Backbone Radio

Life will trash your trophies

Slated on Backbone Radio, May 25 Listen every Sunday, 5-8pm on 710 KNUS, Denver... 1460 KZNT, Colorado Springs... and streaming live at 710knus.com.

No sparkling observations about the news, not this week from this boy. A small flood in our basement yesterday ruined many of my files from 40 years in politics and media. Damage control ate up the time I would have used to craft this email as intended. Oh well. I thought of what Jim Dobson reminded a prayer service before the NBA all-star game one time: "Life will trash your trophies." He told of visiting the old high school, missing his tennis championship cup from a display case and then spotting it in the dumpster out back. Apocryphal maybe, but so true. All earthly glories fade.

But heck, my Thursday also included preschool graduation for our grandson, Ian the crown prince. The little guy and his buddies looked smashing in their royal blue mortarboards with gold tassels. Summer's here and the wide world awaits them. Forget my soaked archives of bygone battles, thinks grandpa with a shrug.

** Backbone Radio, always proudly patriotic, will be more so this Sunday as America pauses to honor our fallen heroes of 233 years on Memorial Day. Author James Piereson will join me to discuss his terrific book on how the death of JFK soured liberals on this land we love.

** David Harsanyi of the Denver Post and Keith Carlson, treasurer of the California Republican Party, will be along to talk about national and state politics as the campaigns intensify.

** Plus a special hour with Denverite and Kingston Trio alumnus Bob Haworth in studio, singing and recalling the old folkie days, and presenting some edgy new songs about the Open Border Blues of the present day.

Please fit us into your weekend. You'll be glad you did.

Yours for the things that endure, JOHN ANDREWS

,

Invaders seek Boulder beachhead

,

Slated on Backbone Radio, May 18 Listen every Sunday, 5-8pm on 710 KNUS, Denver... 1460 KZNT, Colorado Springs... and streaming live at 710knus.com.

"The right is coming, the right is coming." That's the cry at CU-Boulder after this week's announcement of plans to endow a chair in conservative thought and policy. The liberal faculty are scandalized. Heaven forbid there should be "a political test for any kind of hiring," said marketing professor Margaret Campbell to a reporter. As if the university isn't already in the grip of such a test. You can picture Campbell pedaling through the halls of ivy on her low-emission (or zero-emission if she doesn't breathe) bicycle, Paul Revere style, warning the local Marxists, Obamaniacs, and Ward-Churchillites that invasion is imminent. The armada consists of one -- count'em, one -- visiting professor of conservative studies, someone rabid like George Will or Condi Rice, saints preserve us.

Great fun, and I give the idea two cheers. Labeling the position "conservative" sends all the wrong messages, even though the talk of a political test is baseless paranoia; this is an academic post like any other, not a campaign school. But credit the CU administration for at least confronting the leftist brainlock that now dominates Boulder and most other campuses. It's a good debate to be having, even if the initial concept needs work.

Since 2004, Backbone Radio has pushed for true academic freedom and intellectual diversity in higher education, exactly as I did in the Colorado Senate. We're on top of this story for Sunday, May 18, and we'll stay on it when the dreaded invasion force hits the beaches -- or if it doesn't; you never know.

** Joining me on the show will be Regent Tom Lucero and the eminent Prof. Edward Rozek, who recently took a paid ad to alert Coloradans that CU's faculty is only 3% Republican. Plus the latest from Joseph C. Phillips, another scourge of the campus left.

** In the authors' corner, I'll talk with Joseph Smith about his new book on George Washington and the question of church and state, and with defense expert Kenneth Timmerman about his book "Untold Story of the Party of Surrender."

** And we'll take a close look at the suburban shootout over home rule in Centennial, an issue with implications for all Coloradans. Spokesmen for both sides in the 6/10 election will weigh in. For more on this, check our blog.

See you this weekend at the most principled, most patriotic, most faith-based, most Colorado-proud spot on your radio dial.

Yours for fewer polar bears, JOHN ANDREWS

Dog ate their homework?

Slated on Backbone Radio, May 11 Listen every Sunday, 5-8pm on 710 KNUS, Denver... 1460 KZNT, Colorado Springs... and streaming live at 710knus.com.

Did you hear the one about how it was Republicans' fault that Colorado Democrats accomplished little in this year's legislative session, despite Dems controlling the House by 40-25 and the Senate by 20-15? No joke, it was in the paper. That Bill Ritter may not be much of a governor, but he's some comedian. I was afraid I'd have to miss the show this Sunday, hospitalized with a laugh attack, but the ER administered oxygen and put me on home convalescence. Hoo, haven't seen anything that funny since Barack went bowling.

In contrast, our deal at Backbone Radio is principled, candid coverage of the issues; none of this phony stuff and slippery spin. What the legislature did, what the Congress may do, how the election shapes up, and where you come in -- we cover all of it with interesting guests and steel in our spine. Please be listening.

** On our May 11 edition I'll talk with utilities exec Mac McLennan about energy and climate policy... Bill Moloney about true and false school reform... Ward Connerly about the upcoming ballot battle... and constitutional expert Earl Taylor about our endangered liberties.

** All this plus a conversation with war correspondent Michael Yon about his new book, "Moment of Truth in Iraq." Yon dares to say we're winning, and praise for the book ranges from Gen. Petraeus to the Washington Post.

That's all for today. GOP leaders have invited me to attend their "mea culpa" vigil outside Ritter's office, complete with sackcloth and ashes. I feel myself tearing up already.

Yours for liberty, JOHN ANDREWS

BOOKS YOU WILL VALUE *  LANDMARKS IN THE STORM