A Letter to the Editor

Congressman Doug Lamborn, Republican from the Fifth District in Colorado, where I live, wrote an opinion piece for the local newspaper last week, that just begged for a rejoinder, so I wrote one. It was printed in Sunday's paper, and here it is.

Congressman Doug Lamborn writes in the Thursday paper that the Obama administration is thwarting petroleum development on public lands leading to gas prices twice as high as when the president took office. This is simply intellectually dishonest. Gas prices were unusually low in January 2009 because of the general economic decline. I bet we all can remember $4.00 a gallon gas during the Bush years.

Mr. Lamborn then plumps for the Keystone pipeline as a supposed cure for these energy woes. The Congressman claims tens of thousands of American jobs would result and millions of barrels of oil would be refined in the United States. This too is disingenuous. The pipeline would be a big construction project, some of it across private land condemned by local governments, with big profits for the contractors and the handful of speculators who are invested in the Canadian oil fields. The oil would be refined in Texas for transshipment to the Orient. Aside from some temporary jobs – not tens of thousands or anything close to it – there would be no benefit for working Americans and a terrible risk of contaminating oil spills.

Lamborn goes so far as to impugn the motives of pipeline opponents, saying they are acting from outright malice. What malice is there in trying to protect our aquifers and watersheds? If Mr. Lamborn feels free to malign the Obama administration for caring more about environmentalist donors than working Americans, it seems reasonable to return the rough comment by accusing pipeline proponents of being in the pockets of big oil and big contractors.

We will go to the polls this November. We will have a choice to make between those like Mr. Lamborn who cling to the dirty energy economy and those who look to the future and who want to protect our public lands.

Military Service of US Presidents

Military Service of US Presidents

Lately there’s been talk of a Constitutional Amendment mandating that any president of the United States must have served in the armed forces. It got me wondering about past presidents and their service. What follows is from memory, so there might be some mistakes, but it’s accurate in the main.

1. George Washington. Service in the French and Indian War and commanding general in the American Revolution.
2. John Adams. No military service.
3. Thomas Jefferson. No military service.
4. James Madison. No military service.
5. James Monroe. Honorable service during the American Revolution.
6. John Q. Adams. No military service.
7. Andrew Jackson. General in the War of 1812, and Indian fighter.
8. Martin Van Buren. No military service.
9. William Henry Harrison. General, Indian fighter.
10. John Tyler. No military service.
11. James K. Polk. No military service.
12. Zachary Taylor. General in the Mexican-American War.
13. Millard Fillmore. No military service.
14. Franklin Pierce. No military service.
15. James Buchanan. No military service.
16. Abraham Lincoln. Brief service in the Black Hawk War.
17. Andrew Johnson. No military service.
18. Ulysses Grant. General in the Civil War.
19. Rutherford Hayes. Colonel in the Civil War.
20. James Garfield. Army officer in the Civil War.
21. Chester Arthur. No military service, hired a substitute in the Civil War.
22. Grover Cleveland. No military service, hired a substitute in the Civil War.
23. Benjamin Harrison. Army officer in the Civil War.
24. Grover Cleveland.
25. William McKinley. Sergeant in the Civil War.
26. Theodore Roosevelt. Colonel in the Spanish-American War.
27. William H. Taft. Secretary of War, no uniformed service.
28. Woodrow Wilson. No military service.
29. Warren G. Harding. No military service.
30. Calvin Coolidge. No military service.
31. Herbert Hoover. No military service.
32. Franklin Roosevelt. Under Secretary of the Navy during World War I. No uniformed service.
33. Harry Truman. Missouri National Guard, combat service in World War I.
34. Dwight Eisenhower. Career soldier, combat service in World War I, commanding general in World War II.
35. John F. Kennedy. US Navy combat service during World War II.
36. Lyndon Johnson. US Army service during World War II, no combat.
37. Richard Nixon. US Navy service during World War II, no combat service.
38. Gerald Ford. US Army during World War II.
39. Jimmy Carter. United States Naval Academy, no combat service.
40. Ronald Reagan. US Army during World War II, no combat service.
41. George HW Bush. Combat veteran of World War II.
42. Bill Clinton. No military service.
43. George W. Bush. Service in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War.
44. Barack Obama. No military service.