Who are you who can summon fire...

...without flint or tinder?

There are some who call me... Tim.

There is a Narrative Rule of Three that most everyone soaks up through their skin by the time they hit the third grade.

It’s true in jokes – almost always it’s a priest, a rabbi and a shoe salesman from Utica who walk into a bar...or the three remarkable things Pepe the peg-legged pig had done before he lost a ham.

It’s an evident bit of short-hand that crops up in Star Trek episodes where the plot requires quick exposition about the past. Whatever the subject, there were always the two you knew about – Seka and Jenna Jameson – and the Trek Future one you didn’t (T’aint, High Ovipositor of the Poontangian Knobblers.)

(Which could lead me down the garden path into a discussion of the Book for Mark, the chiasmic form, hermeneutics and a fun, punch-em-in-the-throat point to raise during any argument with a Fundy about how the literary structure of the Gospels themselves argue powerfully against them being literal...but that’s a different chat for a different day.)

The Rule of Three works for no more complicated reason than...it works. It snuggles into the memory just right to that one you remember the first part of the joke, the last 2/3’s just come naturally to mind .

So what does this story have to do with that?

October 7, 2005
Justice Department Nominee Tied to Lobbyist Withdraws
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
WASHINGTON, Oct. 7 - President Bush's pick for the second-ranking position at the Justice Department abruptly withdrew his nomination today after facing weeks of questions over his ties to the lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his role in formulating torture policies, officials said.

The nominee, Timothy Flanigan, was scheduled to face yet another round of questioning next week from senators who had grown increasingly skeptical about his nomination as deputy attorney general.

Of chief concern to Democrats and some Republicans was Mr. Flanigan's role at Tyco as general counsel in overseeing the lobbying work of Mr. Abramoff in pushing for Tyco and other companies to maintain their tax-exempt status.

Officials say Mr. Flanigan's withdrawal reflects the fact that Mr. Abramoff has become so tarnished that anyone connected to him risks significant political damage in Washington, including Tom Delay.
...

White House officials and Senate Republicans were saying as recently as late September that they were confident that Mr. Flanigan would be confirmed. But Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee continued to express concerns that Mr. Flanigan had not been forthcoming about his relationship with Mr. Abramoff.

...

Well, I’ll tell you.

There was a moment when Gerald Ford (who was graceful athlete in real life) stumbled once too often. When his tripping and falling had fallen into such perfect synch with the caricature of him that was going out on SNL that he reached a point where, if he tripped one more time on camera, this reputation as a bumbler would be cemented irretrievably into place.

Then he damned near took a header off of the stairway on Air Force One and that was that.

It didn’t settle the presidential race, but it created an iron box of narrative out of which Gerry could never escape. Every time he fucked up – like announcing that there was no Communist influence in Communist-conquered Poland – the public would roll their eyes, and his supporters would cringe.

I watched the Tim Flanigan story for a few days precisely because it was a “small” story. Below the fold to be sure, but one that was pushed off the front page not by a Runaway Blonde, but by (among other things) even larger, more vivid Republican fuckups and malfeasance.

I would argue that the Tim Flanigan story was the Lame Duck tipping point. Not a big, flashy milestone, but an important one nonetheless. This was the place where Creepy, Dopey, Doc and Drinky in the GOP finally sat up and noticed that Dubya literally doesn't know anyone except hacks, pettifoggers, cronies and family drool bucket swabber-outers.

By itself it made the rounds for a few days, and in the future Tim Flanigan will be remembered as “and who was that guy who just pulled his name when they found out he was just another Brownie?” but as it made the rounds it became that third line of the larger story.

It became Gerry Ford falling one his ass one more time.

It became a last brick in the “Dewey, Cheat’em and Flanigan” joke that has now become the defining narrative cage inside of which the Bush Administration will spend its next, three miserable years.