Former Attorney General Bill Barr, who kind of reminds me of Earl Sinclair, is in the news for criticizing his former boss, former President Donald Trump – which in today’s media climate, is all one needs to do to earn absolution for their previous sins.
Barr, in an interview on CBS News’s “Face the Nation,” said “reckless conduct” had led to Trump’s current predicament – that being a federal indictment on 37 charges related to his handling of classified documents.
Barr elaborated, saying that Trump’s actions were harmful to the country, to the Republican Party, and to the entire conservative movement. Barr also made ad hominem critiques, calling Trump “a consummate narcissist” and a “fundamentally flawed person.”
“He’s like a defiant 9-year-old kid who is always pushing the glass towards the edge of the table, defying his parents from stopping him from doing it,” Barr said. “Our country can’t be a therapy session for a troubled man like this.”
Media Ready to Embrace Barr, the Donald Trump Hater
To me, the most notable thing about the Barr criticisms are not the criticisms but the media embrace of the criticisms.
Barr serves as another example of how Trump has become the one and only measuring stick.
Seemingly, no matter the person, no matter the issue, no matter the precedent – the mainstream media and the overarching professional class render judgements based solely on alignment with Trump.
Alignment with Trump = bad.
Dealignment with Trump = good.
Barr is a great example because for years, Barr was a primary enemy of well-to-do liberals everywhere. Why? Because he was a prominent member of the Trump administration; Barr was aligned with Trump and thus bad.
Barr took all kinds of heat for being what the Associated Press called Trump’s “champion and advocate” at a time when no charge was more reviled. Barr was despised, and drew criticism regularly for his stance on Obamacare, the George Floyd protests, the 2020 election outcome, and so on.
But now the transition is happening. The Liz Cheney transition. In the media-liberal-professional world, where dealignment with Trump makes someone good, no one is better, no one is more credible than a conservative who is willing to criticize Trump. (Because if a conservative is criticizing Trump, Trump must really be bad, right?) Barr is looking like a prospective candidate for the Liz Cheney treatment – the repackaging from conservative scumlord to conservative (hence credible) truthsayer (Trump critic).
If Barr is willing to go on CBS News and call Trump “a defiant 9-year-old kid,” if Barr is willing to say “this was a case entirely of [Trump’s] own making…he had no rights to those documents…the government tried over a year, quietly and with respect, to get them back – which it was essential that they do – and he jerked them around…And he had no legal basis for keeping them…” well then Barr is going to be worth his weight in gold. And that also means all the past offenses, all the past support of Trump or conservatism, or all the things he said that were condemned in screaming headlines on NPR and in The New York Times, that’s all irrelevant now.
Liberals have a short-term and highly selective memory. Keep an eye out for the way Barr is packaged in the near future, a few more appearances like the CBS News bit and Barr will be well on his way to being a Mother Jones’s hero.
Harrison Kass is the Senior Editor and opinion writer at 19FortyFive. An attorney, pilot, guitarist, and minor pro hockey player, Harrison joined the US Air Force as a Pilot Trainee but was medically discharged. Harrison holds a BA from Lake Forest College, a JD from the University of Oregon, and an MA from New York University. Harrison listens to Dokken.
From 19FortyFive
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