On November 1, I announced that I won’t be seeking re-election to the U.S. House of Representatives. To my friends in Colorado, thank you for allowing me the opportunity to serve our nation. Being your representative in Washington, D.C., has been the highest honor of my life…
— Press release from Colorado Congressman Ken Buck
Sometimes, I feel really proud to live in Colorado.
Not too often, but sometimes.
Yes, I know. It seems kind of silly, really, to feel ‘proud’ of something that you have no control over. Like, when my cat Roscoe catches a mouse, and I find myself feeling proud. Of course, I’m not feeling proud about the mouse, per se — I played no part in that little drama — but still, I feel proud, that a talented mouse hunter like Roscoe allows me to live in the same house as him.
In the same way, I feel proud, that the people of Colorado still allow me to live in their state. In spite of everything.
For a while, I felt proud that I lived in the same state as Representative Ken Buck. (When he wasn’t living in Washington DC, of course.). But lately, I’m not so sure.
I watched a video over the weekend — Rep. Buck announcing his intention to stop wasting his time, serving in Congress. To be more precise, he announced that he would not be running for re-election, but that’s sort of the same thing.
I can see how a smart, sincere guy like Ken Buck could become disenchanted with Washington. Disenchanted, even, with his own Republican Party. Disenchanted with the whole game. The backstabbing. The dishonesty.
And worst of all, no one listening to him. Except maybe the commentators at CNN.
Here, for example, is a photo by J. Scott Applewhite, showing Rep. Buck heading for an important Republican Party caucus on October 11.
It looks to me like all of the reporters in the photo are checking their social media accounts. That’s got to be so disheartening!
I honestly don’t know what happened to Ken Buck. In the past, he acted like a real Republican, proposing drastic budget reductions, demanding sanctions against TikTok, advocating cuts for educational material that teaches slavery was central to the nation’s founding.
He was among the eight conservative Republicans who voted, along with 208 Democrats, to remove Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House.
He used to be the kind of guy who threatened to shoot Joe Biden with an AR-15.
Now… he won’t even vote for impeachment? What happened?
Back in the day — like, back in March 2020, before the election was stolen and Joe Biden became president — Rep. Buck posted a Twitter video, where he calmly invited then-Presidential-candidates Joe Biden and Beto O’Rourke to swing by his office and take the red-white-and-blue AR-15 he had mounted on his wall, in Washington DC.
In the video, he takes the AR-15 down off the wall, swings it into a comfortable firing position, and — smiling — invites Biden and O’Rourke to “Come and take it”.
That was the kind of Colorado Congressman I could feel proud of.
The kind who publicly threatens to shoot evil people. Democrats, I mean.
There was one little detail I didn’t feel entirely comfortable with, however.
When he takes the rifle down and swings it into firing position, he momentarily has it pointed at the person shooting the video.
They taught us in Boy Scouts: Never point a gun at someone unless you intend to kill them.
I guess Rep. Buck was never in Boy Scouts.
But that was just a small detail. Compared to, like, preventing children from reading about slavery.
Like I said, sometimes I feel proud of living in Colorado. Sometimes not so much.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.