The Vice President of the United States of America arrived in my hometown of Grand Junction yesterday, and received the only welcome that the man could hope to expect after 8 years of war mongering and failed policy: throngs of protesters. Tricky Dick was in town to attend a fund raiser for Republican Senate candidate Bob Shaffer, but even the weather here in the Grand Valley knew better than to give the VP a warm welcome. After days and days of warmth and sunshine, it actually snowed and hailed all day — a fitting reception for such a cold-hearted “leader.”

I wanted very much to be among the protesters but it wouldn’t have been fair to my 10-month old son to stand out in the cold just so daddy could fight the good fight and exercise his Constitutional rights. My 2-year old daughter would have loved it, mostly because the Republican propagandists saw fit to line the streets with school children. I can’t even begin to tell you how wrong this, but i will try. These kids don’t understand politics. They were escorted to the site of Dick’s motorcade because they were the only demographic that his people could count on to give Tricky Dick an enthusiastic welcome. Never mind the fact that school children have no place at political rallies.

Unless I’m mistaken, school is for learning facts about the world in which we live, not for the forcible indoctrination of our children into our political lives. Of course, this whole issue comes into perfect focus when you consider which school these children were from: Holy Family Catholic School. It’s a good thing too, because if our public schools had sent children to receive the VP I’d be writing letters to government officials right now rather than crafting this analysis of Cheney’s blatant waste of tax dollars.

And that makes perfect segue into my next point: this entire affair was conducted at the tax-payer’s expense. Never mind the fact that this was a private function held specifically for political ends, Dick Cheney doesn’t care. He flew in on Air Force 2 and enjoyed police protection from our local police forces. Never mind the fact that the dollars to pay for all of that came from federal, state and local tax coffers.

Where does the Republican Party get off spending our tax dollars, in the middle of the worst deficit our nation has ever faced, for private politicking? What’s more, a quick visit to the Mesa County Republicans website will show you a short video where they claim to practice “Fiscal Responsibility.” The name of the video is “Principles Matter.” What about the principal of not wasting my taxes on this crap!

As would be expected the Mesa County Republican Party Chairman was there with the VP yesterday. Gary Roahrig, a man who I once looked up to as my Webelo Cub Scout leader, is no fool. He’s a smart man who cut his teeth on the bag manufacturing industry here in the valley. It’s not an industry that sports obvious motivations for participation, but the man made a pretty penny doing it. He was a great Cub Scout leader, but a poor parent. His son attended public schools with me and was known, as were most of his friends, for promulgating the ugly “jock mentality” around campus.

They were thugs and bullies, and the only people who liked them were folks of their own ilk. But it begs the question of what Gary is doing at the helm of the local chapter of a national political party. Of course, the Right Wingers love that thuggish, brute-mentality. I suppose his boy is probably in line for a Republican Party chapter of his very own. In this way he can follow in his father’s footsteps and waste our tax dollars by funding private political functions out of our ever shrinking General Fund.

A word to Dick Cheney: please note, sir (man it was hard to add that), that the protesters you encountered yesterday were but a small slice of a growing pie. That’s right, even here in the legendarily conservative Western Slope of Colorado your wrong-doings do not go unnoticed. Your failed policies, and those of your impish, schoolyard bully of a boss will not earn you respite here. Should you return, or should G.W. himself see fit to stop here, the numbers of protesters will only grow.

I will make a point of being there next time. You’ll know me when you see me because my sign will be the largest, it will be held the highest, and it will carry the most poignant message of them all. But then, your tenure is almost past now, and with any luck at all our nation can finally begin to heal. You’ll have to spread your poison in a ritzy retirement home at Bethesda, only nobody will be listening anymore. The twilight years for tyrants are almost always lonely and painful. I hope with all of my soul that this is true for you and George.

JMK

(P.S. Shame on you as well Mr. Bob Shaffer. You were, after all, the reason behind this hoggish waste of my tax dollars. I sometimes wonder why I bother paying taxes at all if people like you and Tricky Dick are just going to waste my dollars.)