Parker Caldara.
Every now and then when someone visits the newsroom they’ll stop at my desk, looked at my picture of an adorable little girl with the bluest eyes and ask, “If she yours?” And I say, “No, she’s Jon Caldara’s daughter.”
One day that visitor turned out to be Caldara, who was stunned that I still displayed Parker’s picture. In 2001, just days before her 1st birthday, . She had never even been sick.
Caldara’s the political court jester who oversees the Independence Institute, a right-learing free market think tank based in Denver.
The other day Caldara held off on his infamous the one-liners in a that was a sock to the gut:
If we could be jailed for our thoughts, I should have a life sentence. It was a short, sad, news item that came over the radio some 13 years ago. I remember it perfectly to this day. It delighted me then. It shames me now. Along I-70 in the mountains a boulder came loose, fell from a cliff, and struck the passenger side of a pickup truck. The father driving the truck was uninjured. His young son was killed.
When I heard the news report my mind, on even a chemical level, released a one-word, satisfied response — “Good.” It gave me immense pleasure.
I wanted everyone to lose their child. Everyone.
Jon Caldara, president of the Independence Institute.
Caldara went on to explain how the death sentence of his only child had been delivered a week earlier at the “old, cramped and dingy Children’s Hospital, one of the most horrific sites on earth.”
Caldara would go on to have a son who needed multiple surgeries, which were conducted at the new “airy Children’s Hospital.”
In his letter, Caldara appealed for funds for the hospital. Last year, .
I know Caldara’s story well. We met in 1998 when he was serving on the board of the Regional Transportation District. When he took over at the Independence Institute he invited me to the Founder’s Day dinner and told me I could sit at a side table with his wife, Mara, and their new baby.
He now writes an annual fundraising letter on behalf of the hospital. Although I know how the story ends, the letters still shake me to my core. As I read them, I look at the photograph taped to my desk.
