Bolton From the Blue/Because You Can

With the appointment of John Bolton as National Security Advisor to the antipresident, the Armageddon clock moves to 30 seconds to midnight.

Let Jonathan Chiat's column stand in for a nearly unanimous view outside of Fox News, the White House and the booby hatch.  Bolton is an evil idiot and bully--so he fits right in.

Bolton has publicly advised the U.S. to bomb both Iran and North Korea. The Iran nuclear deal is now certainly toast, with international ramifications and threats to the Middle East, at least.

If I'm South Korea, I'm now listening to the sympathetic cooing coming from China and Russia, because the U.S. is starting to look like their worst enemy.  And yes, I mean South Korea.  Because they will take the brunt of a U.S. war on North Korea. Would South Korea entertain a strategic alliance with China instead, to guarantee its borders?  Could be more than a trade war there, if that wasn't enough.

 It's pretty much official now--Fox News is the presidency.  For as long as it lasts.

Oh, and that lawyer that left?  Veteran reporter Jeffrey Toobin at the New Yorker now joins the chorus: John Dowd’s Fall May Mean That Robert Mueller Is Next to Go.




So there's this episode of Madame Secretary, a series we're watching that I have mixed feelings about.  But this episode (2nd season, ep. 13 "The Middle Way") ends with a conversation in a karaoke bar between two top aides to the Secretary of State.  Blake (played by Erich Bergen) is still upset by all the doomsday predictions in a department report on the world in 2030.  Nadine (Bebe Neuwrith) tells him that when she was in grade school, they had Duck & Cover drills instead of fire drills because nuclear war was a daily possibility.

Neuwirth--and presumably her character--were born in 1958, so while the high point of those drills was in the early to mid 1950s, it's possible some schools were still doing them in the 1960s.  But she makes her point: thermonuclear war was a daily possibility well into the 1980s--and is still an only somewhat lessened daily possibility. With no warning, thermonuclear missiles raining down. That was the original "bolt from the blue."

 Baby Boomers grew up with the conscious possibility of the end of the world in the blink of an eye.  We had to go on living.

She says that if they do their jobs right, maybe that future could be averted.  But if we don't get our act together, yes, it's going to be very bad.

Nadine then tells Blake to go up and sing.  "Why?" he said, as if it is just one more futile denial of doom.

"Because you can," she says.

And he does.  A very nice version of "Fire and Rain."  Now might be a good time to hear it again.  Because you can.