book, expecting some sort of expose, they would be sorely disappointed. If you enjoy long, tiresome descriptions of someone’s day, then go ahead and buy this book. If you buy this book, expecting to read a sober analysis of geopolitical issues, you will be disappointed.

John Bolton's memoir of his time as Donald Trump's National Security Advisor provides a minute-by-minute, blow-by-blow account of the foreign policy actions of the Trump Administration. Although most reviews have singled out Bolton's scathing contempt for Trump and many other in the administration, it is worth reading for its very description of the tiniest details of what happened. During his time at the NSC, Bolton never seemed to have accomplished anything positive and nothing he did seems to have helped the country. The book seems to be more of an apologetic distancing himself from all that happened (i.e. most of it was Trump's fault according to Bolton). In reality, I was left with the impression that he had remarkably little vision of anything positive that should be done since his instinct appeared to be just to bomb the countries he did not like. He also sidesteps his own responsibility for the government's reaction to the coronavirus pandemic.