William Barr Speaks Truth to (Illegitimate) Power

When E. F. Hutton speaks, people listen. When William Barr speaks, call an electrician.

Mental circuits trip and temperament fuses blow. The attorney general, bucking the behavior of attorneys generally, displays all the emotion of a mortician, approaches an audience with the calm detachment of a psychiatrist, and speaks in the reading-room volume of a librarian. His bearing rarely proves contagious.

“The person in the white coat is not the grand seer who can come up with the right decision for society. A free people makes its decision through its...