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CARROLL: Polis above it all

By Vincent Carroll, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published January 15, 2009 at 12:05 a.m.

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Jared Polis

Photo by Linda McConnell/Special to the Rocky/2008

Jared Polis

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Touchy, isn't he? Newly minted Democratic U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, the man who doesn't trust a lobbyist to buy so much as a cup of coffee for a state lawmaker, is curiously reluctant to reveal the recipients of his own official largess.

Polis' office simply stonewalled a Rocky inquiry about how many of the 198 tickets his office received for the presidential inauguration were distributed to average constituents as opposed to the well-connected.

Most other members of the state's delegation avoided giving details, too, the only exceptions being Democratic Reps. Ed Perlmutter and Betsy Markey. But Polis' case is uniquely revealing because he is the architect of Amendment 41's draconian restrictions on lobbyists and on gifts to state and local government employees and their families. Mr. Transparency's office explained that his reticence was meant "to protect the privacy of our constituents."

What does privacy have to do with it? Surely the recipients are not embarrassed to be attending the inaugural. If they are attending it, of course. The sale of such tickets on Craigslist and other Internet sites for, oh, $500 or so a pop apparently has become so prevalent that the Senate (no doubt futilely) voted to outlaw it Wednesday night.

Meanwhile, the Politico's Ben Smith reports that some members of Congress have given tickets to "friends, donors and allies." Donors? Allies? Isn't this the sort of back-scratching that Mr. Ethics (Polis wears lots of hats) finds reprehensible? Surely he would never stoop to such behavior.

Look, handing out inauguration tickets to friends, donors and allies - if that's what Polis did - is no big deal. But then many of the activities and acts of generosity outlawed by Amendment 41 were no big deal, either. Not for the first time, Polis has revealed that his suspicions regarding the perils of human temptation extend to everyone save himself.

Caught in the Web

The Internet is not a dangerous place for kids after all, despite what alarmists have been claiming for years. Sexual predators are unlikely even to approach your child, let alone succeed in their sinister designs.

These upbeat conclusions are contained in a massive report from a task force created by 49 state attorneys general and staffed by academics, Internet executives and experts involved in child safety. As reported by The New York Times, the task force "looked at scientific data on online sexual predators and found that children and teenagers were unlikely to be propositioned by adults online. In the cases that do exist, the report said, teenagers are typically willing participants and are already at risk because of poor home environments, substance abuse or other problems."

Good news indeed. So do the findings discredit law enforcement's pursuit of online predators? Hardly.

Would Colorado really be better off, for example, if Jefferson County District Attorney Scott Storey had not made his Child Sex Offender Internet Investigations Unit, which recorded its 200th arrest last year, a priority? After all, most of those nabbed have pleaded guilty, presumably meaning their intentions were pretty clear-cut.

Even if the vast majority would have never succeeded in luring a child into their lair, their public humiliation has served as a jolting deterrent to others who might be more skilled, or lucky.

Vincent Carroll is editor of the editorial pages. Reach him at carrollv@RockyMountainNews.com.

Comments

  • January 15, 2009

    6:15 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    Mike_In_Hartsel writes:

    Jared Polis: "Do as I say; not as I do".

  • January 15, 2009

    10:19 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    NeilJackson writes:

    Vince Carrol is whining about Polis again.

    Lobbyist abuse puts lots of money in the wrong people's pockets, attending the inauguration does not.

  • January 15, 2009

    10:19 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    HopiMedicineMan writes:

    Scott Storey's chin is firmly attached to his chest about now. The practice of on-line luring is being protected by the pedophile community, which lives next door to the "reality-based" community, near the global warming community, near the atheist community, over by the gay marriage community, upside the upside-the-head community. America has become perverse, having long ago lost her dignity.

  • January 15, 2009

    12:02 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    Cwillyrun1 writes:

    Carroll is dead on about Polis. Polis was a lobbyist of a sort himself when he was using his money to push agendas. He also bankrolled many Democrats running for office. He says "transparency" but can't actually believe it applies to him now that he's in office. What's wrong with providing a list of ticket recipients, unless there's something to hide? Even if he's not hiding anything, it's the impression that us taxpayers will have and that's all it takes to take the trust away.

  • January 15, 2009

    7:12 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    taoistblockhead writes:

    Vince,
    You and Caplis and Silverman are great whiners... Yet you don't have the balls or the common sense to address the travesty of eight years of corrupt and treasonous leadership from the worst president in the history of the United States.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/...

    “He took the nation to a war of choice under false pretenses -- and left troops in harm's way on two fields of battle. He embraced torture as an interrogation tactic and turned the world's champion of human dignity into an outlaw nation and international pariah. He watched with detachment as a major American city went under water. He was ostensibly at the helm as the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression took hold. He went from being the most popular to the most disappointing president, having squandered a unique opportunity to unite the country and even the world behind a shared agenda after Sept. 11. He set a new precedent for avoiding the general public in favor of screened audiences and seemed to occupy an alternate reality. He took his own political party from seeming permanent majority status to where it is today. And he deliberately politicized the federal government, circumvented the traditional policymaking process, ignored expert advice and suppressed dissent, leaving behind a broken government.”

  • January 15, 2009

    8:39 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    Darwin writes:

    taoistblockhead writes: ...

    yawn, you must have these incomplete, one-sided comments in a word processor where you just cut and paste your comments everyday. By choosing to tell just part of the story, you have become known as a liar and troll. You don't have the integrity to tell the entire story do you? Or is it possible you truly are ignorant of all the facts? Interesting that your source cited is the "unbiased" DC Compost. yawn, yawn, yawn.

  • January 16, 2009

    6:48 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    denverrose15 writes:

    taoistblockhead: Stay on subject... put your post on how much you hate Bush on the right blog. Turn the TV off and READ not listen to your information, you might learn something... like BOTH sides of an argument.

  • January 16, 2009

    6:52 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    denverrose15 writes:

    Polis is a typical democrat... deaf when it comes to doing the very thing he campainged for.. a typical politician. He sounds like his fearless Messiah...bama! Oh... well you will get what you vote for.

  • January 16, 2009

    7:22 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    Mike_In_Hartsel writes:

    taoistblockhead quotes some left-wing writer who agrees with him, not facts. TBH should move to Boulder.

  • January 16, 2009

    5:37 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    zippy66 writes:

    Polis will be the typical whiny rich kid that leaves Congress after one term because he can't get anything done and the press is "mean" to him.

  • January 19, 2009

    1:13 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    V_twinMan writes:

    This article could have been about elementary school kids being visited by the local firemen and taoistblockhead would still rant about president Bush. GET A LIFE IDIOT!!!