That’s a really good comparison of Bolton’s refusal to testify in Congress with his refusal to serve in Vietnam.

Bolton wants to be the wise, honest man in telling the truth and acting on principle, but by his support of all Republicans in and out of the administration, he is still invested in the idea of dealing with the devil. He thinks his refusal to vote for Biden is based on principle, but the reality is it’s a half-vote for Trump—Bolton still deals with the devil, book notwithstanding. And he has no concept that willingness to deal with the devil should cause one to reexamine the validity of Republican principles that condone devilish means.

In a dazzling display of non-sequitur, Bolton’s argument for not testifying to Congress came down to this: because of the level of partisanship in Congress, he couldn’t see his way to put country above party.

Bolton blamed his own lack of patriotism on the Democrats having failed to get the Republicans on board with the impeachment of Trump. Not only did Bolton not give the slightest clue as to how the Democrats might have done that, Bolton later implied that he himself couldn’t have convinced Republican Senators of what Bolton knew to be true, namely, that Trump’s Ukraine offenses rose to the level of impeachability.

Martha McCallum approached but then avoided the opportunity to point out that if Bolton had talked early to Congress, the range of Trump’s offenses could have been significantly widened.

In the interview, the only coherent explanation as to why Bolton did not testify during the impeachment trial came down to Bolton’s hyperpartisan hissy fit. “Nancy Pelosi is not my drummer”, he said, as though she were just some bossy schmuck off the street and not the Speaker of the House acting in her constitutional role. Bolton said what he would have testified to “would have been swept aside in the gale of partisan politics”, as though the Democrats would have had something to do with that sweeping aside and as though Bolton weren’t himself highly partisan.

While Bolton’s abandonment of patriotic colleagues like Vindman, Yovanovitch, and Hill was not even mentioned in the interview, Bolton was careful not to burn any bridges with his precious Republican Senators. According to Bolton, they “did not shirk their duty”, they just acted on an incorrect but supposedly cogent legal theory which little ol’ John Bolton wasn’t up to disputing at the time. The cause of accountability was already lost, so why piss off his Republican friends? It was reminiscent of the way, years before, Bolton had put his own safety above service in the Vietnam War he had supported but then, when the time came, recognized was being lost.

As one, final non-sequitur, Bolton said “If I were trying to make money off this entire enterprise I wouldn’t have joined the government to begin with”. So if he wasn’t planning to write the book since before he was hired, he is forever exempt from the charge of taking selfish advantage!? He wouldn’t have had the opportunity to write the book if he hadn’t joined the government, and given that he was disgruntled well before he left the administration, it is highly plausible that he was, as a public employee, consciously taking notes for a book that, yes, he would try to make money off of. If he had testified before Congress he still could have made money on the book and kept his honor intact. Instead, he decided to monetize his honor.

Hey John, our happiest moments as Americans were when you left the administration and didn’t get to fulfill your wet dream of turning Iran into a glow-in-the-dark sea of glass. At least with you gone there was less chance of a nuclear conflagration. Our next happiest moment will be when Chump and all his enabler, you included, are brought up on charges of treason. Have a nice day traitor.