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'Where Are
They Now'
with
Gina Timberland
The brash talk does nothing to hide the pain in
his eyes.
John Bolton, One Time Topic
of Conversation
When one walks into the office
of John R Bolton, one is immediately struck by the stature of the man. He
seems to command the room. Perhaps this is due to the miniaturized furniture
and the 5' 9" ceiling that causes him to walk like a terrifying hunchback,
or perhaps it is the solemn gravity of his position as Under Secretary of
State for Arms Control and International Security. At any rate, he looked
big to me.
Some of you may remember John
Bolton's brief brush with fame earlier in 2005 when he loomed as a possible
candidate for the US ambassador to the UN. Others of you may remember... no,
I guess that's it.
We started our interview by
asking the man whom the president calls Mister Gruff about his many
successes in his current position.
"What the hell do you mean?" he
queried.
We were a bit taken back, as the
question seemed so clear. Still, we extrapolated. "Your job. You were sworn
in back in May of 2001. You know, international security. Keeping the world
safe. How's that been working out for you?"
Bolton thoughtfully tugged on
his mustache before telling us to get the fuck out of his office. We
demurely declined, asking him if he intended to hit a girl. He told us yes.
"I've always been a man of
action rather than a man of words, and if I need to take some action on your
ass, you best believe that I'm going to do it, regardless of race, gender,
or ethnicity. That's what we need at the UN, someone who isn't intimidated
by all the foreigners. And foreigners is what we're talking about, scads of
them. It's a regular tower of Babel over there."
We reminded Mister Gruff that he
had not in fact been confirmed as ambassador, and dodged the stapler which
he threw our way. We noted that it was a state of the art Swingline 690E
electronic cartridge stapler, another sign of the august majesty of the
office.
"You think that I'm worried
about the sniveling snots in Congress and what they think about me? I don't
need those little men. The president is going to give me a temporary
appointment as soon as those grit eating pencil neck geeks go on recess. And
if Bush thinks of hesitating, he better be prepared to deal with a big
heaping helping of molten Bolton."
In retrospect, it may have been unkind to
have laughed at these words, but something about the phrase 'molten Bolton'
tickled our funny bone. When we were able to get control of ourselves, with
the aid of a minor dousing of coffee, we conceded that their was indeed the
possibility of a recess appointment. Yet we wondered aloud how the
likelihood of his involvement in the Valerie Plame scandal might weaken the
president's resolve to take such a course. Bolton responded by leaping from
his chair and putting a bloody new skidmark on the ceiling of his otherwise
immaculate office.
And so our interview ended, as
we were roughly escorted out the door by a man larger than the room. It is
indeed a long crawl through the corridors of power, a place where many a
knee has become hard and callused. We had caught a small glimpse of
yesterday's man of tomorrow, a man waiting in vain for the call that may
never come.
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