Why We Keep a Scoreboard

Today, the Colorado Springs Independent published the following:

So how did it happen that the self-described "most conservative member of Congress," our own Rep. Doug Lamborn, teamed up with fellow Rep. Mark Udall, a Democrat who wants to replace Wayne Allard in the U.S. Senate?

No newspaper can claim to be balanced when it writes a sentence like this. Mark Udall (and his staff) has admitted to the Boulder liberal label. Udall went so far as to call Boulder his "touchstone." Since we linked these two quotes in the last post, we won't bother doing it again so soon. The scoreboard is in the upper right hand corner of this blog.

Not suprisingly, the author was Cara DeGette, one of two women that we have suggested damage Mark Udall when they mention his name.

Born on the 4th of July

We saw this yesterday, but avoided writing about it because there was so much other Udall news.

The Colorado Springs Independent made this somewhat incoherent statement (it is easy to see how it happens in the day of word processing-we do it too often, ourselves):

This, even though Udall isn't liberal enough for some progressive liberals in the 2nd Congressional District, who complain they've been ignored, particularly when voicing their views on the war in Iraq.

It sure looks like an acknowledgement that Mark Udall is a liberal to us, and yet the left wing Independent then tries to claim that Udall is a moderate:

Yet Udall's moderate positions, including his stance to continue funding the war, have attracted a potential spoiler. Green Party candidate Bob Kinsey, a retired schoolteacher who lives in Denver and has run previously for Congress, sees himself as a grassroots alternative to voters dissatisfied with the commercialized election process

It's just another lie from the big blue lie machine, but there is a reason for it, admits the Independent:

"Democrats who seek to reach statewide voters usually must project an image of being moderate and pro-business," [ Bob Loevy, a Colorado College professor of political science ] says, adding that Democrats who want to win the big races "must get to the middle."

So, that brings us to our scoreboard:

The Mark Udall is not a moderate scoreboard:
extremist 2
reliably left wing 10
liberal 29
moderate 0
conservative (chuckle)

We started this scoreboard when we noticed that liberal blogs and the msm were routinely calling Mark Udall a "liberal," "reliably left wing," and even "extremist." We do not count comments from conservative blogs and we didn't count a comment on a liberal show by a conservative politician. Those who would like to check our methodology can follow the bread crumbs backwards.

A Young Lady I Once Knew

I once knew a young lady who lived on Tall Oaks Drive in Milford, Ohio. She was a blond, like her mother. At seven, she had a smile that lit up the room. Her face and smile fit her name - Dawn. She was my daughter's best friend.

Her father was a Coast Guard reserve officer and I was a young Army Captain living in a definitely non-military community. We lived there three years before going on to Germany. He also moved from Tall Oaks Drive, but we kept in touch, and still do.

We had lived in Colorado for a few years when we got the news. Sixteen year old Dawn was riding with two friends when they were all killed by a drunk driver.

She'll never brighten a room with that smile again.

Now comes the news from the Colorado Springs Independent that Mark Udall was (edited on 24 Jan to correct some wording) stopped and had his car seized. If he was smoking dope, he might have been charged with DUI, but he was a Congressman's son so he appears to have gotten a possession charge. To this day he doesn't take it very seriously:

It's 1972 in Arizona. A longhaired Mark Udall, in his early 20s, is driving when he's pulled over by a police officer. Something's askew. The officer searches his car. Udall is arrested for possession of marijuana.

Now a 57-year-old congressman, Udall recounts the episode during a recent interview in his Westminster office.

Shaking her head, his spokeswoman, Heather Fox, says she sensed she should have cut off the interview earlier.

"No, no," says Udall, waving his hand to dismiss Fox, who interjects that she was only kidding. "It's out. It's in the record. ... As George Bush put it, "When I was young and reckless, I was young and reckless.'"

The boy who killed Dawn and her two friends was "young and reckless," too. There are a lot of parents, siblings and friends of drunk driving victims like Dawn. We wonder if they will dismiss Udall's (also edited to remove two words) choice as casually as Mark Udall does.

Edited to add: Upon re-reading the interview, there isn't any admission that Mark Udall was stopped for DUI, but there also isn't any evidence that he wasn't. In 1972, cops didn't stop people because they had long hair, and they didn't search cars for the fun of it. Did the search occur because the cop smelled pot? Was this hefty sentence a plea bargain, and if so what were the original charges? Why did he lose his car? There is much more to this story than meets the eye. If Mark Udall wants to avoid this kind of speculation, he needs to be much more forthcoming about the event and its date and place.

Fighting the Good Fight

Mark Udall is using his position on the Armed Services Committee to try to prevent Northern Command from moving out of Cheyenne Mountain without Congressional approval. That is a good thing.

In an unusual juxtaposition, Wayne Allard is asleep while Ken Salazar and Mark Udall are protecting the national interest, and Colorado's interest. Normally, it is the other way around.

Once the Cheyenne Mountain Complex is abandoned, it will never be reoccupied. It will become a relic as system upgrades bypass it for a more vulnerable site a few miles away.

Further, once it is accepted that the site can be in a building, a new building can be built anywhere, and the function moved. Peterson AFB is so small that the next argument, and it will be a reasonable argument, will be that the building must be located to a more secure facility, not necessarily in Colorado.

History has a way of repeating itself. Schriver AFB was built on that justification. The "blue cube" satellite control facility in Sunnyvale, California was thought vulnerable because a freeway passed near it.

The Independent reports:

As the defense authorization was passed last week, U.S. Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., who is on the Armed Services Committee and critical of the NORAD relocation plan, said he would continue to monitor progress closely. Udall's office noted NorthCom's plan was initiated more than a year ago without Congress' approval.

Udall's trepidation was underscored by the findings of the Government Accountability Office in May. Inspectors located no documentation to support claims by NorthCom/NORAD's former commander, Navy Adm. Timothy Keating, that the transition would save millions of dollars annually.

The GAO probe also uncovered no paperwork showing how the mountain's operations would be affected. Moreover, security assessments were still ongoing — even though the move was well underway.

The defense authorization would bring the GAO back into the picture, requiring Gates to cooperate in order to obtain the $5 million.

A Ride Down a Slide

Not long ago, we found Wendy Norris, a Mark Udall supporter, complaining that she couldn't promote bestiality, sex between sheep and humans (second comment). We wrote in The Colorado Index about the comment and the new state law making bestiality a crime.

The Norris complaint was on a post by Cara DeGette.

Today, in the Colorado Springs Independent, at the very bottom of a catch all essay that mentions Ted Haggard's latest foray into the spotlight, DeGette takes a nasty swing at Schaffer:

Perhaps Haggard should consider moving back to Colorado and challenging Schaffer in a primary bid for the Senate next year.

Lord knows, he has some issues.

It is hard not to think that Ms. Norris and Ms. DeGette have some very serious sexual issues of their own. DeGette and her close friends can't seem to avoid the temptation to write material about Republicans that is, to use a kind word, "strange."

Much as they might like to claim otherwise, Norris and DeGette are not journalists in the traditional sense. They are paid to smear Republicans. Apparently, anything goes.

Mark Udall has to know that we will be more than happy to link him to his supporter's more colorful and tasteless antics. If he wants to take a ride down a slide greased with chicken excrement, he can't expect to arrive at the bottom without some of it sticking.

Anyone who has ever worked with chickens will know why we picked that version of feces. Those who haven't can probably guess at least one of its two attributes: It is semi liquid and the smell is overwhelming.