Rep. Andy Barr is a hack. He is a busher incapable of hitting above the Mendoza line. He’s the three-year-old learning to ride a tricycle yelling, “Hey daddy! Hey daddy! Look at me,” right before he hits a crack in the sidewalk and lands on his face.
Daddy, for the Lexington Republican in this instance, is the Lord of Mar-a-Lago, that convicted felon, former President Donald J. Trump, who, in Andy’s dewy eyes, can do no wrong. That’s right, folks.
Apparently, our boy doesn’t consider raping a woman, defrauding bankers, and making a pay-off to a porn actress to hide a sexual encounter while his wife is home tending to their newborn son, is reason to believe the orange ogre may have stepped into that great, gray area of perversity.
In Andy’s mind, Trump’s latest escapade, where a New York jury found him guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records related to payments to his then consiglieri Michael Cohen, who paid Stormy Daniels $130,000 ahead of the 2016 election to keep her mouth shut about the tryst, came as a result of that nasty, old legal system of ours.
“A corrupt New York district attorney pursued this conviction through a sham trial of President Trump, marked by outrageous and unconstitutional tactics,” Barr declared on the social media site X, almost instantaneous with the announcement of the verdict.
Barr added, “It won’t stop me and millions of Americans from acquitting the president from these politically motivated charges and sending him back to the White House this November.”
Now, one might wonder what Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg did to warrant being described by Andy as “corrupt,” since, unlike Trump, he hasn’t been charged with anything and initially rejected bringing the case, leading to two veteran prosecutors leaving the office in protest. It wasn’t until later, when the evidence piled up, that he gave the go-ahead.
“Corrupt” and “politically motivated” are among the words used by the convicted felon Trump to convince supporters that he is as innocent as a newborn, and Andy Barr obviously hears and heeds his master’s voice, like Nipper, the RCA dog.
It is Andy’s one great desire to attract the support of his master as he contemplates running for the Senate if, as expected, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell does not seek re-election to an eighth term in 2026. There are plenty of contenders already lined up for the opportunity, and Trump’s blessing, whether or not he wins the presidency this year, could prove crucial given his popularity in the Commonwealth.
And it’s possible, should McConnell seek another six year term, which would make him 90 upon its completion, that Barr might just mount a primary challenge, given that McConnell is considered the least popular senator among his constituents, is too old for the job, and that Trump will almost certainly back anyone who opposes the long-time GOP leader, given his, shall we say, lack of cordiality toward our boy Mitch.
At any rate, it appears if Trump tells Barr to go eat worms, Barr will smile and ask how many. Frankly, he’s not alone in that sycophantic regard. All five of Kentucky’s GOP House members jumped to Trump’s defense post-conviction, declaring in so many words that the whole mishigas was politically inspired and pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.
Rep. James Comer (R-TheFrankfortLoop), who could be outstanding as one of the leads in a Homer & Jethro biopic, and who serves as the commonwealth’s primary Chinese marijuana importer, called the conviction “a sad day for all Americans,’’ and given Comer Pyle’s experience, creating a sad day for Americans is something he certainly knows about.
“This verdict in New York is another example of Democrats being relentless in their pursuit to weaponize the courts, abuse America’s judicial system and target President Joe Biden’s opposition,” continued Comer.
Of course, none of these blowhards are bothering to categorically state that Trump is innocent of the charges, just that they are politically motivated and that there exists a tremendous possibility that the convictions will be overturned on appeal.
They can’t argue his innocence because: a) they weren’t present to hear all the evidence offered against the Lord of Mar-a-Lago; and b) everybody knows he’s guilty as sin and to acknowledge so would be giving the game away.
Does anyone really believe that Trump didn’t do the down and dirty with a porn star and then have her paid off so she wouldn’t blab about it, a possibility that he feared might have a negative impact on his ultimately successful 2016 presidential campaign?
C’mon people. Yes, Trump publicly denies he ever had sex with Stormy Daniels, although he passed up the opportunity to declare such on the witness stand. Everybody knows this guy lies about as often as he draws breath. If you’re the one defending him in the face of all of this, who’s the one being political?
There is a large segment of the American populace, 70 million people or more, suffering from an epidemic of cognitive dissonance. These folks know, deep down, that Donald J. Trump, the rapist, liar, conman, fraudster, cheap grifter, and all-around malevolent personality, is unfit to be president of the United States. It’s downright impossible to come up with any job he would be fit for because it would be an unintended insult to anyone holding a similar position. Dude shouldn’t be elected dog catcher, for crying out loud.
Yet, for some unfathomable reason, a lot of folks have a cult-like desire to vote for this guy, and they create a rationale, contradicting all that’s holy, to justify doing so. Supporters say he was great for the economy, ignoring the fact that the whole thing crashed in his final year. He flagrantly mishandled the COVID-19 epidemic, dismissed key allies to the point of threatening to abandon NATO, and was immune from any empathy for the vulnerable population.
Some commentators, like my old pal Al Cross, who knows Kentucky politics like Hubie Brown knows basketball (which means totally), in an outstanding column in Thursday’s Northern Kentucky Tribune, said Barr et al were harming the faith of Americans in the judicial system by ranting and expressing their typical grievances over the treatment of their deity, Trump.
While he and others are right, at least as far as the New York court decision goes, there already sadly exists plenty of reasons to be jaundiced about the current condition of the American legal system and it starts right at the top.
Today we learned Justice Clarence Thomas had accepted $4 million in “gifts’’ during his tenure with the high court. Justice Samuel Alito, who also has raked in his share of gifts like paid fishing trips over the years, has expressed his political fidelity by flags he has flown over his various abodes, although he claims it was his wife’s doing. And no one has ever thoroughly probed the financial shenanigans — or sexual abuse claims — involving Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
There’s no reason to believe the trial conducted by New York Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan was conducted in any way other than on the up-and-up. Barr, Comer, and the rest of the Kentucky bunch bellyache about the “corrupt’’ manner of the Trump trial and keep their mouths shut about the crisis on the Supreme Court.
Comer, in his little X diatribe about the trial, said, “Americans will make their voices heard this November.” While no one can count on Barr or Comer to do the right thing, hopefully those other voices will be singing with the angels on Election Day.
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Written by Bill Straub, a member of the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame. Cross-posted from the NKY Tribune.
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