Thankful for you

Slated on Backbone Radio, Nov. 30 Listen every Sunday, 5-8pm on 710 KNUS, Denver... 1460 KZNT, Colorado Springs... and streaming live at 710knus.com.

I hope that you were able to gather with family and friends on Thanksgiving Day, and that in doing so you felt, as the Andrews did, abundance the world cannot take away. This weekend I am thankful for kindred spirits far and wide who ally with us in America's cause through our radio show and this website. Sunday's program will be hosted by Matt Dunn with help from Sharf, Kataline, and Stark as I'm off on a lark with my grandson.

Guests will include Congressman Tom Tancredo... State Sen. Josh Penry... and columnist Al Knight.

I'll sign off here with a suggestion that you read my Thanksgiving column, posted just above this piece on the home page. It's one of the best-received pieces I've ever done.

Yours for self-government, John Andrews

Hear the Show: 11/23/2008

Read John's Show Preview 5PM Show Open John Andrews, Matt Dunn, Matt Stark, Laura Bradford

5:30PM Guest: John Andrews, Matt Dunn, Matt Stark

6PM Guest: Hank Brown

6:30PM Guests: Rep. Mike May

7PM Guest: Dinesh D’Souza

7:30PM Guest: Bill Armstrong

The politics of gratitude

Slated on Backbone Radio, Nov. 23 Listen every Sunday, 5-8pm on 710 KNUS, Denver... 1460 KZNT, Colorado Springs... and streaming live at 710knus.com.

"We are the grateful Americans." So begins my Thanksgiving column for the Denver Post, coming out this weekend. You know who you are. You might be a Republican or a Democrat or neither, a believer or a secularist, lucky in this world or unlucky. It doesn't matter. You qualify because you've learned that life is better if lived with an attitude of gratitude. And being an American with eyes wide open to all the global contrasts in our favor, you feel a certain reverence at the approach of the only "made in America" sacred day of the year. So here's a thought experiment: Suppose we could leaven the power struggle called politics with the grace called gratitude. Suppose the argument over the empty part of the glass was kept friendly by a humble appreciation of the full part.

It could bring some grownup civility to food fights like the campaign we just went through. If a politics of gratitude could succeed anywhere in this fallen world, our country with its "almost-chosen people" is the place.

The dreamer in me will try the idea on our terrific guests this Sunday. We'll also continue our analysis of what 2008 meant and what 2009 is likely to bring. Please join us.

** A pair of distinguished Republican alums of the US Senate are my headliners. Bill Armstrong is now president of Colorado Christian University. Hank Brown is the former CU and UNC president, now in law practice. We'll ask them how the GOP gets back on offense.

** Author Dinesh D'Souza is one of the grateful Americans, and as an immigrant that's by choice. His new book "What's So Great about Christianity?" is spot-on for the holiday season. Don't miss this interview.

** Plus state Sen. Josh Penry and state Rep. Mike May, the minority leaders, about top legislative issues for January... as well as black conservative writer & actor Joseph C. Phillips on the Obama Phenoma (non).

Do us the compliment of listening and we'll give you a show that's guaranteed not to be a turkey.

Yours for no tofu on the menu, JOHN ANDREWS

Hear the Show: 11/16/2008

Read John's Show Preview 5PM Show Open John Andrews, Joshua Sharf and Karen Kataline

5:30PM Guest: Charles Kesler

6PM Guest: Mark Hillman

6:30PM Guests: Lawrence Reed

7PM Guest: Allyson Ho

7:30PM Guest: Ward Connerly

Discouragement isn't an option

Slated on Backbone Radio, Nov. 16 Listen every Sunday, 5-8pm on 710 KNUS, Denver... 1460 KZNT, Colorado Springs... and streaming live at 710knus.com.

"Talk me down off the ledge," a veteran Republican warrior moaned over lunch. He's not the first to page Dr. Positive for a morale transfusion since the big Obama sweep. Take heart, the doctor is in, as Peanuts used to assure us. Backbone Radio is your one-stop political dispensary this Sunday. Stop in for the needed dose. No patient refused, no insurance required. Lawrence Reed, president of the Foundation for Economic Education, wrote last week on our blog that if you're really committed to liberty and love this country, discouragement is simply not an option. He's so right. "What must we now do?" -- not why me, poor me -- is the only constructive response for Americans with backbone.

Charles Kesler, an associate of the late Bill Buckley and editor of the Claremont Review, suggests in the current issue that the President-elect's audacity for "transformation" is so sharply at variance with our founding principles, it must in time arouse patriotic resistance and damage him politically. With due respect to the office, we should work to hasten that time.

** Charles Kesler and Lawrence Reed will be among my guests on our Nov. 16 show.

** We'll also talk with former Supreme Court clerk Allyson Ho about Obama's upcoming judicial appointments... and with civil rights crusader Ward Connerly about his near-miss on the Colorado ballot.

** Plus Mark Hillman, former state senator and treasurer, now Republican National Committeeman, with his perspective on how conservatives get back on offense for 2009 policy battles and the 2010 election.

Discouragement, a wise man once said, is disappointed self-will. And self-will, say I, is unworthy of responsible grownups like us. So let's pull up our socks and get on with the counter-revolution. Step one, tune in Sunday night.

Yours for a non-transformed America, JOHN ANDREWS