Yesterday, I listened to KUER's "Radio West" where host Doug Fabrizio interviewed Sen. Mike Lee. I expected to be angry at the pompous pronouncements of this boastful tea party member. Yet, while I disagreed with nearly everything Lee said, and thought his constitutional positions woefully wrong, throughout the hour I came to respect our new Utah senator.

Lee was intelligent, respectful and well-spoken. He was also a politician, carefully avoiding stating opinions that would be inflammatory, but you expect, even want, that from a politician.

Lee is not anyone I would ever vote for, and I wish he didn't represent me, and I hope his designs for the government fail. Still, if Utah has to have a tea party senator, I'm glad we have one so intelligent, knowledgeable and thoughtful.

I'm not embarrassed by Lee as a bloviating pontificator, as I am by our other tea party wanna-be senator, Orrin Hatch. Hatch's statements are so brashly political that they are rarely intelligent, knowledgeable or thoughtful. More often than not, he's just an embarrassment.

Since Utah has now elected a true, down-to-his-bones conservative, in 2012 let's elect a true moderate Republican. In Utah, that's what passes for diversity.

Christopher Scott

Salt Lake City