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.