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On Wednesday, April 1, the Denver-based Counterterrorism Education Learning Lab (CELL) will host an event that could make national headlines and be monitored around the world.
At the Ellie Caulkins Opera House at 7 p.m., the nonprofit will stage “Violent Extremism & U.S. Response,” a panel discussion about the terror-related crises currently facing our nation and our allies.
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Although the CELL is officially non-partisan, we can expect this particular event to tilt pretty far to the right: The guests are senators John McCain (R-Arizona) and Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), and the discussion’s moderator is Fox News correspondent Ed Henry. McCain and Graham, who both sit on the Senate Armed Services Committee (of which McCain is chairman), are two of our more hawkish congressmen who have long called for a more aggressive foreign policy and military presence overseas. And Fox News is Fox News.
The upshot: In a conversation among arch-conservatives that will address the ongoing nuclear negotiations with Iran, the threat of ISIS and Middle East turmoil, and the increasingly tumultuous American relationship with Israel, barbs will be thrown at a whole bunch of people who won’t be in the room.
In fact, the event at the 2000-seat theater is already sold out, so we’ll have to rely on news reports to see if any reasonable proposals emerge from the evening. These all are pressing issues that concern our government and its citizens, but it’s somehow fitting—for both sides of these debates—that the event is being held on April Fool’s Day.
Follow 5280 editor-at-large Luc Hatlestad on Twitter at @LucHatlestad.