WASHINGTON—In the glare of the impeachment hearing on Wednesday, we might have lost sight of the fact that the Attorney General of the United States is an unmitigated ghoul. From the Washington Post:

“Today, the American people have to focus on something else, which is the sacrifice and the service that is given by our law enforcement officers. And they have to start showing, more than they do, the respect and support that law enforcement deserves,” Barr said in pointed remarks delivered at a Justice Department ceremony to honor police officers. Barr added that “if communities don’t give that support and respect, they might find themselves without the police protection they need.”

Thus does the Attorney General of the United States declare that local law enforcement functions like a protection racket, and let’s not pretend we don’t know what “communities” he’s talking about.

And then there’s this little bit, unearthed from an unmarked grave that also contained re-runs of Happy Days and the unmourned and unanswered prayers of Rabbi Baruch Korff.

“In the Vietnam era, our country learned a lesson. I remember that our brave troops who served in that conflict weren’t treated very well in many cases when they came home, and sometimes they bore the brunt of people who were opposed to the war,” he said. “The respect and gratitude owed to them was not given. And it took decades for the American people finally to realize that.”

Barr, of course, like so many of his fellow tinhorns, declined the opportunity to be a brave troop himself. (He had an unavoidable commitment to graduate school.) But he remembers how to weaponize those who did, and how well it worked back in the day when he was a young suckfish to power. Of course, when you’re the consigliere for an administration* that celebrates war criminals, it helps to have some background in fascism. Bill Barr finally has found the president* of his childhood fantasies.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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