Here We Go Again!

Another major winter storm is heading toward the Colorado Front Range, and predictions are that we will possibly receive another two feet of snow. This one is expected to start dropping white flakes over the area on tomorrow, eight days since the Holiday Blizzard hit town a week ago this afternoon. AccuWeather is even using the "B" word for this second storm. I guess it's time to fill up the Jeep with fuel, stock some food, and plan for a repeat performance of last week. This is not looking good.

So far, I have been in Colorado for three major blizzards; the October 1997 storm, the one in March of 2003, and the Holiday Blizzard of '06 last week. Looks like we will be setting new records.

Gerald R. Ford Dies

In my post from just after the November elections, I quoted President Gerald Ford. Last night, I saw the news that he has died at the age of 93. Much has been said about his decision to give former President Richard Nixon a full and absolute pardon for crimes he may have committed while in office. The pardon put a stop to the probability of long inquests and trials for Nixon. Whatever one's politics, President Ford has to be given credit for getting the nation on to other business, and not letting Watergate consume any more of our resources and time. While I wish he had structured it differently so that Mr. Nixon would have had to face the music for his deeds, I understand and appreciate his intentions.

I met President Ford one time, after he had left office. I was covering a Republican fundraiser for a radio station in Houston, where Mr. Ford was the keynote speaker. While I only exchanged a few short words with him, he struck me as a gracious and intelligent man. Despite his well-publicized foibles on the golf course, he was not the klutz so humorously portrayed by Chevy Chase in his "Saturday Night Live" impersonations.

Gerald Ford has been called the nation's first unelected President, but he held the office with dignity. I believe he did his best during his short term to restore respect and honesty to the institution of the Presidency. For that, President Ford gets my respect.

A Sad Milestone

Christmas Day, 2006 marked a horrible milestone in the U.S. intervention in Iraq. On that day, the deaths of American military personnel in Iraq surpassed the 2,973 lives lost in the attacks of September 11, 2001. This doesn't even include the loss of life in Afghanistan, nor the tens of thousands of Iraqi citizens who have died in this misbegotten invasion of a country which posed no threat to the United States.

Rather than liberating a people longing for freedom, we have instead uncorked the bottle of sectarian violence that had been kept contained by the cruel regime of Saddam Hussein. Now we find ourselves paying in lives, money, and other resources; and bogged down in a civil war; a fact our President refuses to recognize. He calls it "resolve". I prefer the term "stubbornness". Mr. Bush, it is not a virtue to fail to modify tactics if current ones are failing. It is not "flip flopping" to adapt to changing conditions.

Amid the holiday celebrations with family and friends, I hope all of us keep in our thoughts the lives lost in this miserable Iraq war, and their loved ones. It is also imperative that we put pressure, and keep pressure, on our elected representatives to bring this misguided adventure to a close as soon as possible.