is look at Bob Barr
to know what he is.
TUESDAY, MAY 12th 1998 --- New York (APJP) -The first thing one has to assess when considering Bob Barr as a serious player in Washington is where he comes from.
FEATURE
Bob Barr -- Posing As a Constitutional Defender
What he really is will disgust you.
All you have to do
is look at Bob Barr
to know what he is. TUESDAY, MAY 12th 1998 --- New York (APJP) -The first thing one has to assess when considering Bob Barr as a serious player in Washington is where he comes from.
One of six children, Barr spent his youth moving around the globe with his engineer father -- living in Iran, Panama and Asia. He claims this made him patriotic, although it might well be that his Dad passed some appreciation for America to his son.
Barr was a typical geek in college. He chose USC -- the antithesis of liberal UCLA in Los Angeles -- for his education. As Melinda Henneberger of the New York Times put it, "While Mr. Clinton was protesting the Vietnam War and smoking dope, Mr. Barr 'found other outlets for youth.' " Of course, Ms. Henneberger has no clue whether Bill Clinton was smoking dope and seems too adolescent to recall the horrors of our Vietnam policy -- one that Barr embraced during his stint as a member of the "Trojan Republican Club" at USC. Anyone 45 or older can imagine what drove Barr to participate in such a group during the late sixties and early seventies. One thing is for sure -- it wasn't to meet women!
Barr's family were ardent right-wingers, and while he claims to have once flirted with joining the Democrats, his mother, according to Henneberger, threatened to cut him off, calling him a "flaming liberal." Most boys at that age would rebel, but Barr wanting to please Mommy, joined the GOP.
He was an ardent Nixonite until Nixon attacked the CIA. Then Barr turned on him and began to make cutting remarks to 60s counterculturists -- with a hatred that can still be witnessed today. One can only wonder why.
What drove young Bob Barr to select a future so out of step with his peers -- a future linked to the most repugnant policies of both parties at the time?
One clue is that Barr feels sorry for himself. He whines about being short and how he was picked on as a kid. "When I was young I was teased very maliciously at some times and I'm sensitive to that. I was short. I have scars on the side of my head from an operation [lobotomy?]. I was chosen last for team sports and had no close friends."
Well Bob, couldn't you figure it out for yourself? You were a dweeb, a geek, the one in ten thousand of your age who actually thought Republicans were great people -- and in the sixties, no less!
Barr, best known for abusing his marriage -- and now for physically abusing an airport security guard -- was the sole participant in the "Impeach Clinton" movement, a "Congressional" initiative he started on his own with little power or authority to do so.
But it makes sense: here's a man who enjoys sniping at power. A man who was abused by kids with more power than he had as a teen. A man whose mother threatened to cut him off without tuition if he moved even an inch from the right.
The result, a publicly self-deprecating fellow who one the one hand hides behind the constitution, on the other hurls obscenities and physically strikes out at a female airport security guard earning minimum wage, and is married to woman who says the incident with the security guard reminds her of the time she was delayed by security: "They were all from other countries and they were talking about me in their language, and I couldn't even tell what they were saying." It seems one paranoid married another.
Barr delights in the cancellation of Ellen, is moved to become a federal prosecutor rather than a defense attorney, and thinks Robert E. Lee is "one of the great figures" because Lee believed in holding leaders accountable. Of course, Barr probably doesn't understand that Lee himself was held accountable -- for supporting slavery in order to make himself and his allies wealthier on the backs of poor uneducated Africans that Lee willingly imported to American shores. Does Barr think he and his Southern buddies should hold Lee accountable for supporting such a society? In the same mouthful, Barr there are things such as "our Southern heritage" (Barr was a Northerner and CHOSE to move to the south - if you can believe that ) than whether the economy is running well.
Of course, taking that swipe at Clinton is merely demonstration of Barr's ignorance. His pal Robert E. Lee was fighting purely for economic reasons -- a southern economy based on the sweat and blood of slaves. Under Barr's theory, Lee should have been hanged.
To give credit where credit it due, Barr doesn't think he is too smart. We agree.
Best known as a champion of gay-bashers and an ardent sponsor of something called the "Defense of Marriage Act" -- will someone please explain to me how exactly this bill defends our marriages? -- Barr shows his cards handily.
Twice divorced himself, Barr takes every opportunity to vilify same-sex marriage and to link the president with homosexuals.
Need we say more?
- The Editors
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