The most recent Ricochet podcast featured Attorney General Bill Barr. I was looking forward to it, because I’ve generally thought highly of AG Barr, considering him a stable and thoughtful presence in an often tumultuous administration. I haven’t read his book — and probably won’t — but I did listen to the show.

I didn’t hear anything from Mr. Barr with which I’d take exception. I think his comments about the challenges ahead were spot-on: it’s going to take significant and sustained Republican majorities to bring about lasting change, and we have an opportunity right now to knock the Democratic Party back on its heels.

I appreciated that Barr acknowledged the successes of the Trump presidency, and that he agreed with Peter that Trump, for all his sometimes problematic behavior, was more the recipient of poor treatment than its author.

I think Bill Barr is a man who understands both the challenges and the opportunities ahead, and I appreciate his candor.

I think the world of James, think him a thoroughly sensible and decent man and a wizard with words — all very good things. I rarely find myself disagreeing with him, and it’s always an occasion to check my own thoughts on a subject when we don’t see eye to eye. (Unless the topic is Star Trek, a television series that began and ended, utterly, in the 1960s.)

Nonetheless, I’m going to put in a word in defense of the term “groomer” as it’s being used to describe opponents of Florida’s Parental Rights in Education bill. I do object to what I think are pointless and ugly monikers like “Rethuglicans” and “Libtards,” two that James mentioned as examples. They are, in my opinion, vulgar and overly broad and stupid, not defensible because they’re so sweeping and vague, and generally counter-productive.

“Groomer,” on the other hand, is not (yet) overly broad, and it’s quite defensible. A very plausible argument can be made that those who feel an urge or duty to introduce other people’s young children to abnormal sexual practices are, whatever their intentions, engaging in something very much like grooming both in practice and outcome.

So long as the phrase is reserved for those who advocate the indoctrination (and that’s what it is) of other people’s young children with sexual ideas parents are likely to find objectionable, and especially if there’s a general understanding that parents do find it objectionable, I think the term is both appropriate and effective.

Incidentally, has anyone, anywhere, heard any proponent of such classroom sexual indoctrination say anything to the effect of “Goodness, I didn’t know how much parents objected to this, but now that I do I’ll certainly be careful not to bring up these subjects with their children?” I haven’t. Let me know if you ever do.