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Book Review: ‘One Damn Thing After Another’ by William P. Barr
When I visit my mother for a week, I will bring two bankers boxes filled with books. Once I get there, I choose ten books to consider reading and put them in a line. Then I generate a random number, and trust that the best book for me to read will come up. “One Damn Thing After Another” came up, the autobiography of former Attorney General William P. Barr. When I got the book, I eagerly read his chapters about the November 2020 election and January 6th. But now I needed to read the “whole damn book.”
The book is very well done. And it changed my mind. After the Mueller Report came out, I posted both the Introduction and Executive Summary on Collusion and Obstruction. (See here.) Barr does a deep dive into the Mueller Report and how Mueller both over-read and under-read his remit. My mind had been marinated in the MSNBC and my own TDS. But now reading Barr’s account led me to the conclusion that the Mueller investigation was a search for not all that much, and was a general waste of time and money. I was stunned. But I changed my mind. And I look forward to the results of the Durham investigation.
Barr does deep dives into a number of issues. His chapter on religious freedom was brilliant and dealt with the nuances of the issue. He also had great chapters on Big Tech, and National Security. It is a great book.
Am I going to talk about November 2022 and January 6th? Nah. It is well written and I agree with it completely. But read it for yourself. It is only 10% of the entire book, and I suggest that you read the first 90% of the book to decide if you are willing to be convinced of a different point of view.
“One Damn Thing After Another” is a good book. I recommend it.
Published in General
This is what I have heard. Since so many people have referenced it, I want to watch it, and then read the reviews and articles.
Some of their criticisms were addressed by D’Souza in an interview with Dan Bongino. Too bad we can’t get D’Souza and his critics on the same stage in a moderated exchange.
Dare I ask the perhaps brazen question: Why can’t we? I just have to wonder whether those intrepid “journalists” of The Bulwark would even think of getting on the same platform as Bongino and D’Souza. In my not so humble opinion, they would be so far out of their league there are no measurements immediately available.
With all due respect, I think that The Bulwark crew can hold their own. My suggestion is for the conversation to be moderated by The Dispatch folks, who are the gold standard, and are Trump Skeptical, not Anti-Trump.
We are reading Voltaire’s Candide for our Book Club right now; one of the major characters is the young Candide’s tutor, Doctor Pangloss, whose philosophy is that “we live in the best of all possible worlds.” After Candide has gotten a taste of what real life is life, outside the cocoon of the Castle he was raised in, he asks the question: “If this is the best of all possible worlds, what are the other ones like?” Your statement brought this to mind– if The Dispatch is the gold standard of “conservative” commentary, what must the others be like? [Author’s note: the above statement was made in jest and should be understood to be mere parody, nothing more nor less.]
I do not understand the difference in these two terms; perhaps you can help me out. Is not being Anti-Trump something like this:
From where I stand, admittedly still searching for answers, that looks mighty ANTI to me and just a tad more than SKEPTICAL. Again, I would appreciate any enlightenment you might be able so share with me.
Respectfully Submitted,
Jim.
That National Review issue with “Against Trump” on the cover was issued during the 2016 GOP primaries, not during the 2016 General Election against Hillary Clinton.
Maybe that matters to some.
Yes. Much was revealed after that and many minds were changed. It was not all about Hillary Clinton either.
Some people didn’t think Trump was the best choice among the multitude of Republicans running for the GOP nomination in 2016, but once Trump won the nomination, many who contributed to that National Review issue “Against Trump” became supportive of Trump against Hillary Clinton.
It is nuances like this that are often omitted. Anyonee who writes anything for National Review is often accused of not only being “Against Trump” in the 2016 GOP primaries but “Never Trump” in the 2016 general election against Hillary Clinton and in the 2020 general election against Joe Biden.
This “Never Trump” moniker might be appropriate for some of those who contributed to that “Against Trump” issue of National Review, but certainly not all of those who contributed.
Considering that I am just a used up Old Country Lawyer, those “nuances” still give me so much trouble and, try as I might, I have never been very good at “nuances.” All I know is what I see, often right here on Ricochet, and I don’t think one needs to be well supplied with a “nuance meter” to see that some people are Never Trumpers and – here’s where I have that “nuance” problem- Trump Skeptical ; to me they are one in the same. And while I’m being so “non-nuanced”, I will observe that I have yet to hear a single Never Trumper /Trump Skeptical apologize for contributing to the election of not only the worst “President’ in American history but, more and more, the most dangerous. It defies imagination that these “Republicans” helped elect a person who calls for regime change in talking about the owner of the largest nuclear stockpile in the world and who sends his minions to declare that we will be in Ukraine until “we” “win it.” This is not to even mention the fact that he doesn’t know where he is half the time–half being charitable. But, when our major cities start glowing, at least we will know we will never have to see another mean tweet– or anything else, for that matter. Those are my non-nuanced thoughts on the matter, sharp edged though they may be. I admittedly get just a little riled up (another non-nuanced phrase) when I see what Never Trumpers helped inflict on our Beloved Nation but no one said it better than @philo in his post of May 22 entitled ” An Honest Accounting: Anti-Trumpism and the Violence Done to the American Traditions of Free and Fair Elections and the Peaceful Transfer of Power.” I recommend it to all Never Trumpers, especially. Nuanced or not. Sincerely, Jim
yeah
It might be my imagination but it seems we are now in a stage where the Trump “Skeptics” are trying to re-tool themselves, take some of Trump’s positions regarding – say -China, and pretending they held them all along. Of course they have so toxified the debate that no one wants to go back to those arguments. For the Never/Skeptic Trumpers because they lost on every count.
There are two factions residing in the GOP. Populists and elites.
The elites screwed up so badly, were so greedy and ignorant of the desires of their voting underlings, they almost literally created the surge of populism in their ranks. The first indication was the TEA Party movement.
Then, once it became clear and Trump took office, they were the primary naysayers. Their skepticism was much more a result of foregone conclusions and closed minds.
I will never trust these people. Not because of their positions on Trump necessarily, because they have shown they don’t understand America. And they reside in an entirely different political realm than I do, regardless of how we label ourselves. I’d vote for Tulsi Gabbard over Mitt Romney. I’m done with these phonies.
The insiders in the GOP are deep-state operatives who are not working for the good of the USA. They may think they are, being told lies by our Intel agencies. And they get rewarded for it. It’s definitely a carrot-and-stick approach. Trump gets the stick. Biden gets the carrot. Our entire corporate media is full of operatives and water-carriers for this cabal that resides at the top and likely throughout our intelligence agencies. It’s obvious.
So, stupid or evil?
My priorities have changed because of the positions taken by my enemies.
Freedom is number 1 that’s the Bill of Rights. Less globalism and involvement in foreign adventures and picking fights with dictators. Some kind of relief to the middle and working classes by way of lower prices, better paying jobs and such. And some kind of curb on these major multinational corporations meddling in social, political and cultural norms. Disney? Twitter? Facebook? Amazon et al. Trump forced many to at least build plants in the USA -something none of these people cared one whit about.
As for me personally, I didn’t vote for either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump in 2016. Also, I didn’t vote for either Joe Biden or Donald Trump in 2020.
Now, I live in Indiana. Indiana voted for Trump in both 2016 and 2020. So, I won’t apologize for my abstentions in 2016 and 2020.
But Joe Biden being a horrible president doesn’t seem to have much relevance to the question of whether the 2020 election was fraudulent.
Remember, Donald Trump’s own Attorney General, Bill Barr, said that there wasn’t fraud on a scale that would have tipped the balance in the 2020 election.
Two things can be true at the same time: [1] Joe Biden could have actually defeated Donald Trump in the 2020 election and [2] Joe Biden could be a really bad president of the United States.
I think you are in the right place. Takes a lot of nuance to get there and hold. Your last paragraph speaks to what I’m referencing.
I think the lack of trust is mutual. There are many people who are “on the right” whom I do not trust and it is a near certainty that they don’t trust people like me.
That’s okay. Clarity is more important than agreement.
It is already in evidence that Barr wasn’t especially keen on researching and drilling down on any of this. It was anathema for anyone to say anything else, anyway. Still is.
That aside, how would Barr know this? When someone makes a definitive statement about something they can’t possibly know raises my suspicions. And he’s a lawyer, so he’s not saying these things willy-nilly, is he?
Unfortunately, Trump didn’t have an experienced stable of freedom-loving Republicans from which to choose, so Barr was never “his own”
This is the number one issue that drives me to the so-called “Right”. One of the very first principles I get to with this is small government with limited powers. This is the path to acceptable trust relationships we once were on but left.
Yes, and to be even more clear, populists supporting Trump were and are much closer to identifying the source(s) of what ails America. The elites (for lack of a better term) proved themselves wrong continually. They believed the Russia hoax, they believed everything and anything negative about Trump and his supporters. Covington kids, you name it. The list is long.
They (you?) are much more paranoid than skeptical.