Nelson was an "inspired" choice because of his patient. Bednar because (the previous youngest chosen) of Packer needing money in Germany so Bednar as a missionary gave him some but Oaks?

He was considered but then Reagan chose Sandy instead of him for "Chief Judge."

But they all three share something in common.

"Interestingly enough, Elder Bednar joined only two other current apostles (now-Presidents Nelson and Oaks) who were called to the apostleship without having previously served as a general authority."
http://stokessoundsoff.blogspot.com/2018/06/elder-david-bednar-marks-his-66th.html


I wonder if this trinity of the elevated outside The Seventy will all be anti-Mormons like Nelson? God knows they will all have the throne in The Kingdom of Ziontology.

Maybe Oaks won't make it. But he is anti-Mormon. He didn't give Joe a legal pass here.

"Oaks also undertook a legal analysis of the Nauvoo City Council's actions against the Nauvoo Expositor. He opined that while the destruction of the Expositor's printing press was legally questionable, under the law of the time the newspaper certainly could have been declared libelous and therefore a public nuisance by the Nauvoo City Council. As a result, Oaks concludes that while under contemporaneous law it would have been legally permissible for city officials to destroy, or "abate", the actual printed newspapers, the destruction of the printing press itself was probably outside of the council's legal authority, and its owners could have sued for damages.[45] "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallin_H._Oaks

I'm not fond of Oaks, but I have to give him at least a little credit for the legal analysis.

LOL! I don't give him credit. Can you imagine them attempting a suit in Nauvoo? It is like his legal analysis is either for fun or ridiculousness at best. Mayor "habeas corpus" Smith always on the run settles down to abusing his legal authority and then a possibly successor with a long law career says he went a little too far and Smith's former counselor could sue him.

Imagine if Oaks had gotten the spot O'Connor got?

Would he have been about promoting civics in his retirement? Would he own up to Dementia?

https://nypost.com/2018/10/23/honoring-sandra-day-oconnors-supreme-class/


I give him credit for being a religious nut who couldn't even defend his prophet legally but would do so any other way knowing he was a criminal.

You're 100% correct, though i'm still glad be didn't blindly defend J.S. as did an attorney who was my S.s. teacher when I was in high school.

Oaks is all about giving a legal patina to ethical nonsense. His defense of JS was obviously disingenuous, and he is also the man who explained why the salamander letter was genuine--until it was not.

I frankly don't think Reagan seriously considered Oaks. I'm sure all the major senators make suggestions, and the president does them the courtesy of putting those suggestions on a list for a few weeks. But that is as far as it gets.

Oaks was a Mormon supreme court justice from an insignificant state. Moreover, the normal order of progression would be from the UT supreme court to a US district court, not from the UT supreme court to the US supreme court. Oaks was nowhere near prestigious and respected enough to circumvent that process.

Thanks for your analysis. Like everything Mormon Oaks thinks that he was seriously considered when in fact "The World" would never have promoted him like the Mormon World did.

Though not officially General Authorities, it is understood that the presidents of BYU, BYU-I & BYU-H are defacto GA's.

So that makes Rusty an anomaly. No wonder he is doing stranger things...than his 20th Century predecessors.

Rusty was the General President of the Sunday School and then a Regional Representative at the time he was called to the Q12. So yes he technically wasn't a GA beforehand but he was just as well known to the Top 15 Brethren as any of the Seventy GAs.

I guess technically they weren't but in reality they were all elevated to courtiers in the Mormon realm before being elevated to peerage.


There is more to this than merely "General Authority" in being a name to watch.