Denver- It wasn’t until nearly the end of Hustler magazine owner Larry Flynt’s appearance at the Denver Athletic Club on Wednesday that the famous porn poobah was asked a sexually oriented question.

And I can’t print the question, or the response, in a family newspaper.

Flynt spent most of the luncheon discussing the political and First Amendment views put forth in his latest Bush-bashing book, Sex, Lies & Politics: The Naked Truth.

Flynt, an impeccably dressed figure in a butterscotch collarless shirt under a business suit, wheeled into the DAC during the Denver Press Club luncheon in his signature gold-plated wheelchair. His diamond watch, gold-and-diamond bracelet and gemstone rings practically blinded his tablemates when he gestured.

But those are the trappings of a man whose business empire is estimated to be worth $400 million.

Flynt, called both a smut peddler and a tireless supporter of First Amendment rights, gave his own state of the nation speech.

• On the political climate: “We have the biggest bunch of cowards in Washington today than we’ve ever had before. They’re scared of their own shadow, they don’t vote their conscience, and they’re scared to go against the Bush administration. It’s depressing.”

• On Bob Livingston (Livingston is a Republican congressman from Louisiana who admitted, after Flynt obtained evidence of the infidelity, to “a sexual indiscretion” outside of his marriage and resigned in 1998): “Robert Livingston said Larry Flynt is a bottom feeder. A New York Times reporter asked me for a response. I said, ‘Yes, that’s right, but look what I found when I got down there.’ ”

• On jail: “I’ve gone to jail four times for defending the First Amendment. What got me through every one of those prison stays was a quote from Martin Luther King: ‘If something’s not worth going to jail for, it’s not worth much.’ ”

EAVESDROPPING on a woman at the Flynt event: “You can call him a whole lot of things, but you can’t call him a hypocrite.”