Where’s Barr? Where’s Barr?
Rhetorically, I can understand a lot of well-studied people-seeking-greater-wisdom just sort of sitting back and scratching their beards (sorry, ladies, I don’t know what females scratch when they seek higher wisdom) and ask that question, as if to wonder out loud, “What role does Donald Trump plan for his Attorney General in this post-election campaign, now that the facts have been laid bare?”
Consider the assumptions implicit in that question…if you are such a man or woman seeking greater insight.
But also consider the implicit assumptions if down deep you believe Trump is no more wise to the ways of the world in Washington as that long-legged rube from Illinois who just came to town without every having seen an indoor toilet down the hall instead of outside.
I could just end this right here, and leave you smarter-than-thou guys and gals to find your own way back to your closet for that “Just-who-the-Hell-do-I-think-I-am?”- moment in front of the mirror. In my life I’ve had to make that trek more than once. It’s not a comfortable visit…when sober. Donald Trump had learned the insides and out of organizations, including all sorts of federal agencies, laws and lawyers, for over 30 years, in building the richest small-business empire in history (at least since the California Gold Rush, when all one had to do was dig a hole in the side of a rock and mine the yellow parts, and be a good enough shot to keep the claim-jumpers from stealing it). But what he decided to do was keep the company(ies) under his watchful eye and control. People who mistreated the hired help, for instance, didn’t stay long.
An organization chart of Donald Trump companies (plural) was unlike any you’d see on Wall Street for every one had a single name at the top. His. Successful companies like that would normally measure their income in the few millions, even back when a million really meant something. Small business. And it was that uniqueness, and his singular ability to manage it successfully, to the tune of about 15 billion dollars, that caused him to never let it be turned over to a board of directors, with never a moment of sweat equity in the creation and building of the company. who, guided by a fiduciary duty which over the past 30 years has become a joke to stockholders,
On that account most of the corporate world accuse Donald Trump of being extraordinarily selfish and narrow, typical small business thinking, while, his fours years in office have proved him to be the opposite; as selfless a man as that same gangly raw-boned rube who first came to the Jigsaw-Puzzle Palace in Washington in 1861, when it only had a few thousand pieces, unlike the millions of moving parts Donald Trump inherited in 2016.
True, Trump did have a better running start that Abe since he’d seen most of those of pieces at work in New York, so it only took him about a year to master them. Whatever “to-do” list and legislative plan Lincoln brought to the White House, he soon found himself wrapped up almost entirely in a War Department, and all the things necessary to train, house, feed and arm, what began after Ft Sumpter, 92000 men and ended up with more than 2 million.
The devil in Lincoln’s details was in finding capable men to actually lead those men to victory against a much smaller, more poorly trained, fed and armed but infinitely better-led army. That search took over three years when he finally found a general on the Mississippi River who seemed to care more about winning the war than his own military and political career. And had no particular down-the-nose attitude about his president. His name was Grant and by March 1864 he had become General of the Union Armies. A year later Lee would surrender to Grant in Virginia. (Note: In Nov 1864 Lincoln was re-elected, after the Republicans had joined with pro-union Democrats to form the National Union Party, and the Democrat candidate was the same general, George McClellan who, as head of the Union Army of the Potomac, had failed more than one attempt to thwart Robert E Lee in Virginia. He was stripped of battlefield command in 1862, but continued to snipe behind Lincoln’s back. Lincoln beat him 212-21, but he did go onto become Governor of New Jersey. Today he’d be called “Mitt McClellan” since “Johnny Mac” McClellan had already passed away.)
Just like Lincoln, Donald Trump has been at war every day since he got to town, and also like Lincoln, “that war” being declared and fought for exactly the same reason; that they both voted in by the people of the United States to take that job in the first place.
So just consider all the things enabled America to do while fighting that war for his presidency. Talk about multi-tasking. ALL the things Donald Trump accomplished; the economic upswing, still viable despite Covid, the reduction of the size of government in Washington, without any help from Congress, fair trade, the Middle East, plus the missionizing of over 70 million Americans back into the original “church” of the United States, by far, for the Democrats and the Left, the most fearful thing he has done.
I’m taking a runner here, but I think Trump’s strategy here in Arizona, Michigan and other states is to test GOP mettle at the state level. Under the assumption that he will retain the Presidency, (by virtue of SCOTUS) every state GOP going forward will measure their stars of the future by those who did the big things for their state BEFORE SCOTUS decides. Trump seems not to want people to look to the WH every time something happens in their states. He genuinely believes in federalism as originally designed. If this is so, then my own theory of the man, (DLT) is that DOJ and Barr, at this juncture are where he wants them. If I’m wrong I’ll let do a mea culpa once Biden is anointed or Barr fired.
I don’t know who the “Who he can trust” and “who he can’t trust’s” are still in Donald Trump’s employ, but I do know he is totally in charge, and has a plan for all the agencies. About William Barr, he seems to have other plans for Barr. One could be to launch him into attack the day after SCOTUS announces he won, going after all the criminal elements this election investigation unveils.
Why Trump would hold Barr, DOJ and FBI in reserve could be as simple as Gen Ike’s decision to use Patton as a decoy in England, causing the Germans to think he was going to be landing at Calais with his Third Army, thus keeping their own panzer divisions in reserve, thus securing the beaches at Normandy. Or it could be simply because the Deep State is so imbedded in those agencies that they are too leaky and unsecure to trust with any plan that crosses several desks, outside of a very small clandestine group. Or, #3, Trump could very well fire Barr the moment it’s known that he has been safely re-elected. At which time you’d be right.
I can’t say. I just know that Donald Trump is totally in charge. So I also know that all of your foot-stomping and whining is not about William Barr, but about the deep-down notion that that you have all this planned out better than Donald Trump. This is where your theory of the case, and the man, fail.
So, please go back to your closet and rethink this. And please “shut the hell up” until it’s over, for not 1 in a 100 of you will have the moral courage to come on Twitter and say “Hey guys, I was wrong about Barr.”
I’m not letting you get away with it. You’re not judging Barr, you’re second-guessing Donald Trump. And a few of you, since I’ve known the type for many years, would rather be right than win.
