This just in… name that “gate.”
As everyone over the age of 40 knows, anytime there’s a scandal in America the last name of the scandal becomes “gate,” predicated on Watergate, an apartment office complex in Washington, D.C., that gets its name from one of the gates of the city of Jerusalem, the Water Gate. And after the demise of Richard Nixon, and the rise of an aggressive media, every scandal has the suffix — gate. Koreagate. Russiagate. Etc.
Do you get the picture?
So, sitting in a smoke-filled boardroom of the Glendale Cherry Creek Chronicle, I am stumped. I need you to name that gate. (We’re talking about the alleged sex and sex harassment scandal and cover-up involving Denver Mayor Michael Hancock.) If it’s good enough and you submit it to me, peterboyles@710knus.com, you can win an all expense trip to the morning show and I’ll let you read the weather. Or better yet if you don’t want to get up in the morning you can have a cup of coffee with Chuck Bonniwell and Julie Hayden during their show weekday afternoons from 1-4pm.
What do we know so far? All I’ve got are questions. Questions about the Denver media, the actions of a man I once had high regard for, Denver Chief of Police Gerry Whitman, the role the Brownstein law firm played in this entire scandal, who the players are and who the sugar is.
So just like Watergate, seemingly also Donald Trump and his porno one-night stand, it’s never the act. The Watergate scandal wasn’t really the break-in, it was the lies. In Oliver Stone’s movie on Nixon, in the end a sweaty actor said it’s always the lies.
And here we have a series of lies first told by Michael Hancock, then The Denver Post, then Channel 9 and then everyone seems to fall in lockstep.
With the exception of a handful of us media outcasts who are much like the little boy in the story the Emperor’s New Clothes, who is outside the gates pointing at the king and saying the king is in his altogether and naked as the day is born. Whereas if you are really smart and bright and black tie wearing, white wine drinking, runny cheese eating media butt boy you saw nothing wrong with the actions of Michael Hancock and other media outlets. Well guess what suckers, the chickens have come home to roost.
With other media outlets circling the porcelain convenience, The Denver Post editorializing how you can help them — hells bells. The Denver Post is supposed to help you understand these scandals — not you help them make their payroll. Somewhere William Randolph Hearst is crying.
The power brokers, the fat cats, the country club boys, members of Denver’s erstwhile press club, the winky winky buddies who go to press conventions and hear John Hickenlooper tell them how great a job they do — press people you should not be applauding him you should be investigating him. But then again let’s all help fluffy the dog find a forever home and let me tell you how much I love your Denver Broncos.
Elvis Presley is alleged to have told his mother, “There’s a storm coming,” the first time he heard himself singing on the radio. I say this with great pride. Pay attention Denver Post, Channel 9, a lot of people with microphones and laptops in front of them, to the Denver City Council members who cowardly turned a blind eye, to the Denver Police Department (huge questions behind its management) to developers and banks to bond daddies and corporate fund raisers and lobbyists and Chamber of Commerce members — believe me when I tell you this, as Elvis said to Gladys in Tupelo — “There is a storm coming!” Get ready. You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dawg.