He showed up at the Colorado Springs radio station around 10:30 a.m. He had just spent the past four days in Denver covering the Democratic National Convention (DNC). He got out of the vehicle in blue jeans and grabbed his own suitcase. He spoke to everyone who was waiting for him at curb-side. Here was a larger-than-life, nationally known TV journalist who looked and acted like your average business man, headed into an office building to generate income.

Sean Hannity is the conservative half of the Hannity and Colmes, Fox News cable network show. Hannity had been in Denver at the DNC upsetting the liberal Democrats and it was felt by all concerned, that a little protection was in order. The Colorado Mounted Rangers were asked to provide that coverage. He was coming to Colorado Springs to do his daily radio show, hold a public rally for conservative Republicans at the National Rodeo Hall of Fame and then travel to the Focus on the Family campus to do a live broadcast of his nightly Fox TV show. It was correctly perceived that Hannity would be verbally beating up on the liberals and the Democratic Party at the rally and he did not disappoint the conservatives.

The TV and radio airwaves were full of comments on the DNC that had just ended the evening before and the speech that Barak Obama had made. Then the bomb was dropped by the Republicans, when they announced Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska was to be the Vice Presidential candidate for their party. It was like the wind was taken out of the sails of the Obama acceptance speech and you could feel the change in the air.

My concern as one of the Colorado Rangers inside the radio station, where Hannity was live on the air, telling everyone where he physically was at and in the same breath hammering the Democrats for three hours on the radio. For the rest of the time we were in the radio station, whenever a door opened a Ranger was monitoring even closer, who was coming into the area.

I know his broadcast is just a radio show and it is designed to capture a listening audience and then deliver to that audience moneymaking commercials. Radio is a business, but sometimes the people listening don’t see it that way. We have become a society of people who are too easily offended and too quick to demand satisfaction for our besmirched honor.

People my age remember being told, that in public you never discuss politics, religion or sex. When I became an officer in the Air Force you were also told not to embarrass the military by taking public stands on those topics.

I can remember being in a restaurants listening to people opine some of the most vile things about a current President and was helpless to say anything. If I were to confront a person in public about their open display of contempt for an elected official, I might set myself up for a charge of conduct unbecoming an officer.

Many on the far left and far right of politics think nothing of defaming elected or appoint officials with untruths. Along comes conservative talk radio, allegedly, hopefully, telling the hard truth and this enrages lunatics on both fringes. I stood in the main room of the Rodeo Hall of Fame and watched Hannity give a rousing speech to 1000 people who paid $15 a head to hear him speak. Supposedly, they were all conservatives who truly wanted to hear his speech, but I never took my eyes off the audience from the time I escorted Hannity onto the stage, till we got him off and into his waiting vehicle.

All the man-hours of work were for an entertainer, not an elected official. I had to wonder how an elected politician who tried to stick to his principles right, left or center, considered his/her personal security when they felt the need to tell the unpleasant truth on a hot-button issue. You try to do your job for the people who elected you and you need men with guns on their hips to keep you safe.

We kept Mr. Hannity safe and both he and his staff were very gracious, even with their extremely long work days. My feet and my back were hurting after that shift, but it is all in a day’s work for the Colorado Mounted Rangers. (www.coloradoranger.org)