Fire and Fury, in June

Yesterday I read the last page of Fire and Fury, the memoir by Michael Wolff of all the competition for positions for one's self, favours for allies or friends, and success for one's own ideas and initiatives, of the White House during the first months of the Trump administration.

It is a bit dated already, but although I've read it half a year after the publication date there was gossip in it that I'd missed. There was mention of John Bolton's escapade in a hotel, for example — John Bolton, of course, being the heavily mustached individual whom George W. Bush appointed as Ambassador to the UN after Bolton had said that if a few levels of the UN Building were taken off, no one would care. Now he is the National Security Adviser.

(I see that even Jimmy Carter has aired his opinion of the National Security Adviser appointment:

When USA Today's Washington bureau chief Susan Page asked the Georgia Democrat and former president what advice he would give to Trump on North Korea, Carter replied: "You mean, other than fire John Bolton? That would be my first advice."

"Jimmy Carter: Trump's John Bolton pick one of his 'worst mistakes'" [CNN] (March 26, 2018))

Wolff mentions few details, but the episode became part of the government hearing when John Bolton was being considered as the UN Ambassador. In Kyrgyzstan two decades ago, an American public relations expert had written a letter to her employers at USAID saying that the company that Bolton worked for wasn't providing enough money. Bolton took it personally; he

banged on her hotel room door and ranted at her over a two-week period in 1994. He also made disparaging remarks about her weight, accused her of theft and even questioned her sexuality.

"I was alone in the hotel room. It was easy for him to drop by and bang on the door, trying to pressure me until I broke," she said. 

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, for example, was also worried about Bolton being disagreeable toward his subordinates at other workplaces.

"Bolton 'would bang on my door and shout'" [The Independent] (April 24, 2005)

In Fire and Fury's White House, such behaviour, temperamental unreliability, and perhaps incompetence for the job a person is given, are quite the ordinary course of things.

It's described in Wolff's zippy, anecdotal, and, on occasion, quite witty and epigrammatical prose.