A Lesson in Civic Virtue

Don't you just admire the disinterested civic virtue of the non-partisan Trailhead Group, totally "unaffiliated with any political campaign?" They just, quite innocently, want the public to know the objective, unvarnished truth about Bill Ritter. They don't even know Bob Beauprez. They don't know that Bob Beauprez got Hammered into voting for every rancid slice of pork in Washington. Bob Beauprez is, in no way, responsible for the $250,000,000 bridge to nowhere. The Trailhead Group does not know - or care - that Bob Beauprez is all in for the brain-dead, blood for oil foreign policy of the Bush Administration (reversing the Reagan policy of containing theocratic, Hezbollah-sponsoring Iran).

The Trailhead Group wants us to know that Bill Ritter is responsible for Denver's murder rate - higher than New York City. They, quite innocently, just don't know that almost every American city has a higher murder rate than New York, the largest city in the country. (In 1999, the murder rate in the quiet Republican hamlet of Littleton dwarfed the murder rate in New York.)

Why is the Trailhead Group so ignorant/hostile toward New York? Could it be that they want to excuse Bob Beauprez (my Congressman, by the way) for getting Hammered into turning Homeland Security into a pork barrel fiasco? While the Federal Government - controlled by rural and suburban Republicans - plows Homeland Security funds into petting zoos in Alabama, New York City has invested $2,000,000,000 of municipal funds into Counter-Terrorism.

Nonetheless, the civic virtue of the Trailhead Group inspires me. Just like them, I shall fully disclose. I have known Bill and Jeannie Ritter since college days. Jeannie was one of the gang (we called ourselves Nerf International) on the 11th floor of Turner Hall at UNC. Jeannie was the one who got all of us to take in physically and mentally handicapped people when the Special Olympics came to Greeley. Jeannie was the one who got the girls on the floor organized into springing a surprise breakfast for all the guys one Saturday morning. Jeannie was always the one with a stress-busting joke at mid-terms. And when the gang got together last summer for a reunion, Bill and Jeannie were the ones who remembered that one of us, since college, has been stricken with MS. Bill and Jeannie were the ones who brought Denise to the party. That was perfectly normal. Bill and Jeannie have always done our remembering for us.

So, I guess the Trailhead people are just better than me. I'm partisan.