Did anyone else catch any of Bill Barr’s remarks to the City Club of Cleveland this week? I caught part of the Q and A on C-Span radio while driving in my car, and mouth fell (to use a crossword puzzle word) agape. I now see that the entire speech is available at http://www.cityclub.org, and I think I will listen to it.

The gist of the Q and A was two fold. First, not surprisingly, that Bill Barr, during his time as Attorney General, did nothing wrong. But second, that Donald Trump is the worst of the worst.

Barr seemed quite critical of Trump in his answers to several questions, but the highlight was when he was asked if he thought that Donald Trump was mentally fit to be president. His answer (which you may see on Democratic party ads in the future) was extraordinary.

He didn’t answer the question with a straight yes or not. Rather, he said “If you believe in his policies – what he’s advertising to be his policies – he’s the last person that could actually execute them. He doe snot have the discipline, he does not have the ability for strategic thinking or linear thinking, or setting priorities, or how to get things done in the system……It’s a horror show when he’s left to his own devices. You may want his policies, but Trump will not deliver his policies. He will deliver chaos.”

Trump has responded in part, by calling Barr “a weak and slovenly man”.

It could be, of course, that they are both right.

As you know I am sure, this is not the first time that Barr has criticized Trump, and he has written a book “One Damn Thing After Another” that might be worth reading. I don’t know what he said in the book, but I do know that previously he has said that, although he was highly critical of Trump, he would vote for Trump if he were the nominee because even Trump is better than putting the nation at risk with four more years of the progressive Democratic agenda. Whether he still feels this way, I don’t know. I don’t think this question was directly asked of him in Cleveland. The question referenced above was the last question of the morning. It was, in fact, asked by reporter Geraldo Rivera, which makes one wonder if it was prearranged. Inquiring minds would like to know.

I only heard a little of what Barr said otherwise. He was clearly critical of what he called the Democrats attempt to tie Trump to the Russians before and during the Muller investigation. His claim seemed to be that there was no reason for the Democrats to even suggest such a possibility, other than a dastardly attempt to make political hay.

Now I admit that Barr knows, and was privy to, much, much more information than I was on this subject. But based on what I do know and have seen, I don’t understand that reaction for a number of reasons, such as (1) Trump was going to extremes to try to get permission and financial assistance to build a tower in Moscow and pave the way for further development across Russia, (2) Trump has always praised Vladimir Putin’s leadership of the country and even went out of his way to suggest that he valued Putin’s statements to him on Russian intent more than he valued the information provided by the American intelligence organizations, (3) it is clear that Russia created a disinformation campaign to help Trump get elected, (4) the Muller report did not conclude that Trump was not colluding with Russia – it said that there was not enough evidence at this time to reach such a conclusion and (5) Muller was apparently bound by an internal Department of Justice position not to bring charges against a sitting president. We also know that, prior to releasing Muller’s report, Barr – still then Attorney General – issued a brief summary, which distorted some of Muller’s findings. To me, Muller’s findings were not conclusive (and not meant to be), but rather, as the line of “Portnoy’s Complaint” says, “Now vee may perhaps to begin, Yes?”. Of course, with crisis upon crisis, the Muller report seemed to be the end, not the beginning it should have been.

I should conclude this, I guess, with a comment about the Steele dossier and the use of the Steele dossier to get the FISA court to issue a warrant against Trump aide Carter Page. The conclusion of the DOJ inspector general was that the FBI knew that the dossier could not be relied upon, and misrepresented its reliability to the FISA court. OK, I will accept that. But I don’t we ever learned why the Steele dossier was so faulty – and to say that the Clinton campaign paid for it does not answer that question. Am I right in thinking that Steele never resurfaced – does anyone know where he is? He was clearly deemed very reliable at one time. Was there an investigation as to how unreliable the dossier was, and what led to it turning out as it did? I don’t remember one. Was there one that was not disclosed to the public? Inquiring minds want to know once again. And as to Carter Page himself – do you remember when he was on all the cable news shows? He came across as a likeable buffoon, right? Not like someone whose antics should be taken as seriously as apparently they were.

So the whole thing is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. Now, where have a heard that before?

(By the way, I watched zero of the King’s coronation yesterday. But I did see a picture of Camilla with a crown on her head. Talk about a duck out of water…..)