Bolton, Kudlow and Turning a Blind Eye to Bad Policy

The most striking thing about how President Donald Trump chose his new national security adviser, John Bolton, and new director of the National Economic Council, Larry Kudlow, isn't about either of them personally, although neither is well suited to the honest-broker role that their position calls for. Nor is it that Trump seems to have hired both of them because he liked watching them on television. That's a deeply flawed reason to hire anyone, to be sure, but we're accustomed to how Trump hires people based on superficial criteria.

What is striking is that both are essentially within the mainstream of the Republican Party on policy approaches that ended in disaster during the last Republican presidency. Bolton was part of the George W. Bush administration as it prepared for and fought the Iraq War; Kudlow hasn't been in government for years, but he was a cheerleader for Bush's policies as the economy plunged into a terrible recession. Neither of them was discredited as a result, because Republicans have collectively decided that their policies in 2001-2008 were correct, regardless of outcome.