In a convenient bit of Fox News/GOP symmetry, “objective” anchor Harris Faulkner all but spoon-fed campaign attack lines to 2016 hopeful – and Fox News contributor – John Bolton.
On Friday, Bolton told The Daily Caller that he’s thinking of running for president in order “to move the overall debate on national security to return it to the center of the political agenda.”
So what a coincidence that Bolton showed up on yesterday’s Fox Report Weekend for some GOP-friendly chat at President Obama’s expense.
Faulkner’s questions were so hilariously slanted that they sounded more like personal commentary than anything a legitimate news anchor would ask a guest, especially a potential president.
Faulkner’s first question set the tone.
FAULKNER: I’m just gonna jump right in. Is it fair at this point to question why the president and the White House have not spoken of specifically defending Christians hunted by the Islamic State savages, not in just this one instance but in a broad sense?
Of course Bolton thought so. Just as predictably, he used Faulkner’s question as an opening to say Obama has been “excessively reluctant to talk about radical Islamicism” and called that “badly misguided.”
Faulkner sounded blatantly indignant in her next question.
FAULKNER: You just mentioned Boko Haram… If this is not a holy war, as the president and some of his fellow party members have argued, then what is it?
Bolton replied, “I don’t think that we can effectively deal with the problem across the board unless we recognize it’s an ideology.”
This is typical FNC rhetoric but I have yet to see anyone prove why saying those magical words makes any kind of practical difference. Faulkner of course didn’t ask for any evidence, either.
Instead, Faulkner used the moment to prompt Bolton to further attack Obama on the same issue.
FAULKNER: Does the president, does the White House, do lawmakers not have faith in us enough to know that we do know the difference, that it isn’t all Muslims? Is that why they won’t call this what it is ‘radical Islam?”
Bolton answered that “It’s consistent with his policy, that there is no war on terror. The war on terror’s over.”
And surprise! He tied it to Benghazi!
BOLTON: I think that blindness led us to the tragedy in Benghazi in September 2012 and I think it’s been one of the underlying reasons why the United States has not been effective in stopping ISIS in Syria and Iraq where, despite one victory in Tikrit recently, ISIS in that part of the world is still expanding.
Also, it wouldn’t be Bolton without a little war mongering:
BOLTON: If they’re able to consolidate their control in Syria and Iraq or Libya, we’re gonna see it (ISIS) in the United States soon enough. We either defend ourselves at a distance or we defend ourselves in our cities.
I’m in Boston today. You brought up the Boston Marathon bombing. Is that where we want to defend ourselves? I don’t think so. I don’t think that’s where the American people are, wherever the president may be.
Just in case that wasn’t enough bias, Faulkner said approvingly, “Wow.”
Watch it below, from yesterday’s Fox Report Weekend.
Or, in the Talking Toilet Brush’s case, none of the above:
Bolton supported the Vietnam War, enlisted in the Maryland Army National Guard and consequently did not serve in Vietnam. He wrote in his Yale 25th reunion book “I confess I had no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy. I considered the war in Vietnam already lost.” In an interview, Bolton discussed his comment in the reunion book, explaining that he decided to avoid service in Vietnam because “by the time I was about to graduate in 1970, it was clear to me that opponents of the Vietnam War had made it certain we could not prevail, and that I had no great interest in going there to have Teddy Kennedy give it back to the people I might die to take it away from.” (Dr. Wiki)
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Yes, what happened in Boston was a tragedy, but it pretty much pales in comparison to what happened on 9/11.
And considering Bolton’s own responsibility for the failures of the Dubya administration, I doubt there’s any GOPer willing to even consider the man’s hopes to run for the White House. (Not to mention he’s hopelessly out of step with the Teabaggers, especially when he talks about moving "the overall debate on national security to return it to the center of the political agenda.” Teabaggers ain’t interested in returning anything to the “center.” (And from the tone of his comments, it doesn’t sound like he’s remotely interested in the “center” either. Unfortunately, for him, he’s already uttered the offending words.)