Dems crank up propaganda machine

After turning one-fifth of the nation’s economy, our once-private health-care system, over to the federal government at God only knows what cost and in defiance of the people’s wishes, the Democrats are frantically attempting to save face by unleashing a propaganda barrage the likes of which this country has never seen. Already their clever handiwork is showing up in the local media.

Immediately responding and to no one’s surprise, The Denver Post posted in its Sunday edition a story with two huge photos, praising Democratic Rep. Betsy Markey of the 4th District, whose allegiance in the crucial showdown-vote was in lockstep with the Obama, Reid, Pelosi & Stern group, not the folks back home in her district. (Show me the poll where a majority of voters in the 4th District approved of this bill.)

The Post’s puff-piece on Markey included some flattery from John Straayer, a political science professor at Colorado State University. It’s remarkable that no conservative political science professor is ever quoted by the reporters who write these stories. (Show me an example.)

Arrogantly pouring salt on the wounds of the awe-struck people “back home,” Andy Stern’s rich and powerful Service Employees International Union is running ads on Denver TV praising Markey’s courage and righteousness. For this, the folks back home might ask what sort of a political debt their congresswoman now owes to a key member of Obama’s inner circle.

To his credit Steve McMillan, the Post’s business news editor, published in the Sunday edition a three-column guest commentary by Robert J. Samuelson who writes about business and economic issues for Newsweek and the Washington Post. Samuelson brought at least some clarity to the extremely dangerous and confusing long-term debt risk that we all must now face.

Meanwhile, at our local Times-Call, business section editor Tony Kindelspire seems pleased with the bill and other than being happy about chain restaurants being forced to post calorie data spent most of his Sunday commentary chastising the 13 attorneys general (including Colorado’s) who plan to test the constitutionality of this massive, unprecedented centralization of power. And why shouldn’t they test it? It’s hard to believe that an editorial writer at the Las Vegas Sun (whose material Kindelspire quoted) has any special knowledge of what’s constitutional and what’s not, let alone Denver Post columnist Ed Quillen who is on the same wavelength. Do they really know more about the Constitution of the United States than 13 attorneys general? If they do, perhaps they should run for the office of attorney general.

Let it be said here and now: I’m glad my 50-year career as a reasonably successful independent, self-employed small business owner engaged in publishing small-town newspapers ended in 1998. For one thing, the bureaucratic red tape was already intractable and will be 10 times worse under Markey’s new law. With the government running the banks, the automobile industry, the energy industry and now the health-care system, I just don’t see any of the incentives any more that made so many of us want to thrive and achieve. And we did, despite poor health, economic hardships and seemingly insurmountable obstacles.

America, America, have we lost our way?

Sparring with the opinion makers

With the demise of the Rocky Mountain News, no major newspaper is left in the Denver market to duke it out politically with The Denver Post on a day-to-day basis. Naturally, the Post’s opinion pages have swung even farther to the left, and the March 7 “Perspective” section is a good example.

Front and center, Post editorial writer Alicia Caldwell sings the virtues of renewable energy sources (RES), replete with a panorama of a massive installation of ugly solar panels shown against the background of our beautiful Rocky Mountains. It makes no sense for us taxpayers in Boulder County to have gone into debt for one-hundred-and-ninety-eight million dollars to buy open space for the alleged purpose of protecting the environment, when cluttering up the landscape and wildlife habitat with RES devices (panels, windmills, wires, poles) so clearly defeats that purpose.

Another photo shows solar panels installed on a roof. But nowhere does Caldwell, or the author of a backup commentary, explain who will pay for removing and replacing the panels when the roof needs to be re-shingled. Who will divert the hailstorms?

Typical of the Post’s disdain for conservative thought, Caldwell wastes no time in scolding Republicans for asking questions about this huge, costly government program which, of course, is based on the shaky science of global warming, and she does so in her second paragraph.

Then we turn inside to the Post’s editorial page editor’s column where Dan Haley continues the Post’s incessant war on TABOR, branding as extremists Coloradans who use the initiative process to protect themselves and their property from the relentless overreaching of state and local governments. Far from being antigovernment and knowing that money does not grow on trees, these people are interested mainly in seeing that their hard-earned tax dollars are spent wisely.

Here we have Haley trying to picture Sam Mamet, personable head of the Colorado Municipal League, as a “leader in fighting the forces of extremism.” But the CML, funded entirely by the taxpayers, is one of the most extreme political forces around as it lobbies the state Legislature on behalf of Colorado’s towns and cities for increases in taxes and fees from everybody else. CML’s own headquarters building at 1144 Sherman Street in downtown Denver, valued officially at over $1.5 million, will never be affected because it is tax exempt.

In this year alone, CML escapes from paying about $30,000 in property taxes into the schools and city and county of Denver. Now that is truly antigovernment.

Here’s to the late Sue O’Brien: The Post’s editorial page will never be the same.

ADDENDUM: Affiliated Media Inc., parent company of Dean Singleton’s MediaNews group, the second largest newspaper chain in the U.S., which locally owns and operates The Denver Post, Boulder Daily Camera/Longmont Ledger and Broomfield Enterprise, emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy this month. Under a reorganization plan approved by a federal judge in Delaware, a $930 million debt was reduced to $165 million, with Bank of America and Wells Fargo ending up with 89 percent of the reorganized company’s stock.

This week, the Freedom Communications chain, headquartered in Orange County, CA and longtime publisher of the Colorado Springs Gazette, also went through Chapter 11 proceedings in Delaware. Its debt of $770 million was reduced to $325 million, with J.P. Morgan Chase Bank ending up with a majority of that reorganized company’s stock.

In both cases, Wall Street banks that are now deeply intertwined with and obligated to the administration through its bailouts, will be big in controlling the communications game. This is not good news for the First Amendment.

Gathering the news is hard work

The 132nd annual convention of the Colorado Press Association, Feb. 26-27 in Denver, has just drawn to a close. The staff at our local Times-Call did quite well—as usual—in the concurrent newspaper contests to prove once again that Longmont has one of the best newspapers in the state. This recognition comes not by accident; it takes good management with a lot of hard work by a lot of dedicated people. In all of industry and forms of communication, for advertisers nothing is quite like paid-circulation newspapers—people will voluntarily pay to read them.

Founded by William Byers in 1859, Colorado’s first newspaper--while still a territory—was of course the Rocky Mountain News. The press association wasn’t formed until 1878. Its first president was W.B. Vickers who had been part owner of the Rocky (1876-78) but moved on to edit the daily Denver Tribune.

The Denver Post, a relatively newcomer to the scene, was started by George Herbert and W. P. Caruthers in 1892. Three years later, Frederick Bonfils and Harry Tammen took over the Post and it blossomed to finally outlast the competing Rocky. Gene Fowler’s book “Timberline” tells about this pair who are probably the most familiar characters in Denver’s newspaper history. A personal favorite of mine on the Denver scene was always Gene Cervi, who was adept at kicking the shins of the two powerful dailies.

But the newspaper game has changed. As Charles Krauthammer so eloquently opined in his recent column dealing with a different industry, the predicament he outlined is equally devastating to newspapers as they try to deal with “the high price of modernity.” But unlike the Internet, somebody has to go out and dig for the news and report it. Virtual news won’t do, and you won’t find much community news there.