Technically, pogonophobia is the fear of beards. There doesn’t seem to be a term that applies strictly to the fear of a prickly upper-lip infestation that looks as if it should come with six-guns and a rabbit obsession. So maybe Boltonophobia will have to do.
This strange affliction has spread almost overnight across the Republican Party, with an incidence rate that appears to approach 100%. But if there’s one person who represents the index case for breaking into sweat at the view of a mustache, it’s Donald Trump. Trump may be more popular than Lincoln in the polls that occur only inside his head, but support for seeing former national security adviser John Bolton spill what he knows about Trump’s actions regarding Ukraine is overwhelmingly popular in the real world. So of course Trump is responding by spraying his fear all over Twitter.
Trump’s renewed assault on John Bolton, that coffee boy who I hardly knew and who was never that smart anyway, began on Tuesday afternoon and was still going on Wednesday morning. According to Trump, Bolton is a guy who “begged” him for a job, which Trump gave him out of pity, despite warnings from others. Then Bolton immediately made a series of mistakes and overstatements that would have led the United States into “World War VI.” Actually, Trump said “World War Six,” though Trump should surely have had sufficient WrestleMania experience to pick up a few Roman numerals by now.
Anyway, Trump immediately fired Bolton for his warmongering and rank incompetence. Where “immediately” is a year and a half later.
Trump also makes a compelling argument that Bolton failed to complain that anything was wrong at the time. Which would be somewhat more convincing had not the newspapers at the time been filled with stories of Bolton-Trump blowouts at the White House. And if half of those who testified in Trump’s House impeachment had not name-dropped the national security adviser. Sure, Bolton described the scheme in Ukraine as a “drug deal,” and, okay, he told more than one of those who reported to him to inform the lawyers about what was going on, and maybe he kicked Trump’s ambassador to the E.U. out of his office for trying to execute on extortion … but that doesn’t mean he complained.
Then Trump makes his ultimate complaint about Bolton: The manuscript that Bolton has submitted to his publisher is “nasty and untrue.” At the same time, it is “all classified and national security.” It might seem like it would be impossible for a book to be both an untrue personal attack and chock-full of classified national security information. But apparently Bolton is supertalented that way.
And very, very scary. Is it too soon for another It remake?