One Damn Thing After Another by William Barr

I’ve been reading One Damn Thing After Another by William P. Barr (or as I refer to it: “one damn page after another”) since June 9th; July 10th I was halfway through it, finishing it August 21. The audiobook is 22 hours long, and I contemplated why such long biographies weren’t published in smaller volumes, such as two eleven hour audiobooks. I believe the reason is the sales of subsequent volumes might be significantly lower than the first one, so from that standpoint, better to cram it all into one product to market. 

Barr’s high school goal was to specialize in China during his post secondary academic study and become head of the CIA. When his first child Mary was born with a heart issue requiring surgery, the quality of health insurance caused him to seek employment in a law firm.   

My favorite parts of this book were those about his childhood, the discussion of death sentencing, his in depth discussion of the 2020 George Floyd incident and its nationwide aftermath, and the DOJ intervention in inequities of Covid-19 restrictions (he describes Fauci as the “consummate bureaucrat” with “lackluster” performance during AIDS).  

While listening to Barr’s audiobook, a New York State Supreme Court judge ruled that New York’s regulation establishing isolation and quarantine procedures related to COVID-19 and other highly communicable diseases violates state law and is void and unenforceable.  

Barr met George Herbert Walker Bush at age 25 when he accompanied him to Congressional investigations of the CIA in the capacity of a legal advisor, and he cites GHW Bush’s influence in the CIA during his 1 year tenure as it’s head during a period of challenges to its authority and integrity, by the fact their facility is named in his honor.  

Barr was friends with Bob Mueller before he came to be Trump’s AG, as well as Mike Pompeo and Gina Haspel: “I found Mike and Gina immensely talented, quality people, and I became friends with both of them. I heard later that Mike was among those encouraging the President to consider me as the replacement for AG Jeff Sessions.”  

After his swearing in as Trump’s AG, Barr catered an all afternoon reception in the AG suite for all DOJ personnel at headquarters, staggering the attendance of different departments so everyone could be accommodated over the course of the afternoon. He remarks, “The [Department of Justice] employees who had been at the department for more than 25 years, made a point of telling me they remembered me from the first time. I was surprised how many there were.”   

In talking about the Jeffrey Epstein suicide in the context of so many security protocols failing simultaneously, Barr maintains that thorough investigation failed to show criminal activity or evidence of murder. He uses Hanlon’s razor as an apt explanation: Don’t ascribe malice, when stupidity is a sufficient explanation.  

So much of this book, perhaps half of it, was his excruciatingly detailed justifications of what he did, why he did it, and why he was right to do what he did. These diatribes made the book a long slog for me. One might wonder if he was being paid by the word. As I read, I was haunted by the specter that with better editing, this could have been a great memoir of his life. William Morrow was the publisher, but I suspect in their eagerness to get this title out onto the mass market, they didn’t want to rock his boat too much. Perhaps this book could have been better for readers if Barr wasn’t so angry when he wrote it, and feeling the need to justify himself on so many fronts.