BackboneAmerica

(Denver Post, May 4) To fear an idea, any idea, is unworthy of a free society. To suppress an idea from debate is more cowardly still. How does our country measure up? Americans pride themselves on being free-thinking and open, and we generally are. But five instances to the contrary recently hit the news. The utterance of forbidden words had polite opinion caterwauling like spinsters who saw a mouse. It was a bad show. We can do better. The would-be censors targeted a radio host’s glee, a political party’s advocacy, a wartime nation’s realism, a legislator’s bluntness, and a black man’s heresy. (more…)

(Denver Post, Apr. 20) Suppose you had a business partner and he wouldn’t let you see the checkbook. You would think he’d gotten a big head, or no longer respected you, or forgotten the promises made to each other. You might even think he was stealing from you. Lots of people are serving time for doing just that. Now suppose that evasive so-and-so was an $18 billion behemoth called the State of Colorado. (more…)

(Denver Post, Apr. 6) Sports mementos line the Denver Athletic Club, old photos recalling bygone glories. It was a good setting for the Republican gathering of eagles on March 27, when presidential nominee John McCain swept into town with former rival Mitt Romney at his side. Many of us at the fundraiser had bygone glories on our mind. We were gauging not only the prospects for a White House victory in 2008, but also the personnel for a Colorado comeback by the GOP in 2010 after years in the wilderness. What I saw was a roomful of intriguing possibilities. (more…)

(Oklahoma Perspective, Feb. 2008) Which side of the political divide has the entitlement mentality? Democrats and liberals, of course. It’s our friends on the left, as everyone knows, who assume that money grows on trees, benefits rain down like manna, risk protection is for worry warts, hard work and deferred gratification are passe’. While that’s often true, we on the right have entitlement egg on our faces today. Ask Dennis Hastert, Bill Frist, and the late Republican Congress. A funny thing happened on the way to that permanent GOP majority (more…)

(Townhall.com, Mar. 22) Imagine being told as a child: “You carry bad blood.” Then imagine this stigma was placed on you by one side of your family, in reference to your heritage from the other side of the family. I honestly can’t begin to imagine how that would have felt or what it would have done to me. But I think it would have marked me unforgettably. It would have stayed with me for a long time, even if I ultimately overcame it and went on to have a successful life and feel good about myself. Then try to imagine looking in the mirror as you’re growing up, and having the whole society where you live send much the same message (more…)

(Denver Post, March 16) The famous political gadfly and New York literary lion is invited to speak at the University of Hawaii. He accepts, not for the fee or the beach time, but with a passion for his beliefs and a try-anything spirit that equally attracts him to sailing and the harpsichord. Two starstruck newlyweds, intellectually underfed at the Pearl Harbor naval base, come up after the lecture to shake their hero’s hand. He responds encouragingly to the young ensign’s aspiration for a career in conservatism. That night a life is changed. (more…)

(Denver Post, Mar. 2) “The Idea of a University” is the title of a classic work by the scholar and churchman John Henry Newman. Recently it has also been the subject of a contentious public seminar polarizing Coloradans. Some acted as if the University of Colorado belongs exclusively to under-age students, self-important faculty, and the Democratic Party. Others saw the idea of a university as involving a civic trusteeship and the transmission of truth, (more…)

(Denver Post, Feb. 17) Was it hearing of Dennis Kucinich’s encounter with spacemen? Or was it seeing the ex-Governor Moonbeam, Jerry Brown, doing TV commentary? Something sent me on an out-of-body experience the other night, a sci-fi trip into the future – and it was scary. I was driving home after my radio show, haunted by Mike Littwin’s prediction about John McCain’s detractors: “The Limbaugh Republicans will eventually vote for him, but the Dobson Republicans, who knows? (more…)

(Denver Post, Feb. 3) Precinct caucuses are coming up on Tuesday. If you’re registered with a party, be there. You can vote in the presidential poll and help choose candidates for local, state, and federal offices, as well as issues for the party platforms. If you go to a Republican caucus, the other participants were probably at church or synagogue this weekend. If you’re at a Democratic caucus, it’s likely they were not. (more…)

(Denver Post, Jan. 20) Who do you like for President? Many Americans this year seem inclined to answer that question with another: What’s today? The polls are volatile. We’ve already seen surprises, and we’ll see more. This was going to be a column endorsing Romney. The straight-arrow entrepreneur is my guy. If Mitt quits, I’m for gruff Fred Thompson. I was also going to say that McCain and Huckabee, big-government egotists, are my least favorite – though preferable to any Democrat. (more…)

(Denver Post, Jan. 6) It was Monday, Dec. 10, and Bill Ritter had a choice to make. His secret trip to Iraq and Afghanistan would leave shortly, but Colorado was in shock. Five were dead and several others wounded in the state’s worst outbreak of mass violence since Columbine. Vicious bigotry was evident in the attacks on two religious centers. Jefferson County and El Paso County were reeling. Should the governor proceed to Baghdad as planned? (more…)

(Denver Post, Dec.16) Senator John was a political man, a driven man, some would say a hard man. At dusk on Christmas eve, he squinted from his office window through falling snow toward the Capitol, and grumbled to his assistant about the latest Bill Ritter gimmick: low-energy holiday lights. His clock struck five. “I suppose you’ll want all day tomorrow,” the aging conservative barked. “If you please, sir,” Kathleen whimpered. “It’s only one day a year.” Back came the senatorial snort: “One day less for this office to defend faith, family, and the flag, while you fritter at home with your relatives and pastor. All right, but you’ll owe me an extra Reagan catechism on Wednesday.” (more…)

(Denver Post, Dec. 2) Midgets everywhere. Rappers, starlets, shrinks, scolds, facilitators, litigators, hustlers, hucksters, victims, vegans. Ours is the age of the shallow, the small, the squalid. Where are the great? “There were giants in the earth in those days,” says Genesis. Granted, every era magnifies the memory of bygone times. But what now passes for excellence in manhood and womanhood, thought and expression, moral and civic life, would make our grandparents shake their heads. (more…)

(Denver Post, Nov. 18) “Out there in Colorado, what is the remnant looking for in a president?” The editor of a conservative magazine had called from Washington to talk about the 2008 race. His question surprised me at first. We’re often considered flyover country by those DC types. But in today’s polarized electorate, Colorado matters more. Gore would have won in 2000 with our handful of electoral votes; Kerry in 2004 with ours and another state our size. A bright teenager knows that much. My friend’s term “the remnant” was less familiar. He didn’t just mean Republicans or conservatives. He meant those of us who care deeply about the Declaration of Independence, (more…)

(Denver Post, Nov. 4) “Born on third base and thought he hit a triple,” Ann Richards’ supposed death cut on George H. W. Bush, was a failureand a falsehood both. The Bushes laughed last when the father won the presidency in 1988 and the son unseated Texas Gov. Richards in 1994. (more…)