Over breakfast, I was watching the National Day of Prayer services at the White House.  Rabbi Goldstein from the Poway Synagogue was asked to make some remarks.  With one arm in a sling and the other hand bandaged from having his fingers shot off, his message was one of creating light and hope from one moment of darkness.

I am a devout agnostic, but his message was so incredibly inspirational that it got me choked up and reflective.  That is, the only way to stop hate and vitriol is to model positive behavior.

I learned that lesson from being part of the Apollo 13 disaster recovery at Mission Control in Houston.  Flight director Gene Kranz put us on notice, as the disaster unfolded, that failure was not an option.  Astronaut Jack Lousma was the CAPCOM talking to the crew aboard the crippled spacecraft.  He told me personally that the most asked question he has received since that night is, "What would have happened if they could not fix the spacecraft?"  His reply was, "It never crossed my mind."

In stark contrast, I watched part of Attorney General Barr's inquisition in front of the Senate yesterday.  One of the newscasters commented later that the most frequently used phrase was "my time is up."

Some of the radical libs used their time to question the A.G. to give a five-minute speech filled with hate and vitriol, to set the stage for attempting to impeach the POTUS.  Good thing they are not allowed to have firearms in the chambers of Congress.

I have been watching politicians in action since the 1950s.  I have never seen such abhorrent behavior by elected officials than the last two years.  Many of them are so obsessed with overturning the 2016 election, they haven't done the work that they were elected to do.  Hopefully, the people who hired them will hold them to task in the next election cycle.  My fervent hope is the ballot box will create light and hope from darkness.

We each contribute to the definition of our moral fabric as a nation.  Our collective actions either promote higher social morality or help turn the ten commandments into the ten suggestions.  It appears to me that the radical libs have taken the ten suggestions a step farther and made them optional.

I lived in Texas for 33 years and knew natives who had racism and bigotry bred into them.  I found out quickly that any suggestion that they take an objective look at each individual was never going to happen.  To their credit, they never attempted to radicalize me.

Maxine Waters, Adam Schiff, and other politicos have invented a new form of bigotry, hate, and vitriol that they are actively attempting to inculcate into American society.  Rep. Nadler established a new low bar in integrity by insisting that A.G. Barr return for a second day of questioning by Nadler's attorneys.

Perhaps the most egregious "questioning" of A.G. Barr was the non-stop soliloquy of Senator Hirono of Hawaii.  Of Japanese heritage and being the first Asian female elected to the Senate, she read an apparently prepared speech spewing the most hateful and slanderous accusations at the A.G. and POTUS that I have ever heard.  She dishonored herself, her constituents, and her proud Japanese heritage.

Conversely, Senator Graham simply asked the A.G. a list of questions about the investigations into the allegations that the POTUS was acting as a Russian operative.  Each question had a yes or a no answer.  From his responses, it appears that A.G. Barr is going to take the high ground and find out how this series of investigations started and make sure politicizing the Justice Department and FBI never happens again.  Russiagate is over.  Many of us who are strategic thinkers have moved on.

As an agnostic conservative, my suggestion for beginning a transition from darkness to light and hope would be to broadcast the National Day of Prayer ceremony in its entirety on every network and social media outlet.  It contained no sermons or recruitment of followers for any of the represented religions and belief systems — just messages of light and hope.

It contained only pleas from each speaker that the path to saving our civilization is by modeling positive and moral behavior.  I can't find the right word for the antithesis of bigotry and racism, but their messages were just that.

If the liberal politicos can't find it in their collective hearts to stop leading the division of our nation into warring factions, perhaps they should consider what is going to happen if they get to the 2020 election cycle without a platform that deals with the needs of "we the people."  At this moment, they are almost guaranteeing Trump a second term.

Tom is a business consultant and an expert witness in products liability. He has worked with more than 700 companies and written 12 books on business excellence. He was a team member at NASA's Mission Control Center during Projects Gemini and Apollo.