In the movie Goldfinger, Auric Goldfinger said, “Mr. Bond, they have a saying in Chicago: ‘Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.’” While not all actions that happen in threes can be chalked up to enemy action, the point made by one of James Bond’s most memorable enemies can still be applied to many other circumstances. Consistent repetition often starts to cross the line from random chance to a pattern.

Applying this lesson to a situation a bit closer to our own lives than nuclear attacks on Fort Knox leads to noticing a pattern emerging within the ranks of our beloved student government. Three prominent members of the far-left For Accessibility, Community and Empowerment of Students slate, Brian Benford, Kyle Szarzynski and Katrina Flores, have resigned or were removed from their Associated Students of Madison elected positions in the past five weeks.

Szarzynski was the only one of the three to be removed from his position, which happened after he missed seven Student Services Finance Committee meetings since the beginning of summer, more than the allowable number of absences. Benford resigned from his position as a member of Student Council before the Oct. 14 meeting after missing six consecutive meetings and only having attended the first two. Flores resigned from her position on Student Council before last Wednesday’s meeting as a result of accumulated absences that were approaching the number that would necessitate removal.

I’m not one to question the personal reasons behind these decisions to no longer fulfill the duties they were elected to perform in last April’s elections. It’s not hard to understand why someone would prioritize other things above sitting through ASM meetings that often last ‘til midnight, and for Szarzynski on SSFC, happen twice a week.

However, there are questions that must be asked in light of the pattern of absenteeism from members of the far-left leadership. When a group chooses a candidate — in this case, Benford — to run for ASM Chair, and he can only manage to make it to the two meetings where the chair is being elected and then doesn’t bother to show up to the rest of the meetings before resigning, student voters are justified in being skeptical of that group of students. If you weren’t willing to commit to even showing up for the first half of your term, why run at all? Why not give someone else who does have the time and is willing to make that commitment the chance to represent and serve students?

It’s also important to keep in mind that the grouping of these three resignations together is not making some arbitrary distinction. By joining FACES, they and the other members who choose to tag themselves with this designation willfully and intentionally grouped themselves together for political purposes. They formed the ASM version of a political party, the entire point of which is to group oneself with others to get voters to judge candidates on the basis of their affiliations rather than their individual merits. Well, that and ballot access purposes, but that’s not really an issue in ASM elections.

This is not intended to imply that all members of FACES and other affiliated campus far-left politicians don’t bother to serve out their commitments to public office. Just look at Wyndham Manning. He hasn’t resigned yet. But, if you reject the idea that those seeking office grouped with on political ideology shouldn’t be at least partially judged together, then you better be able to say that nothing George Bush did influenced your vote or your perceptions of Republicans in any way whatsoever. I thought so.

All too often the political memory of students is incredibly short. It’s at least somewhat understandable given the high turnover rate of both students and our student representatives, but this is a great example of why we have to take lessons learned this fall semester and apply them to other political questions that will arise throughout the year. Did I hear someone say District 5?

Patrick McEwen ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in nuclear engineering.