Rep. Andy Barr needs to explain his support of Marjorie Taylor Greene to constituents

Southeast from Wolfe County, Ky., to Dade County, Ga., 294 miles separates Kentucky’s 6th US Congressional district from Georgia’s 14th. The 14th’s Marjorie Taylor Greene has joined the 6th’s Andy Barr in the Republican caucus of the 117th US Congress.

There are 435 voting US House members. Each is an attended princess or prince. The staff watches what is said, how much, to whom and on what topics. Observing members with a committee assignment, say on Financial Services, leads one to question whether the member is a lobbyist masquerading as a congressman or the other way around. We expect this routine and hope that the influence peddling is minimized and that oversight is at least feigned. But some Congressional behavior cannot be tolerated or ignored, and this is what ties these two Congressional districts together.

There’s been 294 miles worth of silence from Rep. Barr regarding Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and her words and behavior during her brief public life.

Let’s forget her embrace of the QAnon (did I spell that right?) lunacy and look at the real threat of Greene.

She Facebook “likes” and warms to the murder US politicians and is eager to speak her violent fantasies.

In a FB post from January 2019, Greene liked a comment that said “a bullet to the head would be quicker” to remove House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

In 2018, she anticipated her own 2020 election. On Jan. 6, she stood before a crowd gathered at the U.S. Capitol. They clamored for the hanging of Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama and she said the ‘stage is being set. Players are being put in place. We must be patient. This must be done perfectly or liberal judges would let them off.’

Greene has an appetite for sadism and self promotion. She had herself filmed while harassing Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg as he walked down a Washington DC sidewalk and street to meet with U.S. Senators. She denies none of the above.

Rep. Barr bears no responsibility for the words or actions of Marjorie Taylor Greene. But he does have an obligation to the voters of the 6th District to share his views on a colleague who encourages the assassination of Congressional leaders and other US politicians. Greene’s depraved taunts of a Parkland Survivor should sicken anyone with a conscience. Silence as consent may be a cliché but if Barr publicly ignores the incitements of Representative Greene, he neglects his duty to protect the US House of Representatives and he sullies what reputation remains. On Thursday, he voted with most of his colleagues against a successful House vote to remove Greene from the education and budget committees.

What Greene and Barr do have in common is their fealty to Donald Trump. By the time a grinning Andy Barr joined hands with Trump at an Oct 13, 2018 Frankfort campaign rally, the president had established himself as a bragging sexual predator (Access Hollywood tapes), a naked racist (persistent Obama birther),and a proud xenophobe (opining about Mexicans as rapists in his June 2016 presidential announcement). Barr’s Georgia counterpart seeks and receives the praises of Trump and apes his incoherent rants as she speaks on the floor of the U.S. House.

Other than its specific duties, the general responsibility of the U.S. House is to perform work in the interest of the public. If a US Representative encourages violence against colleagues and repeats lies as facts, then her colleagues have an obligation to answer. Some of Rep. Barr’s 6th District constituents sympathize with Marjorie but I’m not one of them and he needs to say something to defend the US House and to object to the sitting of Rep. Greene.

Todd Kelly is a nurseryman, gardener, and former Co-Clerk of Lexington Friends Meeting.

This story was originally published February 5, 2021 at 9:05 AM.