Bewitched, Bothered, and Bedeviled…
Ahh, the lyric seems enticingly appropriate to the president who feels unleashed now that impeachment has led to “meh.” Generally, 45 has been in tirade mode since he entered office as a winner in the Electoral College. His first and only Act while in office has been mostly cast as victim. If this were a Broadway play, a majority of his audience would have left at intermission-I know I would. While Rodgers and Hart have better grammatical skills, Trump kills the verse build up. Viewed through the lens of self-love, the Pal Joey showstopper fits. Trump as both ingenue and cad is a fairly dead-on description of the guy who shmoozes despots while “grabbing pussies,” who courts evangelical Christians while absolving white supremacists. Oh, how this bad actor swells the throbbing steel plated-breasts of his bottomless base.
The bi-polar drama queen wonders why members of his administration are bailing as he vengefully tosses truthtellers and patriots aside. Then, while threatening to “lock ’em up” or worse, he turns face and orders leniency for his loyalist henchmen. Trump is both bothered and “bothering”, bewildered and bewildering; a man as obsessed as he is obsessive. The effect of Trump’s continual barrage of vitriol and bullshit is to inure the rest of us to his cravenness. Meanwhile, his base chimes in like a Greek Chorus on Kool-Aide.
This week, however, may one day be recognized as the beginning of the end. As the Barr Justice Department revealed the depths of its own complicity and surrender to the moron-king — — perhaps, for once, shudders were being felt within its walls. As Barr reacted to Trump’s tweet regarding the sentencing recommendation for Roger Stone, what became more clear was Barr’s discomfort with the president’s impatience. For those who thought Barr’s rebuke of the derelict tweet had signaled a breach between the two, the truth is far worse and sinister. Barr’s reaction actually suggests that he is afraid that their ruse is up. Had Trump waited for Barr to perform his dirty work and then tweeted an attaboy, the effect would have been the same except it would have been veiled. Ah, but alas, Trump’s impulsivity could not be held in check. He believed what Barr was telling him all along. Barr, the horse’s ass whisperer thought that it was he who was the real power behind the throne. After all, wasn’t Trump simply relying on Barr’s perverse reading of the Constitution regarding the powers of the executive branch? Barr had forgotten the lessons of previous whisperers in the administration who all found out that in a perverted political world where the moron is king, those who serve him become his knaves. Ask Mattis, Tillerson, Kelly, et.al.
With Barr’s plan laid bare by Trump, the AG was swimming in a pickle barrel of his own purchase. Barr once noted his reluctance to join the president’s team as a staff lawyer while famously explaining “I didn’t want to stick my head in that meat grinder,” now finds himself grist for the president’s mill. As thousands of current and former Federal Attorneys call for Barr to resign, how long will it take for Trump to turn his favor and his base against his new Roy Cohn? Off in the distance, one can hear a troubled and chagrined AG whistling longingly past a graveyard, an undertaker humming along in the distance:
I ‘ll sing to him, each spring to him
And long for the day when I’ll cling to him
Bewitched, bothered, and bewildered am I…
and Rodgers even added a verse of self-discovery as if to make the miscalculation even more romantic, more whimsical:
After one whole quart of brandy
Like a daisy I awake
With no Bromo Seltzer handy
I don’t even shake
Men are not a new sensation;
I’ve done pretty well, I think
But this half-pint imitation
Put me on the blink…Lorenz Hart & Richard Rodgers
You see, no one escapes this shitstorm unscathed. The cheap price of admission notwithstanding, the expense of leaving is far dearer. It comes at the cost of one’s career — -one’s soul. Those who may have owned one coming in discover in the end their psyches had been picked clean. Bill Barr has chosen his lot. As Trump’s time on stage enters a final act, his Pal Bill is about to be carried off like the others who sacrificed their honor for a few good lines. Theirs was time spent poorly as second billing to a Fool.
(Spoken in the somber manner of Rod Serling as he sums up an episode of The Twilight Zone):
Soulless, Mr. William Barr, lately of the Knights of Columbus and the DOJ, sucked in and swallowed by the Black Hole aka Donald Trump. Bedeviled and betrayed never to be seen or heard from again. A man who mistook power for wisdom, patronizing for patriot. A case to be filed under “T” for “Traitor” …
Originally published at https://www.dailykos.com on February 17, 2020.
