January 09, 2018 01:06 PM UTC

Denver Post Destroys Leftist Plot To Terrorize Gardner Family

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• by: Moderatus

I wonder why Colorado Pols didn’t post the latest Denver Post editorial?

On New Year’s Eve, political protesters tarnished their reputation and their cause by harassing a U.S. senator and his family at their home…

The small group of activists were led by some of the same wheelchair-bound protesters who occupied Gardner’s Denver offices for several days last summer. The goal of the Colorado-born ADAPT activists at that time was to protest changes to Medicaid funding during the Republicans’ failed effort to gut Obamacare. Now they are pressing Gardner to support a Senate bill meant to prohibit discrimination against those with disabilities.

Most considered ADAPT’s Obamacare protests a brilliant stroke, but realists must admit it was also politics of the bare-knuckled and vicious variety. We faulted Gardner then for not directly talking to the group one final time before deciding to have them arrested. But the activists weren’t without their fair share of fault in the events that led to the arrest of several protesters. They shut down access for other constituents at the office, greatly inconvenienced other building tenants, forced staff to work night and day to care for them and created unhealthy and disgusting conditions all around.

This most recent protest isn’t a hard call. We cannot condone the kind of treatment ADAPT handed Gardner and his family New Year’s Eve. Elected officials and high-level appointees understand that one of their responsibilities is to endure activist theatrics as part of the package deal of meeting with constituents and the public. Fair enough. Yet government officials and their families are also human beings, deserving of the same respect activists must expect for themselves.

Shame on Colorado Pols and everyone else who condoned this horrible behavior. It’s a relief no one was hurt.