Tutoring Justice Thomas

Slated on Backbone Radio, June 1 Listen every Sunday, 5-8pm on 710 KNUS, Denver... 1460 KZNT, Colorado Springs... and streaming live at 710knus.com.

If Obama is elected President, it will be because of civic illiteracy. Is that too highbrow for you? I'm saying it will be because American politics finally turned into "American Idol," the contest for prom king. A win for Obie will mean our process of choosing the trustees of power was emotionalized, feminized, and infantilized to the point where Madison and Hamilton wouldn't recognize it. Backbone Radio is on a crusade to combat civic illiteracy. We're all about self-government for grownups, America as the Founders intended it to be. That's why we love the Claremont Institute. No one else teaches our country's founding principles as well as they do.

Did you know that when Clarence Thomas was a young agency head under President Reagan, long before anyone dreamed of him being a Supreme Court Justice and brilliant guardian of the Constitution, he hired a couple of political theorists from Claremont as his tutors in what America was meant to be? True story, you can look it up.

** Dr. John Marini of the University of Nevada at Reno was one of those Thomas staffers back in the '80s. I thrive on Marini's tutoring, and it will be great to have him on the show this Sunday. Listen and learn.

** Further in the cause of recovering civic literacy, we'll also do an hour of Politics 101 with CU political scientist and fearless conservative, Dr. Vincent McGuire. An evening in the candy store, I'd say.

** And there's more. Imagine a guided tour of leftism and atheism called "Ten Books that Screwed Up the World." It actually exists, and the author, Prof. Benjamin Wiker, will be my guest. So will our man on the campaign trail, often wrong but never dull, Mike Littwin of the Rocky.

It's odd. Backbone is abundant among ordinary Americans, but scarce among political figures, more scarce the more prominent they are, for some reason. We're out to change that. We need your help. Please join us. Our country's very survival could depend on it.

Yours for the Republic, JOHN ANDREWS