Thursday, July 4, 2019

William Barr Laughs at Homer—but He Doesn’t Get the Joke

https://www.thedailybeast.com/william-barr-laughs-at-homerbut-he-doesnt-get-the-joke?ref=scroll&fbclid=IwAR3zdPdp0XwibfKoH5Wz6ljCJE80SgA97-nXxCGjDngl-DDhHQDRMkAmCB8
"It was surprising on Friday to hear Attorney General William Barr use the heroic ethos to explain his decision to spend the twilight of his career obstructing justice. Asked in a CBS interview if he minded very much that a lot of people have come to think a lot less of him, Barr noted philosophically: I am at the end of my career. Everyone dies, and I am not, you know, I don’t believe in the Homeric idea that, you know, immortality comes by, you know, having odes sung about you over the centuries. Barr was laughing by the time he got to the part about Homer—genuinely mirthful, unselfconscious laughter, the sort you expect other people to join in with because they’re in on the joke. Up to that point, though, his demeanor had been somber if not downright grave, sitting there up in Alaska, where he was being filmed before a crackling fire in his plaid dress shirt and fleecy vest (the thinking-person's Christmas catalogue model) and speaking in hushed tones carefully laced with vocal fry. Observing that at his time of life and in this partisan climate he didn’t care what people thought, he seemed almost sad, or like a man trying to appear almost sad. The subtext, anyway, was that he was taking one for the team."