There's an old episode of the West Wing in which the issue of a flag-burning comes up. A pollster shows Bartlett's people the numbers, which show that support of a constitutional amendment banning flag-burnin would be a big win politically for him. Ideologically they are opposed to it--and as the president says, "People spend a great deal of time and energy on this issue, which leads me to ask, is there an epidemic of flag-burning I don't know about?"

Another pollster, Joey Lucas, played by Marlee Matlin, saves the day. She says that the previous pollster wasn't asking the right questions. Yes, people support a ban on flag-burning, but they weren't asked how important that issue was to them. Very few would felt strongly enough about that one issue to actually change their vote because of it.

I was thinking about that today as I watched the vote on the PUP report. As Grace said tonight, in the PCUSA, majority rules. But I wonder how many of those 57% who voted "yea" felt *very strongly* about that action, as opposed to those who were supportive of recommendation five, but had some reservations. Same goes for the "no" votes. How many felt like this was going to mean The Demise of the PCUSA, and how many voted "no" because of just a little bit of unease about what it might mean?

Such an assessment is necessarily a subjective call, of course. And we would have to "trust each other" (drink) to be honest about the intensity of our convictions. But when the vote is so close on something, I think it would be enlightening to have that information somehow. I myself think I would have been one of the weak yea votes, for polity reasons as opposed to theological/justice issues. If the 43% who'd voted no all sincerely felt like this was a sign of the apocalypse, well, that might have influenced me.