The reference to former Timpview High School football coach Louis Wong was not lost, and it touched off a lengthy and tortured attempt by Murray to explain why Wong should not have been fired for charging personal car repairs to the school’s driver education program. Murray has been Wong’s chief defender in public meetings and elsewhere. He pointed to Wong’s productive fundraising for the Timpview football program and said a car repair of only $300 wasn’t enough to justify termination. Besides, if other people are playing fast and loose with public money, then it’s unfair to punish Wong. Standards must apply to everybody, he said.

Murray added that Wong was willing to repay the $300, and he (Murray) would have been willing to pay it back himself because it’s trivial in light of all the money Wong brought to the school. Murray is so proud of Wong, in fact, that he paraded the coach around at the state GOP convention to gather support in his race against Keven Stratton.

So let me make sure I understand this. When the cop pulls you over for speeding, you shouldn’t get a ticket because you have raised a lot of money for good causes. Or if you rob a bank and get away with only $300 you shouldn’t be punished so long as you offer to pay the money back. Or if somebody else is breaking a law, then it’s OK for you to break the law, too. … Or if a political donor offers payment in exchange for a legislative favor, it shouldn’t count if the amount of money is small because only big money should be counted as a crime.

The point of my question was to discover Murray’s ethical threshold because if he’s in the Utah Legislature he’s going to have plenty of opportunity either to uphold high standards or to look the other way. The situational ethics he presented at Thursday’s debate do not inspire confidence.