I am a Japanese-American. If I had lived in the US during World War II, that in itself would have been sufficient basis to be imprisoned without trial for three years. Thousands of young JA men were released from the concentration camps to allow them to serve in the military, most in the highly decorated 442nd Regimental Combat Team in Italy and Germany, and many (like one of my mentors, a retired professor) who served in intelligence and interrogation assignments in the Pacific. Their military service proved they were deserving of full citizenship, including the right to serve in elected office.

African-Americans have served in every war in American history. During the Civil War, a hundred thousand enlisted for the Union; a few even fought for the confederacy. Their noble and brave service tipped the scales of public opnion and laid the groundwork for the amendments to the Constitution that provided equality under the law, finally over the course of a century, for all African-Americans, culminating in the election of a man with an African father being elected president.

Mormons have served honorably in the US military since 1847. Many have graduated from the service academies, and a few have gone on to win the highest honors or be promoted to general officer rank. They have earned the right to full citizenship in America, including being elected to any office of public trust.

Gallup: Palin and Romney top two contenders for 2012

The headline itself is doubly curious to me, given who topped the poll, let alone Gallup’s own emphasis on the no-name alternative in the Obama matchup.

The real message for Republicans (and the party itself, in particular) from these poll results, in my opinion, is that there is a real opportunity here given Pres. Obama’s falling numbers–but it’s one that the “stupid party” is very capable of blowing entirely precisely because of the big divides within the party–and a huge number of self-identified Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who don’t have a “just off the top of your head” preference at this point. (BTW, this Gallup poll was before Palin’s speech to the “Tea Party Convention.”)

As much as I may feel like the country would lose out on incredible leadership from a Mitt Romney candidacy, I am reluctantly coming to the conclusion that Romney may best serve the GOP and the country right now as a party-builder in a background role (like his efforts on behalf of Sen. Brown’s campaign). The “Romneyesque” meme, and the all-too-easy, but missing-the-forest-for-the-trees, attacks from both the conservative and religious “purist” wings of the GOP (to say nothing of the glee with which the left and the MSM spout the same rhetoric), may have rendered Mitt Romney as unelectable as similar constant carping (from what I would characterize as the elitist intellectual and establishment “purist” wings of the GOP) have seriously hobbled Sarah Palin. Do these folks have no clue how damaging their crusades are to the GOP cause generally and are undoubtedly cheered, and even abetted by, the Democrats and theh Left, who can only be pleased as punch (to quote Hubert Humphrey) that factions within the GOP are all too willing to do the dirty work to undermine the strongest potential GOP challengers? I say it’s fine to work for other candidates, but find someone to work FOR and with, don’t just cast aspersions (and worse) on the only people our side getting any real attention!

On another note, thank you for posting the link to David French’s recollections of his stint in Iraq. It brings to mind one of my favorite quotes from Michael Lewis’s long article, The Ballad of Big Mike, from 2006 in New York Times Magazine and adapted from his book The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game (and the basis for the current hit movie, “Blind Side”):

”The Mormons may be going to hell,” Sean [Tuohy] says. ”But they really are nice people.”

While I suspect Lewis included this quote as a slam (supporting his “great Mormon grade-grab” characterization of the use of online courses from BYU’s independent learning program to help qualify Michael Oher to play NCAA football, a side-story not included in the movie), I have taken the first half of Tuohy’s comments as a theological conclusion, not as a personal attack on me as a Mormon, and the second half as vindicating the importance of working together with “nice people” of all stripes (and despite theological differences) toward common, worthwhile goals. May Sean Tuohy’s and David French’s tribes increase!