Maybe there is something to this “things happen in threes” thing. My skepticism of the topic has been expressed before in this Saturday morning space. Where’s the science? But things do seem to pile up in groups of three.
Upon the death this past week of actor Mark Margolis, I shared the news with my younger brother, a fellow “Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul” fan. Margolis played an interesting bad guy in the two series. (Upon reflection however, almost every character in these two shows were interesting bad guys.)
“Well, that completes that threesome of celebrity deaths,” he replied. “Randy Meisner, Paul Reubens, and Mark Margolis.” I had to look up who Randy Meisner was. Member of the Eagles rock group. Our age difference — almost 10 years — explains my ignorance.
I rarely make copies of articles I read, but I realized Tuesday that I had filed away at least a portion of a third article in as many days. Each struck me as worthy of keeping, perhaps worthy of sharing with someone at sometime. As the week progressed, I came to the conclusion that “someone” is you and “sometime” is now.
Two of the three involve the apparent choices we will have come November 2024; it appears these two will be the best each political party can offer their country. A depressing thought.
Wall Street Journal columnist Holman Jenkins, Jr., wrote an interesting perspective of Hunter Biden and his father. He argues that the father, at the very least, allowed a family environment “in which milking connections to Joe was de rigeur.” What skills and experience did the son have that qualified him to serve on a large, international energy company .. other than that family connection? Burisma lead to then-President Trump’s impeachment for asking about Hunter’s dealings in Ukraine. Mr. Jenkins also feels that appropriate questions should be asked of President Obama, who put his vice-president in charge of rooting out corruption concerns in Ukraine. “Was the Biden family corruption the reason you skipped over your veep and endorsed Hillary in 2016?” Jenkins would ask.
The writer also postulates that the Bidens’ entanglements in Ukraine had “figured into (Putin’s) bet that the U.S. would let Kyiv fall into his pocket.” Jenkins uses the term “geopolitical disaster” in describing the father-son antics.
On the other side of that fence, another article was a bit more specific than a column on this page last week by Cal Thomas, whose essay was titled “The founders warned us.”
Mr. Thomas wrote about the U.S. Constitution’s framers’ warnings about political parties and noted “when polls show a majority of Republicans and Democrats are dissatisfied with the front-runners for president, perhaps it’s time to create another way to select presidential candidates.”
The article I saved, also published in the Journal, included a warning that James Madison and Alexander Hamilton had shared as the Constitution was being framed and debated.
“The only path to a subversion of the republican system of the Country is, by flattering the prejudices of the people, and exciting their jealousies and apprehensions, to throw affairs into confusion, and bring on civil commotion,” Alexander Hamilton wrote in 1790. “When a man unprincipled in private life, desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper…is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity,” Hamilton warned, “he may ‘ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.’”
Who might fit that description?
“The Founders designed a constitutional system to prevent demagogues from sowing confusion and mob violence in precisely this way,” the article continued. “The horizontal separation of powers among the three branches of government would ensure that the House impeached and the Senate convicted corrupt presidents. The vertical division of powers between the states and the federal government would ensure that local officials ensured election integrity.”
The third “keeper” involved one of my favorite authors. I had not been aware that 2023 is the 50th anniversary of the death of J.R.R. Tolkien. Just in case you’re not a fan, he wrote the unsurpassed fantasy works about Middle Earth — “The Hobbit” and “Lord of the Rings.” The article was a brief book review of three newer tomes about his writings. They have been ordered.
That’s an interesting group of three: two reality slaps in the face and one fantasy — an escape from that reality. Frankly, not sure what to make of that.
miller@news-banner.com
