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“I do think that there is a problem here when we talk about temperament and empathy. You know, we are not selecting a house pet. We’re selecting a Supreme Court justice and as an academic I have a certain bias. And that is does she have the intellectual throw weight to make a difference on the court? And I have to tell you the optics are better than the opinions in this case. I’ve read a couple of dozen of her opinions. They don’t speak well to her being a nominee on the Supreme Court. She will be historic in many ways like Thurgood Marshall but I’ll remind you Thurgood Marshall was not a lasting intellectual force on the court. He was historic because he was first. And I think that a lot of academics are a little bit disappointed. . . . Frankly, a lot of academics are going to be timid because they don’t want to be viewed as opposing her. But you will see some focus on the opinions.”

 
– George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley (photo above), on MSNBC’s “Hardball” commenting on the qualifications of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.

TRILLIONS.

” Trillions” is a designation previously reserved  for describing the distance to  stars and      planets in OTHER solar systems.  Now Washington officials are throwing the dollar figure around like it’s just large enough to be a band aid.

I recently had the opportunity to sit down in a roundtable setting with Governor Mitt Romney, who has been anything but silent about the dark abyss that is becoming our national economy.   Governor Romney offered some sobering facts.  He said that in order to pay back the giant wall of debt accrued in the U.S. in the last eight months,  our children will have to pay double the taxes we pay today.  He also noted that current government records show that only  42% of Americans are paying taxes…at all.  President Obama’s far-reaching economic stimulus plan will bring that figure up to 50%.   

I know, that’s a fairly grandiose title for this post;  the gay marriage debate is about many things.  For one thing, gays want acceptance, and that basic human desire looms large in the discussion.  So does the desire of traditional marriage proponents to uphold the ideal of a family that includes both a father and a mother.

All those important elements aside, I think the crux of the public debate in the coming years will be this question:  In the context of marriage, is sexual preference the same as race? In other words, is opposition to gay marriage the same as opposition to interracial marriage?

Understanding the two principal competing answers to that question is crucial to understanding the nature of the national conversation that is under way right now.

After a long day of responding to the media, making up for TV, dragging my laptop life to a press conference, praying that protesters wouldn’t find our location, delivering the message, crawling back into my car, driving an hour and a half  in heavy traffic, arriving at home victorious and having survived another historic day  in the battle over marriage in California, I walked through the front door eager to be welcomed  and suffocated with questions about all of my important work.

Instead my daughter greeted me with, “The fish died today.”

Perspective settled in.

My inaugural post for this blog will be a Memorial Day remembrance about a pivotal moment in World War II and one of the men who willingly made the ultimate sacrifice in that moment.

Operation Tidal Wave: The Ploesti oil fields raid

This Deseret News article tells part of the story of one pilot and his plane’s role in the pivotal Ploesti oil fields raid on August 1, 1943 (artist’s rendition at left). It was a harrowing low-altitude bombing mission.