Two for One? Three for One? Birds, Frogs, Stones, or Trifectas

Posted by Ruth O’Brien

Hitting Huma Abedin (in her “good wife” role) is not just hitting Hillary and knocking out Anthony Weiner (and raising the disgust of many leaders in the Democratic party, aside from Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi), it’s the perfect trifecta to go from sullying to revelation or revival of the morality of the GOP.

Perhaps I overuse the phrase I learned growing up in Kern County (a Tea Party stronghold)  — kill two birds with one stone.  I went to church; I even attended Bible school or study as a child and a teen.  As a child, I went because I had no choice (I got tired of the Bible teachers’ not explaining what adultery was, and I was naïve, so I kept asking).  I also attended Bible study very briefly as a teen, as much for social reasons as religious ones.  Here I got tired of my mother’s complaints that the Bible school teachers emphasized revelations too much.  By then, though, I wasn’t paying much attention to hail or frogs falling from heaven.

In raising my own children, I’ve tried to explain that we’re secular Christians or cultural Christians.  None of this has hit home with them.  I know this because a number of years ago, one of my sons, who was tired of my hitting two birds with one stone, said in exasperation:  “Mom! Everyone doesn’t think it’s a good idea to kill two birds.”

I looked at him stunned, and rather impressed that he had heard me.  So I asked him why not?  As it happens, he liked birds more than stones at the time.  Yet he also didn’t necessarily like efficiency when it came to conflict.  I was proud that what is call an ethic of care had been heard at home.  (We prefer an ethic rather than a morality burdened by universal truths.  We all have a penchant for particular truths and many perspectives).

I was also proud of my son’s logic, even if it is foreign to a cultural or secular Christian like me.

Now the GOP has picked up on this, but it’s more the domino or ripple effect: Make fun ofAnthony Weiner to hit Huma to hit Hillary, and hopefully it will also bounce back and even hit Barack too.  Are we talking about one stone or a plague of frogs?  I’m not sure.  Clearly, we will have three more years to find out