Andy Barr once voted his conscience, but now he’s taking no chances | Opinion

Republican Congressman Andy Barr’s op-ed last Sunday taking the Biden Administration to task becomes even more fascinating when his strident foreign affairs philosophies are applied across a swath broader than the Middle East. One wonders whether Barr’s conscience comes into play.

Barr wrote that Biden shouldn’t criticize Israel publicly (which the president didn’t do for six months despite 30,000 deaths of noncombatant Palestinians), shouldn’t “assert that Israeli forces have violated international law” (which the administration did not assert), and shouldn’t “pause military aid to Israel” (which hasn’t been done: Barr thinks “legal standards governing armed conflict” are “complex,” but Biden’s conditional red lines on aid isn’t).

Yet consider these strident contentions in Barr’s own words and ponder the hypocrisy:

Barr decries Biden’s “lack of steadfastness in supporting our allies,” and warns that “simplistic narratives … should not dictate U.S. foreign policy. The U.S. has a responsibility to support its allies unequivocally.”

“Unequivocally” but not quickly, eh? Barr couldn’t mean “support” like he and his fellow Republicans in Congress showed by delaying military aid to Israel for six months while the MAGA wing threatened their House Speaker if he included aid to Ukraine.

Ukraine, as in another ally of the United States, an ally that should receive “unequivocal” support?

And would “lack of steadfastness in supporting our allies” apply to, say, a threat to ignore Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. That’s the pledge to deem an attack on any NATO country an attack on all NATO members.

Barr’s party’s presidential candidate, a now-convicted felon, crossed that line and went further, inviting Russian president Vladimir Putin to “do whatever the hell you want” to any NATO member in Europe who doesn’t pay enough in military dues for NATO.

The NATO requirement for defensive spending as a share of a country’s Gross Domestic Product could be considered a “complex” formula: NATO’s Web site tries to explain it in 1,024 words. Still, thank you Donald Trump, we can reduce it all to a “simplistic narrative.”

Biden’s actions against Israel are a “blatant betrayal of our ally,” Barr wrote. Once we could have hoped Barr might find Trump’s own stances a tad less “supportive” of allies than Barr thinks the United States should show.

But Barr has surrendered his spine, and this does shock the senses. In 2021, on the day of an attempted insurrection and attack on the U.S. Capitol, Barr was as threatened as anyone in Congress.

Hours later, police and national guard retook the building and legislators finished the work of certifying the election. Scores of Republicans, despite no evidence of mass voting illegality in any state, still refused to vote to certify the election.

Barr was not one of those Republicans. He did what was right: he voted to certify the election results that made Joseph Biden president, a necessary move to assure the peaceful transfer of power.

Barr clearly, however—and probably rightfully so—feared backlash. Thus he wrote an incredible “letter” to his constituents, “incredible” in part because of its mass, 2,415 words—that would be a 10-page term paper for a college student—imploring his faithful to understand he had no other choice. In the missive, Barr analyzed the 12th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, as an originalist would, and the 1876 law clarifying the role of Congress (which still wasn’t clear enough for all Republicans), and all but begging forgiveness. He said he had to vote his conscience.

With Trump’s conversion of the GOP into a cult, Barr has read the writing on the wall and has thrown his lot in with the followers. After Trump’s conviction by a New York jury 10 days ago, Barr, an attorney by education, called the prosecutor “corrupt,” and Trump’s trial a “sham … marked by outrageous and unconstitutional tactics.” Barr knows this without having attended a day of the five-week trial.

Barr’s parroting of the MAGA line shows he’s taking no more chances: his conscience is on its own.

Larry Riley is a former newspaper columnist in Muncie, Ind., and journalism/writing instructor at Ball State University, now living in Georgetown.

This story was originally published June 3, 2024 at 1:38 PM.