The Meaning of Boltin' John Bolton

I read the report of John Bolton's endorsement of Mitt Romney and experienced some trepidation. I have long admired Mr. Bolton for his acumen and willingness to do the hard work of statehood. But his decision to back Romney felt like a sucker-punch in the belly.

Mitt Romney is the least conservative of the republican nominees, with the possible exception of John Huntsman. After much consideration I could only understand Bolton's decision as one of pragmatism.

However, Mr. Bolton should be careful in his employment of Bill Buckley's pragmatic conservatism, it was a different day with different forces arrayed against the bastion of liberty when WFB formulated his pragmatic approach to politiking. In Buckley's day the battle was between ideas on how to govern. Whereas today we face a battle involving the very survival of government itself; at least government "of the people, by the people and for the people." Now, with socialist ideas in their ascendency, we can no longer afford to play the parlor games of big government vs. limited government, that battle has been won by socialism and its capable facilitator: education. It was won in a battle that has been waged in relative obscurity for the past seventy-five years, or at least since John Dewey. And socialists want us to keep arguing big v. limited as a distractant from the direction socialists are taking this country.

Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Iran v. Israel, the Straits of Hormuz, the Arab Spring, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, Afghanistan, the European Union, etc. should all be raising red flags, yet Obama does nothing to protect our interests in these parts of the world. In fact, he is set on removing the U.S. presence from them.

Thus, the question becomes not who is more electable, but which candidate has the courage to lead this country back from the abyss!