In the company of Washington, Lincoln and Roosevelt

In his column today Michael Barone adds an element of numerological analysis to his usual brilliant political analysis: “Four score and two.” An unidentified friend points out to Barone the significant event that occurred 72 years ago this month, in March 1932. Barone being Barone, this gets him thinking about what happened 72 years earlier, in March 1861, and 72 years before that, in 1789. (Okay, okay, four score and two is 82; I didn’t write the heading for the column.)
As he projects his numerological analysis forward to the present, Barone is slightly more diffident than he is looking back on 1789, 1861 and 1933 with the perspective afforded by 216, 144, and 72 years, respectively. Perhaps he doesn’t want to join the exotic company of numerologists via the Kabbala and I Ching, but I’m buying it. His analysis is sufficiently persuasive to make me a convert to numerology. In this case, we can conclude that 2005 is a turning point in which men — first and foremost, President Bush — matter.

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