BackboneAmerica

State Rep. Douglas Bruce jerking around Speaker Andrew Romanoff before joining the House was one thing: a calculated bid for attention, rude but arguably shrewd. His putting the boot, literally, to a Rocky Mountain News photographer is something else again, however: plug-stupid with no conceivable justification.

Someone needs to tell him the ink-by-the-barrel rule of political life and public relations. Bruce’s foolhardy footwork, bringing down the wrath of Rocky publisher John Temple along with a near-unanimous rebuke from his own Republican caucus, is an utter loser for the man’s legislative aspirations and, worse, for the GOP conservative cause he claims to support.

Deliver us, please, from such friends. My endorsement of Bruce’s candidacy for this House seat, and my congratulations to him upon winning in it, are on extreme probation and rapidly approaching termination.

After being wrong fourfold about the New Hampshire primary last week, I now have the embarrassment of being — it seems — wrong again about what constructive benefit might come from having the self-proclaimed “terrorist” of taxpayer protection join the Colorado House of Representatives.

Mea culpa. One humbling experience after another; how much character-building can I stand? “When I make a mistake,” as Fiorello La Guardia famously said, “it’s a beaut.”