Ritter’s VP credentials: slim and none

This Capitol Review also appeared at HumanEvents.com.

It’s hard to imagine anyone in Colorado touting rookie Gov. Bill Ritter as vice presidential timber. Yet 2,000 miles away, locked in the surrealism of the Beltway, Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson has done just that.

Oblivious to Ritter’s indecisiveness on fulfilling major campaign promises, Gerson thinks Ritter stands out because he is “authentically pro-life.”

Come again? (more…)

Even if gas goes to $10, Salazar says no to drilling

Just how much is Colorado senator Ken Salazar drinking the do-nothing Democrats’ anti-exploration koolaide these days?

So much that before the Senate adjourned for summer recess, he stood time after time after time to block attempts to allowing drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf if gas more than doubles in price.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0FcNNeuf0E[/youtube]

Salazar refused to allow a vote to declare an emergency even if gas reaches $4.50 a gallon. He said it’s no emergency if gas reaches $5 a gallon … or $7.50 a gallon … or, get this, even $10 a gallon! (more…)

Ewegen’s latest anti-TABOR tirade

Denver Post’s big-government dinosaur, Bob Ewegen, proclaims that “the good folks” are finally back in charge — i.e., those who want to make it easiest for government to spend every last dime are back in charge at the state capitol and taxpayers are about to take it in the shorts.

Ewegen is, of course, cheerleading for what he hopes will be the death knell for Colorado’s Taxpayers Bill of Rights (TABOR) — a ballot initiative championed by outgoing Speaker of the House Andrew Romanoff and State Treasurer Cary Kennedy.

The initiative would gut everything that remains of TABOR after Referendum C, except the taxpayers’ right to vote on tax increases — or at least the right to vote on anything the legislature and governor admit are “tax increases,” as opposed to tax increases they deceptively call tax “freezes” or “fee increases.” (more…)

What would Obama fight for?

Unless you’ve been imbibing 100-proof hope-and-change, you could hardly listen to President — er, make that, Candidate — Obama’s Berlin speech without questioning whether there is anything that he is truly willing to fight for. Not merely fighting metaphorically or deploying persuasive prose, but actually committing American lives to defend a principle that must not be compromised.

When Obama’s campaign appropriated Berlin’s Victory Column as the backdrop for his “citizen of the world” speech, his handlers certainly expected the venue to frame him in a distinctly presidential stature.

Instead, the staging created an unmistakable contrast between courageous presidents who faced down genuine threats from dangerous enemies and the empty, self-aggrandizing platitudes of Obama, who seems to take for granted his election and now awaits transfiguration. (more…)

Ritter’s act wears thin with Coloradans

Commenting on a recent Rasmussen Poll, political strategist and former Democrat state chairman Floyd Ciruli notes that Gov. Bill Ritter’s approval rating is running nearly 20 points behind that of another western Democrat, Montana’s Brian Schweitzer.

In a Rocky Mountain News op-ed, Ciruli cites a checklist of Ritter’s missteps, miscalculations and shortcomings in his first year-and-a-half in office: (more…)

Obama: Vanity or divinity?

Washington Post’s Charles Krauthammer is among a handful of must-read columnists because he virtually always has something insightful to say and because, on occasions like this, he says it so very well:

What Obama does not seem to understand is that the Brandenburg Gate is something you earn.  President Ronald Reagan earned the right to speak there because his relentless pressure had brought the Soviet empire to its knees….  When President John F. Kennedy visited the Brandenburg Gate on the day of his “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech, he was representing a country that was prepared to go to bring of nuclear war to defend West Berlin.

Who is Obama representing?  And what exactly has he done in his lifetime to merit appropriating the Brandenburg Gate as a campaign prop? (more…)

Colorado’s ‘no energy’ economy

As if paying $4-plus for gasoline isn’t bad enough, some of Colorado’s political leaders seem bound and determined to spread pain at the pump to the cost of heating our homes this winter — and for decades to come.

Ours is a beautiful state with an abundance of natural resources: silver and gold lured early pioneers, mountain vistas and ski slopes keep visitors coming year after year, and abundant energy sources fuel our economy and our way of life.

Not long ago, political leaders of both parties understood that the energy sector is vital to the economic health of our state and actively worked to utilize those resources while applying responsible protections for the environment.

Unfortunately, energy has now become a political football. Republicans play the traditional role of advancing affordable energy development, while Democrats try to freeze traditional energy sources to make alternative energy economically competitive. (more…)

Post says it’s OK to politick on taxpayers’ dime

Never mind that the law says you can’t use taxpayer dollars to do homework for an ill-prepared (or well-prepared, for that matter) ballot initiative — or that the courts have said the same.

The Denver Post, in an editorial that reads like a Supreme Court ruling, has given its dispensation for the Governor’s minions to flout the law because, after all, “we predicted” all of this would happen.

In an editorial that reeks of self-importance, the Post holds forth on the audacity of the villainous oil and gas lobby to question the propriety of state higher ed employees drafting policy to support the Governor’s “Colorado Promise Scholarships,” which will be funded by higher taxes on oil and gas: (more…)

Ritter on O’Reilly: I’m so confused

Like Barack Obama, Gov. Bill Ritter has trouble articulating when he can’t follow a script. On Monday, the O’Reilly Factor showed an on-the-street interview with Ritter, asking whether he would sign “Jessica’s Law,” a mandatory 25-year minimum sentence for sex offenders who prey on children.

Ritter at first tried to ignore the O’Reilly Factor reporter, then hastily barked some almost unintelligible jibberish (wherein he grew confused and referred to Colorado as a “country”) and then ran for cover through the nearest doorway. (more…)

The True Meaning of Independence

As we observe the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence this Fourth of July, we should consider the unique form of government for which our Founding Fathers chose to risk “their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor” against the militarily-superior British.

The definitive passage in the Declaration reads: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these rights are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

In these 57 words, the Founders established that:

* Our rights — better understood as “freedoms” — are given to us by a power higher than government. No matter what you believe about creation or evolution, you must acknowledge that government did not give us life.

* Government’s legitimate purpose is to protect the rights of the people. Just as government did not give us life, it did not give us our rights, either.

* Government’s powers are limited to only those given to it by the people.
(more…)