The editorial board of the Wall Street Journal used the resignation-- or firing according to Donald Trump -- of national security adviser John Bolton to pummel the president over his revolving door administration that is continually in chaos as key advisers come and go because they don't tell him what he wants to hear.
The board initially scorched the president for lying about Bolton's departure, writing, "Start with the fact that Mr. Trump didn’t tell the truth about firing Mr. Bolton," before adding, "Mr. Bolton went home on what was the 17-month anniversary of taking the job and decided to resign. He submitted his resignation letter Tuesday morning, even as the White House announced he’d be briefing the media on antiterror measures. Shortly thereafter Mr. Trump tried to spin the resignation as his idea with his tweet."
As the editorial put it, "None of this speaks well of the President, who fears looking bad for having lost his third NSC adviser in three years."
"A President deserves advisers who will implement his policies, but there’s no doubt Mr. Bolton did that even when he disagreed. The troubling implication of Mr. Bolton’s departure is that Mr. Trump doesn’t really want to hear opposing points of view. He says he does, but he makes work intolerable for those who give him contrary advice," they wrote. "As he heads into a difficult re-election campaign, Mr. Trump should be sending a signal of reassurance and steadiness. Instead the world sees disarray inside the Administration and a President given to policy-making as impulsive as his Twitter feed."
Accordingly, the editorial asserts that Trump has become a man alone, who wants only to hear what he wants to hear -- and that puts the country at risk.
"Mr. Trump’s behavior is increasingly self-isolating. He thinks individuals are expendable, but the advisers he has lost represent constituencies that ought to be on his side," they wrote. "Generals Mattis and H.R. McMaster, his second NSC adviser, represent the military. Mr. Bolton speaks for the Jacksonian wing of U.S. foreign policy that believes in a strong defense of American interests around the world. Mr. Trump should be cementing these loyalties, not undercutting them."
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