The Strange Case of William Barr: Is His Sycophancy Innate or Adopted?
There are obvious gains to be made by serving a strong leader. These gains are even enhanced by whatever you can do to enhance the status of your adopted leader. These lead the sycophant to even ignore laws, rules, ethics, morality, and their own senses and superior legal educations. Of course, when you are surrounded by a hand chosen and filtered sycophantic White House, Cabinet, 4,000 political appointees, Speaker of the House, and Senate, who appointed you, it becomes a lot easier. Not to mention a Narcissistic President who watches and directs your every move, and who will insult you publicly if you twitter from his plans. And, who will fire you at a moment’s whim.
Since we are approaching Halloween, we are reminded of Igor, servant to Dr. Victor Frankenstein. For this holiday, there is also Renfield, a patient in an insane asylum who serves Count Dracula.
The sycophant in Shakespeare is said to be Iago in Othello. Shakespeare also addressed the obsequiousness of courtiers.
As Yoda said while touring the White House, “the power of the sycophantic force is strong here.”
We know that Trump may have chosen Barr because of a sycophantic article that Barr wrote about Trump and claiming that the Chief Executive actually had almost unlimited power under the constitution. Trump also had Rudy inventing all sorts of “Absolute Powers” for the Presidency.
The name of this piece comes from: “The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde.” In this case, the accomplice and the leader are two personalities of the same person, sort of like the Trump – Barr connection. As one would hope for in an Attorney General or Judge, Barr does have a Doctorate of Jurisprudence from George Washington University. He received has BA from Columbia University, and then a Masters there in Government and Chinese Studies. His parents both taught English at Columbia, and Barr was raised as a Catholic. I was going to write to GWU Law to see if they had a course in Legal Sycophancy, but then realized it might be included under Business Law. We discuss the English background, because AG Barrs summary of the Mueller report was so carefully misleading. We remember how Barr hid during his hearing by asking what was the meaning of a special word. We now have the “perfect” transcription of the “perfect” non-pressuring Trump phone call. The real call as well as several others, are now locked in a code access computer.
AG Barr is not really free as a bird because he knew nothing of the July 25 call of Trump to Ukraine’s President Zelensky, in which Zelensky was told to contact Barr. Barr was a believer in such conspiracy theories before he was appointed. When the Mueller Report seemed sufficiently swept under the rug, (a day before Trump’s call, Barr started a Justice Department investigation of such rumors about the 2016 election and the origin of the Mueller investigation. This could have encouraged Trump and made him think that Barr would investigate anything, not to mention the slathering sycophancy.
While I was composing this, the AG has presented a New Reveal. Instead of just being the chief law enforcement officer, he is now the Chief Religious Officer. Here is his public address quote: “This is not decay. This is organized destruction. Secularists and their allies have marshaled all the forces of mass communication, popular culture, the entertainment industry, and academia in an unremitting assault on religion and traditional values.” The AG is supposed to follow the secular Constitution, guaranteed by the First Amendment, which starts “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom speech, or of the press;”. The one person in the nation of 327 million who is in charge of guaranteeing First Amendment rights, has just trampled all over them, and labeled their use essentially a heresy and an attack on religion. The problem with including religion in government, is the first question: Who’s Religion? The colonies were formed by people who chose the wrong religion in their country of origin, and wanted a secular government. What we have done is to hand over the keys to Igor, or Renfield, or Mr. Hyde.
The other glaring mistake of AG Barr, is violating the Fifth Amendment, Due Process, and Innocent until proven Guilty. That is his basic job to uphold, especially with a President who grossly violates it in every case possible. Although, being Impeached, Trump suddenly insists on Due Process way beyond that allowed an impeachment investigation. So in trying to escape from the Ukraine-Biden blackmail frying pan, AG Barr leaps into a conspiracy of the fiery media of the United States. Notre Dame must be so embarrassed for inviting him. But Barr is just following what must be the long held conspiracy theory of his master. This is getting really scary, around Halloween.
Whenever DOJ Barr presents a case or a brief to any court, he always following the Trump/Pence/oilgarchs desires in pleasing their political bosses. There are 113,114 employees of the Justice Department, with a budget of $30 million. There are 130 separate organizations at Justice that hire law students and attorneys. Criminal investigation has 13,677 employees. I’m sure a lot of those know the traditional role that the DOJ fills, and the Constitution which it must uphold and obey. There are a lot of lawyers to send to monitor foreign corruption around the world, than to have to personally involve the President’s Lawyer and the Attorney General themselves, investigating one particular person!
Now for the psychological question about sycophants: Innate, or a chosen road to success? According to the churchofsycophantology.com, it starts at birth with a desire to please the mother, and is therefore innate. They say that sycophants actually start feeling resentful after a while. Perhaps that is why people who have to swear to a sycophant loyalty eventually get fed up serving Trump and stand up for the lawful and truthful, and then get rudely dismissed.
After the address by Barr about the purported anti-religious conspiracy, I think it is clear that Barr will obey his master Trump to fight that conspiracy, whose constituents match those who Trump thinks are against his actions as President (and they are).
