G. Spagnuolo says "thanks, sucker"

Good piece by Vinnie Carroll on Denver mayor John Chickenpooper's charitable contributions to the far-left Chinook Fund, a non-profit that funnelled money to such civic-minded groups as Recreat!e 68 and the Transform Columbus Day Alliance. Vinnie:

My colleague Chuck Plunkett wrote a justifiably indignant blog post last week marveling at how a left-wing nonprofit that John Hickenlooper helped to establish and to which he still may be contributing (he won't say) supported groups dedicated to disrupting the Democratic National Convention as well as Denver's Columbus Day Parade.

Both, of course, forced authorities to spend a fortune on police protection.

Chickenpooper defended himself thusly, according to Carroll:

"I support the principle of giving some small amount of power to small organizations and letting them succeed or fail on what they think is best for the community," he recently told Post reporter Karen E. Crummy.

And if some groups happen to think what's "best for the community" is to trample on the First Amendment rights of others, that's just the way things sometimes work out when you're into adventurous philanthropy, right?

Please. Hickenlooper shouldn't insult our intelligence and we shouldn't insult his. The Chinook Fund's support for obnoxious groups such as Re-create 68 and Transform Columbus Day Alliance was no accident. Nor was its support, say, for the nearly equally obnoxious Colorado Campaign for Middle East Peace, ACORN and Denver Cop Watch. It was the inevitable result of Chinook's philosophy, which is to boost leftist schemes for social transformation. Some of the groups Chinook has supported are harmless. But the ones that aren't were hardly chosen by mistake.

No, they weren't. Like Carroll (and local conservative radio yakker Mike Rosen), I voted for C-pooper for mayor both times he ran--he's always been the best of a bad lot--but I won't be voting for him for gubner. How dumb do you have to be to give money to groups with the avowed goal of disrupting and damaging the town of which you're mayor?