Think about it, the CIA told him to go Deep State and sent him to GWU night school (the same school that Chuck Todd could not managed to graduate from).
"After cutting short his intelligence career, Barr clerked for a federal judge in the U.S. Court of Appeals, worked in private practice, and did a stint as a domestic policy adviser under President Ronald Reagan. He then returned to private practice before joining the Bush campaign in 1988, where he helped select then-Indiana Sen. Dan Quayle to be the vice president's running mate.""Barr has emerged as a sometimes defender of the president in the press. In 2017, he told The New York Times that the Justice Department may have more cause to look at a controversial uranium deal involving Hillary Clinton than any alleged collusion between Mr. Trump and Russia." [ed.note: Oh, hello tagline]
A 2nd term domestic policy analyst under Reagan? Now we know who prompted discussion of consolidating/eliminating Dept. of Education! And of course, even Reagan fell prey to the argument that eliminating Cabinets eliminates Executive power.
I like your thinking on Barr. And I hope the Senate will scratch his itch quickly so we can see what his various govt and private experiences have made him into today. I don't recall having any serious reservations about him back in the glory days of the Reagan era.
I do, though, think you might be off a few years in your quote above. Dept of Ed Secretary Bell, Reagan 1st term, from the beginning was expected by many to help eliminate his own dept. Nowadays we'd say the swamp got him as he later became a driving force to save the dang dept.
Coincidentally, my father was appointed by Reagan as special asst to Bell for a year or so in the early days. As an outsider, my old man (a professor of education administration, retired but still kicking hard, thank the Lord) was frustrated by the high gravity of power in DC, even for a dept that had only been born one admin prior. Young or old, central power does not devolve easily. Reagan, like Trump made some dept head picks which did not work out as planned. Leading some campaign promises / goals on to failure.
But definitely the idea to eliminate Fed Ed was there from the start of the RR revolution. Not just a second term domestic policy item - Bell's turncoat (IMO) influence had already watered/drown the momentum by then as I recall. To be fair, Bell did advocate a relatively light-handed Fed Ed. But as you know, such a creature exists only in mythology.
Reagan had a much clearer mission than Trump, one in pursuit of making America free again.
Trump has a much fuzzier mission, one in pursuit of some subjective greatness. But he loves America, has big balls and learns quickly. Hopefully, someday Reagan's brighter vision will come out of Trump's bigger mouth.