Three-Point Shots, Vol. 2, No. 8: July 5, 2024

Take the quiz! Also, thoughts on Biden’s dilemma and the SCOTUS travesty, and a trilingual joke for your weekend.

         Welcome to another edition of Three-Point Shots, a part of my Life Its Ownself Substack page. If you enjoy reading it, please 1) hit the Like button, 2) subscribe to the Life Its Ownself, and 3) share it with others in the link below. Comments are welcome and encouraged.

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Friday, July 5, 2024

1.   Biden is out. The only questions are how and when.

         In the wake of President Biden’s disastrous debate performance last week – can you believe it was only eight days ago? – the Biden family and palace guard have rallied to his defense. So have many rank-and-file Democrats who admire Biden’s leadership and genuinely impressive record. The message is, “one bad debate performance does not an election make.”

         But here’s the problem: millions of Americans did not see a bad debate performance; they saw a President having a health event. They saw an old man lose his way on national TV.

         And tellingly, in all the White House’s protestations of Biden’s competence and energy since then, we haven’t seen Biden being a vigorous, energetic presidential candidate, flying around the country to prosecute the case against the Orange Mad King. Which is exactly what we needed to see. Instead, Biden told governors he will be going to bed earlier.

         These things only go in one direction: towards entropy and eventual resignation. Two examples from (relatively) recent history:

A.

         On July 13, 1972, George McGovern announced Thomas Eagleton as his running mate on the last night of the Democratic National Convention in Miami.

         Within a few days, rumors and then news stories appeared reporting that Eagleton previously had been hospitalized for depression, even receiving electro-shock therapy.

         At first, McGovern was supportive and, at a campaign stop in Hawaii, Eagleton said, "I'm not quitting, I'm not getting out, we're going to win this election, and I'm going to be the next vice president of the United States."

         Sound familiar?  But it was not to be. Eighteen days after accepting the nomination, Eagleton withdrew from the ticket.

B.

         In 1987, Colorado Senator Gary Hart (coincidentally, McGovern’s campaign manager back in 1972) was considered the front-runner for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination. However, rumors of extramarital affairs began to surface. Hart dared reporters to follow him, and they soon discovered him in the company of a young woman named Donna Rice.

         Hart at first brazened it out, denying any impropriety, but suspended his campaign two days later.

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         Is there any scenario in which Biden transcends the picture he painted for millions of Americans and goes on to win reelection? Here’s a tell: Donald Trump has been astonishingly quiet this last week; he desperately wants the Dems to keep Biden at the top of the ticket.

         Take the following poll and let me know what you think about Biden’s future:

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2. Two Thoughts on Trump v. United States

        Trump vs. United States may turn out to be of the most consequential Supreme Court opinions of this century, like Brown v. Board of Education or New York Times Co. v. Sullivan last century. It deserves far more study and some passage of time. However, two thoughts:

        First, this could only have been decided this way because of Donald Trump. No other president in history would have presented the same cascade of criminal behavior complex legal issues to the Supreme Court. SCOTUS had to build a series of loopholes big enough to fly Air Force One through, because it was protecting a President who’d made a mockery of the established norms of personal and presidential behavior.

        Second, SCOTUS got it backwards. 248 years ago, we rebelled against a tyrant who flouted laws and conventions in order to terrorize the colonists an ocean away. Then we designed a system of government whose first goal was to protect the citizens from a repeat of such tyranny. The Constitution, the laws and the courts are supposed to protect us from tyrants, not the other way around.

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3.     Summer Storms in the Mountains

        During the last two days, late afternoon storms rolled into Marathon, dropping the temperatures by 15 degrees or more and giving the ground a good soaking. Delightful!

        This reminded me of the summer of 1982, which I spent at a language school in Cuernavaca, Mexico. This was when I was a monk, and I had been assigned to do parish ministry in a heavily Hispanic parish on Fort Worth’s near south side. To prepare, I went there with two friends, Jim and Eddie, who were joining me in that ministry.

        We lived with a family, who were instructed to speak only in Spanish in everything but emergencies. We attended classes for five hours a day. Afterwards, we would frequently stop for an early-afternoon beer before heading home.

        One of the delights of my time there was the mid-afternoon thunderstorms that would sweep in from the mountains, cool and freshen the air, and then wander off within a half-hour.

        Another delight was the siesta, religiously observed in that household from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m., and a delightful institution that should be universally practiced and honored.

        In Cuernavaca, I also learned my first tri-lingual joke, which I leave with you:

Two elderly men, strangers to each other, are sitting on a park bench on a lovely spring morning. A beautiful young woman, clad in a short, colorful sundress, walks by. As she passes them, a gust of wind blows the sundress upon around her waist, revealing that she wears no panties.

“C’est la vie,” says the first man, a Frenchman.

“Yo también,” says the second, a Spaniard.

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Food for Thought …

… Take a gander at my friend Jim Moore’s latest post in his Texas To The World Substack, “A Speech for the American President”

… When your presidential campaign is defending this battleground, it’s time to pack it in.