Fred Kaplan writes:

Hats off to whoever thought of sending John Bolton to Mongolia while President Donald Trump flew to the G-20 in Japan and met shortly after with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. If the dispatcher is as witty as I think he or she might be, it’s a clear sign that Bolton’s days as national security adviser are numbered.

Surely Bolton, who knows history, gets the reference. He no doubt recalls that, in 1957, as part of his campaign to rid his inner circle of Stalinist remnants, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev banished the longtime foreign minister, Vyacheslav Molotov—executioner of some of the late Josef Stalin’s most savage diplomatic maneuvers—to the post of ambassador to Outer Mongolia.

Ever since, in the lexicon of power politics, sending rivals or unwieldy subordinates to Mongolia has been a metaphor for consigning them to oblivion. In Bolton’s case, it’s been given a blatantly literal spin. The fact that Trump’s daughter Ivanka and even Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson escorted the president across the Demilitarized Zone, while the national security adviser was marooned on the terrestrial equivalent of the dark side of the moon, highlights the pink slip in neon. [Continue reading…]