Editorials : The Rocky Mountain News

Ready or not, a party dictatorship hosts the venerable Games

In order to pave the way for China's moment in sports history - or, more accurately, China's moment to put its spit-and-polished ultranationalism center stage as the world watches - the People's Republic spared no human-rights violation.

Colorado's direct democracy about to get a major test

The postal service may need to add temporary workers just to handle delivery of the massive blue books and ballot packets Colorado voters will receive before November's election.

The evidence in the anthrax case, please

Seven years after the probe started, the FBI is said to be ready to go public with documents and explanations about its investigation into the fatal anthrax attacks that still has no definitive culprit.

Obama endorses more offshore drilling - or did he?

Sen. Barack Obama's limited, qualified reversal on offshore oil drilling may be a hopeful sign of energy realism on his part. Still, it's far too early to tell how meaningful it will be in the effort to unlock huge deposits of oil and natural gas below American waters.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn's words remain a warning

After eight years in the Soviet Gulag, Alexander Solzhenitsyn lived to become an elder among Russian writers, dying Sunday at the age of 89. The Nobel-prize winner went into the camps a Leninist, convicted of disrespecting Josef Stalin in a private letter, and emerged to tell the world about the horror of conditions there.

Warring ads are misleading, but candidates are indeed far apart

Did Mark Udall vote "to reduce taxes on middle class families and Colorado's small businesses 65 times"? Did he instead "vote for higher taxes 50 times" - and is he "fighting for the biggest tax increase in history"?

Even president soft-pedals good news on Iraq

President Bush had legitimate success in Iraq to announce, but the way he chose to do it spoke volumes about how chastened this White House has become since the heady days of Bush's first term.

The impending deluge of red ink

The Bush administration's most recent fiscal record is nothing to be proud of. White House officials announced last week that the deficit for the next fiscal year is expected to reach $482 billion.

Labor Department: Who, us?

We were left scratching our heads after this week's Studio 12 program on KBDI TV that highlighted this newspaper's series on the government's treatment of sick and dying workers who built nuclear arms during the Cold War.

Anarchists' 'offer' a cheap publicity stunt

It's a deal only an anarchist could love - or, in this case, propose: Take your wads of capitalist cash that would otherwise be used to protect against riots, give it to the needy of Denver, and the anarchists will promise to save the human blockcades (or whatever mischief they have planned to disrupt the Democratic National Convention) for another day.

Yet more evidence surfaces against the Gonzales legacy

Denver attorney Cliff Stricklin is the latest person whose misfortune it is to be sucked into the cronyism controversy involving the Department of Justice during the tenure of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Stevens and the wages of arrogance

One of the hazards of being both powerful and in Washington a long time is arrogance and a sense of entitlement. How else to explain Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens' indictment for concealing gifts from an oil company that, considering the billions that the senator controlled from his seat on the Appropriations committee, amounted to a fairly paltry $250,000.