“Sen. Inhofe was the first person to stand up and say this global warming is the greatest hoax that has been perpetrated,” Ken Buck said yesterday, The Coloradoan reports today. “The evidence just keeps supporting his view, and more and more people’s view, of what’s going on.”

Even if you think global warming is a hoax, like Ken Buck apparently does, it’s simply inaccurate to say that that “more and more” people share this view, at least the people who count the most: scientists.

“The trend in the scientific community has been to make more and more certain statements about global warming, and more importantly that it’s caused by pollution,” said Dan Lashof, Director the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Climate Center.  “The claim that more and more scientists are saying this is just a lie. The U.S National Academy of Sciences this year affirmed the science [supporting global warming] in a comprehensive study called America’s Climate Choices”

The Colorado Independent points out today that Buck’s views on global warming put him once again on the scientific fringe, continuing a trend from Sunday when he called sexual orientation is a choice.

Buck, who’s called himself a global warming skeptic in the past, also apparently stepped up his anti-global warming language for the ears of Inhofe, raising legitimate question again for reporters about his willingness to say whatever he thinks he needs to say to gain the love and support of the specific audience that’s in front of him.  I can’t find a case where Buck has said that global warming is the “greatest hoax that has been perpetrated” or anything quite this extreme on the topic. Let me know if you find this, please.

Reporters should ask Buck for his views on other scientific topics (e.g., evolution, extraterrestrials, health/tobacco, food labeling, endangered species) and whether he is uncomfortable being at odds with mainstream scientific thought…-and whether his other views on other scientific topics, like is thoughts on global warming, are even more extreme than previously expressed.

If you’ve been watching the evolution of political blogging at The Denver Post, you know that the Spot blog, is by far the best effort yet, way better than the newspaper’s blog in the days when rightie Ross Kaminsky wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote, while his left-leaning Gang-of-Four counterparts were often AWOL, along with any audience to speak of.

Now, with Kaminsky safely booted back to his Rossputin blog, The Post’s political blog features bylined reporting, fact-based with breaking news and some humor but without rumor and slander.

The Spot also offers two opinion writers (sometimes more, but rarely): right-leaning Chuck Plunkett, who posts as much as once per day, and libertarian David Harsanyi, who posts less frequently.

I’ve got nothing against Plunkett and Harsanyi. I respect both of them.

But it’s obvious to me that the Spot, by adhering to basic journalistic standards in the vast majority of its blog posts, strives to be fair and accurate, like The Denver Post generally.

And featuring two right-leaning opinion bloggers, amid the eight news writers, isn’t fair and doesn’t reflect well on The Post’s commitment to even-handedness.

So, for example, last week. On Tuesday, the morning after the 9News-Post-sponsored Bennet-Buck debate, there’s Harsanyi bashing Bennet on health care, with no blogger offering counter-spin.

And Wednesday morning, there’s Plunkett defending Buck in the “buyer’s remorse” case.

Then Plunkett is at it again on Thursday, trotting out a rape victim who praises Buck’s treatment of her.

The previous week, Bennet got unfairly punched in the mouth by Plunkett, in a Spot piece titled, “Bennet ought to drop his hypocritical strategy.” 

I know Plunkett doesn’t always side with the GOP (e.g., McPlagiarist), but he seems to be on a particularly conservative jag of late (See list at end of this post.)

Since the primary, Plunkett wrote eight pro-Buck posts, versus four siding with Bennet. Harsanyi tossed in five more attacking Bennet and, no surprise, none favoring Bennet. (Well, that’s not exactly right. Harsanyi posted a piece Friday pointing out that even though he “fundamentally” disagrees with most of Bennet’s policy positions, Harsanyi doesn’t believe Bennet hates the Broncos, as Republicans claimed. And on Friday Plunkett posted The Post’s endorsement of Bennet.)

I emailed The Post’s Editorial Page Editor Dan Haley, who’s in charge of the opinion posts on the Spot, while Political Editor Curtis Hubbard oversees the news posts.

I asked Haley if he thinks the situation is fair and, if not, if he’d balance out the Spot by adding a couple left-leaning opinion writers from the editorial page.

I suggested that, with the election raging, the Spot should dump Plunkett and Harsanyi for the final weeks of the election season, in the name of basic fairness. Or balance them out immediately.

His response:

You make an interesting point, and one I hadn’t thought of. When we created The Spot, the idea was to join forces with the citydesk reporters, so we could have one strong blog (with news and views) rather than two weaker blogs. I’ve encouraged everyone on my staff to blog, but I don’t make it mandatory. Given our staff size, our main goal each day is to produce two editorials and create a compelling op-ed page. (Of course, online and social media have taken on a bigger role, as they should.) I have no plans to ask David and Chuck to stop blogging during the campaign because I think their contributions are a valuable part of the blog, in specific, and the public discourse in general. But I do think we should encourage more of our left-leaning editorialists and columnists to do more blogging for more balance, and that’s a broader discussion that we should have here.

Also, I would argue with your characterization of Chuck Plunkett’s blog posts. While those you point to can be viewed as conservative, or right-leaning, he also has written numerous posts that could be seen coming from the left, if you feel the need to put everything in a neatly labeled box. Beside critiquing Scott McInnis and Dan Maes, for example, he has taken on Tom Tancredo in a few posts, including one after Tancredo called for Obama’s impeachment. He also has defended Michael Bennet in numerous instances and criticized Dick Wadhams when he tried to lump Hickenlooper and Ritter together as “Hickenritter.”

I was obviously happy to receive this, since Haley essentially agreed with me that more left-leaning posts on the Spot would bring more balance, and he seems ready to move in this direction.

Though I’d dump Harsanyi and Plunkett now to achieve immediate fairness, I wouldn’t eliminate them or the opinion posts from the Spot forever. I like the news-opinion format of the blog, as long as it’s balanced.

The question is, how to achieve balance in the long term?

Adding posts by left-leaning bloggers is the place to start, obviously.

It’s also a necessary to acknowledge that Plunkett leans right.

Harsanyi, for one, doesn’t think so, as he told me in an email, that Plunkett is a centrist.

Asked if he thought of himself as right-leaning, Plunkett wrote that “free-market libertine” had a “nice ring to it.” He emailed me:

“I think of myself as a centrist. So do others who know me well. I’m progressive on social issues like gay rights and a woman’s right to chose. I’m passionate about protecting the environment. But I am skeptical of government over-reaching in many ways, and I am a free-markets kind of guy, as long, of course, as those markets are conducted under the rule of clear and reasonable laws and regulations. In my life, I have voted more often for Democrats than Republicans, but it is true Democrats have deeply disappointed me of late. I also think Republicans share the blame in the present situation.

 So no, I don’t lean GOP. I no longer lean Democrat. I don’t even know if you can say I lean Libertarian. What I think is going on is you and others are seeing a Chuck Plunkett who is a centrist by nature but who is writing and commenting during a unique time in our history when the conservatives are generating much of the energy.”

Looking back at Plunkett’s writing, I have to agree with him that he’s not partisan, for sure. He’ll take unexpected positions.

But before you believe he’s Mr. Centrist, read the following excerpt from a speech he gave at conservative gathering Sept. 15, called “Denver Liberty on the Rocks.”

Plunkett describes how he want back two years ago, after he joined the Post editorial board, and read “key passages” of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, which was an “exciting and affirming” experience. “I thought it was an overwhelmingly positive message, and I note that you guys think that way,” he said, adding that a lot of Americans “don’t see that free markets could structure a beneficial society.”

“Vast segments of our population either believe or act like they believe that Americans only enjoy their standard of living at the expense of others,” he said.  “They experience guilt when they ought to experience gratitude. They don’t understand that wealth creates wealth. They don’t understand that the poor countries in the world are almost always poor not because Americans are stealing all of their resources, but because their governments prevent free markets from forming and empowering their people…-because over-reaching governments won’t help them make money. You need to frame the narrative so more people understand that.”

“Too many Americans believe that here at home only the rich get richer,” he told conservatives. “You hear that all the time that the system has gotten rigged somehow against the middle class and especially against the poor.”

I know the political center in the United States has been moving steadily to the right, but if this quote represents the new center, the right has been moving so fast I lost track of it.

I mean, the Spot needs a voice to stand up for unions and government interventions in the economy to create economic equality–countering Plunkett and Harsanyi.

Still, the addition of more progressive blog posts on the Spot, written by other writers, would help balance the blog.

But it won’t solve the fairness problem because it’s true what Haley says: Plunkett in particular and even Harsanyi will sometimes attack conservatives and their ideas.

So you could run into a situation, like during this year’s primary season, when Plunkett was in his “McPlagiarist” period, when the Spot’s opinions could tilt left, instead of the current rightward tack.

That wouldn’t be fair either.

So it’s up to Haley to flag situations where the Spot starts to look one-sided, favoring one candidate or view, whether left, right or center. Or when it’s doing the opposite. This makes The Post look bad, and right now that’s what’s happening. There are plenty of opinion mongers out there to make the situation right, if need be, on short notice.

I’m not alone in thinking that newspapers will survive only if they can convince people that they are the source for credible, fair, and accurate information…-even on their blogs.

By sponsoring a blog that tilts rightward, particularly in a Senate race that has huge national implications, The Post isn’t doing itself or us any favors.

A SUMMARY OF RECENT OPINION WRITING ON THE SPOT BLOG

 The vast majority of Spot pieces are not opinion. They are written by Denver Post reporters Lynn Bartels, Michael Booth, Karen Crummy, Jessica Fender, Tim Hoover, Michael Riley, and Allison Sherry. Political Editor Curtis Hubbard also contributes.

Opinion pieces are mostly written by Chuck Plunkett and David Harsanyi

A sample of recent Spot posts by Chuck Plunkett:

• Oct. 18: Buck’s gay gaffe and what Republicans should learn from it (States that Buck’s views are wrong.)
• Oct. 15: Denver Post picks Bennet for Senate
• Oct. 14: Rape Victim Praises Ken Buck for his assistance (Reports on rape case in which victim praises Buck)
• Oct. 13: Sex and Politics in the Senate Race (Supports the way Buck handled rape case)
• Oct. 12: Dan Maes blames his supporters for believing in him
• Oct. 7: Did GOP just drop Dan Maes? Really?
• Oct. 6: Bennet ought to drop his hypocritical strategy. (Slams Bennet ads)
• Sept. 24: WhoSaidYouSaid catches its “They Spend You Pay” stride (Praises free-market website)
• Sept. 9: Bennet gets it right (supporting Bennet positions against more stimulus funds and Afghan war)
• Sept. 8: Hickenlooper’s strange bedfellows
• Sept. 3: Maes snubs reporters; proves pundits right
• Aug. 31: NRO finds Bennet also faults stimulus as “immoral” (digs at Bennet for faulting bill he supported)
• Aug. 27: More on Bennet’s “Nothing to show for it” comment (defends Bennet remark.)
• Aug. 25: Bennet’s “Nothing to show for it” comment” isn’t really a bombshell (adds context and defends Bennet remark)
• Aug. 24: Bucking the Federal footprint (defends Buck against extremist label by NYT)
• Aug. 13: Buck to use candor against crazy label (explains how Buck will answer charges of extremism)
• Aug. 13: On trying to label Ken Buck (Suggests Buck perfectly represents GOP)
• Aug. 12: Team Buck versus Team Obama (Suggests national GOP will like Buck)

David Haransyi’s sample Spot blog posts:

• Oct. 15, 2010, “Does Michael Bennet want Kyle Orton to get injured?” Um, no.
• Oct. 12, 2010, Where’s Michael Bennet on health care? Anywhere he needs to be (bashing Bennet)
• Sept. 9, 2010, What is Dick Morris talking about? (defending Ryan Frazier)
• Sept. 7, 2010, So let me get this straight-.  (questioning poll showing dead heat in U.S. Senate race)
• Sept. 3, 2010, Who is Michael Bennet? (bashing Bennet)
• Aug. 26, 2010, “Oh, the hypocrisy (Suggests Bennet is a hypocrite)
• Aug. 11, 2010, What the Atlantic and others got wrong about Colorado (saying Buck will be tough candidate)

Alicia Caldwell is a Post opinion writer, but her posts on the Spot are not hard-edged like Plunkett’s. She wrote last week that U.S. Rep Jared Polis and State Senator Michael Johnston appeared on Time Magazine’s list of rising stars of U.S. politics. She wrote wrote Aug. 24, spotlighting a Washington Post piece that quoted Buck lauding the Tea Party movement but distancing himself from it. Before that, in an Aug. 20 piece titled Buck gets no love from the NYT, she wondered whether Buck’s being labeled “extreme” in a New York Times editorial would hurt or help him among moderate voters in Colorado. She wrote three other pieces in August and more frequently in July, mostly passing on information from other media outlets, some of it left-leaning.

If you’ve been reading the news coverage of U.S. Senate candidate Ken Buck’s decision not to prosecute a man who admitted raping a 21-year-old University of Northern Colorado student in 2005, you know there’s a major omission: Ken Buck himself.

He’s not quoted in stories in The Denver Post, Associated Press, Politico, Roll Call, Politics Daily, ABC’s The Note, or the Colorado Independent, which was the first news outlet to obtain a  audio-taped discussion among Buck, the alleged rape victim, and two others, and to interview her directly.

Buck is apparently not talking to the media about the case, leaving reporters to chat with his spokesman.

Except, that is, for a reporter at the Greeley Tribune.

Buck talked directly to the Tribune’s Nate Miller, who wrote an excellent article covering different aspects of this complicated story.

The Tribune reports, unlike The Post and the Associated Press, among others, the key fact that the perpetrator “told police she had told him no, but he thought she invited him to Greeley because she wanted to sleep with him.” (The Independent provided a transcript of this admission, as part of its in-depth coverage.)

The Tribune gives Buck ample inches to defend his decision not to prosecute, allowing him to point out that he had numerous deputies review the case, as well as the Boulder District attorney.

The Tribune also asked Buck about his statement to the Tribune in 2006 that a jury might think this was a case of “buyer’s remorse.”

At the time, a Tribune editorial criticized Buck for using the phrase. A Tribune editorial stated:

“Buck told the woman he could not press charges against her attacker, despite the man’s admission to police that she said no. Buck said he must only prosecute cases in which he has a reasonable chance of convicting someone, and this was not one of those cases.

…A jury could very well conclude that this is a case of buyer’s remorse,’ Buck said.

While we support his legal reasoning, we believe Buck could have, should have been more sensitive in his choice of words, regardless of what he may have thought a jury or defense lawyer would conclude.

He added, …I don’t want victims to be deterred from the pitiful facts in this case from coming forward.’

We, too, hope other victims won’t be discouraged by this case. Again, though, Buck’s selection of words could have been more appropriate. Calling the facts of the case …pitiful’ could be construed by other victims as discouraging.”

Yesterday Buck told the Tribune that the phrase “buyer’s remorse” was taken out of context. The Tribune reported:

“I listed five or six reasons why I thought a jury would not convict in this case,” Buck told the Tribune. “She said she was passed out during the sexual act, so I wasn’t referring to whether she had buyer’s remorse for the act that they engaged in, but rather for the prior relationship they had.”

But either way, why infer publicly that the victim might have “buyer’s remorse,” either for the sexual act or for the relationship? Why use such a condescending phrase?

That’s the kind of question reporters should be asking Buck now, because it gets to the heart of the accusation that Buck isn’t sensitive to women, forcing them to birth babies resulting from rape, for example.

He’s not apologetic about using the phrase “buyer’s remorse,” which we all can agree is a loaded term. Instead, he’s defensive. Why?

Which leads to an error I spotted in the Tribune article.

The Tribune reported that Buck apologized for joking that women should vote for him because “I do not wear high heels.”

In fact, Buck was defensive, not apologetic, about his joke during the GOP primary.

The Associated Press reported that he defended the joke, conceding that it “wasn’t very funny” and it was not meant to be offensive. But he was unapologetic.

I cannot find a record of Buck actually apologizing for the high heels remark. Please let me know if you find this.

In any case, now he’s defending his “buyer’s remorse” comment as well.

Reporters should ask, why doesn’t he think this merits an apology, along with other comments he made about the case, including his statement in 2006 that the facts in the case were “pitiful,” which would presumably include the fact that the man admitted having sex with the woman even though she said no.

Ken Buck is having second thoughts on yet another issue, The Denver Post reports today.

This time, it’s the consumption tax, which Buck called “great” during the GOP primary but now says was “never my alternative,” according to The Post.

The Post reports:

“Buck’s stance Wednesday on the consumption tax is the latest instance in which he has offered a different position from in the primary.”

We all like a person, especially if she is your wife but even if he is a political candidate, who’s willing to change his or her opinion.

But the key phrase in The Post’s sentence above is “different position from in the primary.”

It’s one thing to consider new information and make a change. It’s another to take a position to appeal to one group of people (right-wing GOP primary voters) and change it to appeal to another group of people (average everyday angry voters).

In this case, whether you’re the angry right winger or the average angry voter, you’re wondering whether Buck will say anything to get elected.

That’s why Buck’s recent changes are important, and why media outlets like The Post deserve credit for spotlighting them for us.

In today’s article, The Post reviewed three other issues, on which Buck has flipped since the primary:

Personhood. He supported it during the primary, briefly came out against it, and now says he’s neutral, but is still in favor of personhood “as a concept.”

Pro-choice judges. During the primary, Buck said he wouldn’t confirm “pro-abortion” candidates for any federal job, including judges. Now Buck will confirm pro-choice nominees.

Anti-abortion legislation. During the primary, Buck promised to sponsor anti-abortion legislation. Now he won’t.

Now that Buck is establishing a record of backtracking, The Post and other media outlets should offer readers a wider view of his before/after primary positions. The expansive list includes:

Social Security and Medicare. During the primary, Buck says “the private sector runs programs like [health care and retirement] far better” than the federal government.  Now the Buck campaign says, “Ken is not in favor of privatizing Social Security,” and we have to keep a “promise” to seniors and maintain the program, with tweaks including privatization and a higher retirement age for younger people.

Constitutionality of Social Security. During the primary, Buck said he was “not sure” about the constitutionality of major federal programs passed over the past 70 or 80 years. Now he says he’s “never had doubts” about the constitutionality of Social Security.

Privatization of Medicare. During a primary debate (Mike Rosen 7-19-10), Buck said he supports “privatizing as many of the areas of health care as possible, including the decisions of folks that are on Medicare.” Now he tells the New York Times that he hasn’t “decided whether some form of vouchers would work or not.”

Department of Education. During the primary, to select audiences, Buck advocated shutting it down immediately. Now he consistently says it should be cut back.

Common forms of birth control. Consistent with his position during the primary, the Buck campaign told 9News that he’s against common forms of birth control that prevent implantation, such as IUDs as well as some forms of the Pill. Now he says he is “not in favor of banning any common forms of birth control in Colorado.” (But still opposes killing fertilized eggs, which are killed by common forms of birth control.)

Social Issues. (See above.)

Consumption tax. (See above.)

News outlets like The Post, Associated Press, Grand Junction Sentinel, and others have covered Buck’s before/after primary stances on a case-by-case basis, but I’d like to see more reporting that brings all these issues together, a bit like Buck’s interview with New York Time reporter John Harwood here, and delves more deeply into why Buck staked out the positions he did initially and why he is changing his views post-primary on some issues and not others.

The ranks of the Personhood 33, as I’ve been calling the top 33 Colorado candidates who’ve endorsed the Personhood Initiative, are diminishing.

First, as you know, Ken Buck un-endorsed the measure, though he still supports personhood “as a concept,” leaving me and others wondering what’s changed. His hard-line abortion stance still puts him in opposition to common forms of birth control and abortion even in the case of rape and incest.

Still, I’ve been wondering if the other 32 members of the Personhood 33 will follow Buck’s cue. (See list here.)

So this week, I phoned up some more of them, after determining previously that Dan Maes and Tom Tancredo were standing with the Amendment.

Colorado Senate (SD 16) candidate Tim Leonard, who…-like Buck…-believes that life begins at conception, told me he never endorsed the Personhood measure, and the Christian Family Alliance website erred in listing him as an endorser.

“I’ve taken no position on any citizens initiative or anything that’s on the ballot that doesn’t have to do with me,” he said, adding that activists were asking him about it during the primary but he never took a position.

Colorado House (HD 35) candidate Edgar Antillon also told me he shouldn’t be on endorser list anymore, having un-endorsed the Initiative during the GOP primary before Buck did.

“Obviously, I don’t get attention like Ken Buck does, but my stance changed on that,” he told me, primarily because he supports abortion to save a women’s life, putting the life of the mother first.

So the Personhood 33 was down to the Personhood 30 by the time I called Colorado House (HD 34) candidate Brian Vande Krol, who told me that he also never endorsed Personhood Amendment. The Colorado Right to Life website claims he supports “Personhood”.

“Mr. Vande Krol was reported to support Personhood by a volunteer who said he spoke to him, but this is not a reliable method of knowing of someone’s stand, and he has also not responded to our survey,” Bob Kyffin, custodian of the CRTL blog, emailed me in response to my questions. “We have tried to make it clear that the only way we know for sure where someone stands is if they respond to the survey.  When we do, we make note of that.”

Kyffin added: “Your articles are helpful to us in determining who sincerely supports Personhood and who is just pretending — historically a major difficulty with Republicans.  It is our hope that most of those you communicate with will affirm support for Personhood in full knowledge that the only forms of birth control it would ban are those that cause a chemical abortion (i.e. abortifacients).”

I left a couple messages over the past week at the campaign of U.S. House candidate (CD-4) Cory Gardner, who’s endorsed Personhood, but I didn’t get a response yet.

Gardner told the Coloradoan a couple weeks ago that he supports the proposed personhood amendment, confirming his past endorsements.

Abandoning Personhood would be a major change of direction for Gardner, given that, you may recall, he bragged at a February candidate forum about circulating petitions to put the measure on the ballot this year.

“I have signed the Personhood petition. I have taken the petitions to my church and circulating them in my church. And I have a legislative record that backs up my support for life,” said Gardner.

But Gardner, like Buck, has changed his position on one issue dear to the hearts of social conservatives. The Coloradoan reported Oct. 3 that Gardner will no longer carry legislation to outlaw abortion, despite what he previously told Tea Party groups.

Given the prominence of social issues in past CD 4 elections, the Coloradoan is right to be asking Gardner about these topics, even if he resists them.  (You can hear the Gardner’s exchange with the Coloradoan here, toward the end of the clip. It’s a great example of a journalist pressing a candidate to answer a question directly.)

But especially given Buck’s statements on Amendment 62, journalists outside of Ft. Collins should be asking the personhood endorsers what they think nowadays about the measure. But they’re not. Hence this blog post, to fill in the journalistic gap.

I really am trying to stop writing about sperm, eggs, zygotes, implantation, and birth control, but these normally quiet yet essential topics keep arising in the Denver media.

The Denver Post states today that the Personhood Amendment would ban common forms of birth control, which is one reason the newspaper came out against Amendment 62.

“Yet because Amendment 62 would define human life as beginning the moment of ‘biological development,’ some common forms of birth control would be illegal because they prevent a fertilized egg from attaching.”

We know that Michael Bennet has been pointing out that Ken Buck is opposed to common forms of birth control. This is based not only on his hard-line abortion stance but also his endorsement of the Personhood Amendment.

Buck’s campaign first tried to tell journalists that Buck supported common forms of birth control AND was in support of  the Personhood Amendment.

But then Buck acknowledged that Amendment 62 would ban common forms of birth control, and he un-endorsed the measure, saying he does not want to ban common forms of birth control.

Still, as recently as last weekend, Buck has stated that he supports “Personhood as a concept.” 

But if this is true, he’d still oppose common forms of birth control, which potentially kill fertilized human eggs, as today’s Post editorial points out. And as a legislator, he’d presumably vote to ban them.

Unless Buck is…pro-choice. This would allow him to support the Personhood concept AND support common forms of birth control.

That’s what the Post editorial board should ask Buck.

Does his support for common forms of birth control mean that he’s now become pro-choice since the GOP primary? If not, what gives?

Looks like CBS Anchor Bob Schieffer did about two minutes worth of homework prior to his interview with Ken Buck Sunday on Face the Nation.

Had he or his producers prepped for maybe five or ten minutes, he could have called out Ken Buck on some seriously misleading statements on his show.

Schieffer: You also said at one point that you would support a proposed law out there in Colorado that would have banned some forms of birth control, some birth control pills. Do you still hold to that?

Buck: I have never said that. No. I have said that there is a state amendment on personhood. I am in favor of personhood as a concept. I am not taking a position on any of the state amendments. And I have said over and over, and it’s been reporter over and over again, that I am not in favor of banning any common forms of birth control in Colorado or in the United States.

Schieffer: Alright. So we’ve cleared that one up.

Hardly.

Buck is clearly on record as supporting the Personhood Amendment. He’s un-endorsed the Initiative now, but he was for it previously. (And in the middle there, he was against it.)

As for banning common forms of birth control, Buck’s spokesman Owen Loftus told 9News in an email three weeks ago that Buck opposes some forms of the pill, IUDs, and other homone-based methods. These are common forms of birth control.

Buck’s position opposing birth control was consistent with his view that life begins at conception, with the creation of the fertilized egg or zygote.

His no-birth-control position was also consistent with his position opposing abortion, even for a 14-year-old girl raped by her teenage brother. Buck wouldn’t allow her to take a morning-after pill, either.

But Buck’s new position in favor of birth control methods that kill zygotes (like IUDs or the Pill) is inconsistent and makes him look awfully hard-hearted toward the raped 14-year-old girl.

Buck is now saying he’d allow a zygote to be killed by an IUD, but he won’t let a teenage girl choose the morning-after pill or to abort a zygote if the poor girl gets pregnant after she is raped.

Schieffer could have produced some informative and dramatic TV if he’d asked Buck what gives.

Why would he force a raped girl to have a child but allow comfortable women, who could use barrier-method birth control, to use IUD’s and the pill, which murder fertilized eggs too?

After Scheiffer failed to clear up Buck’s issues with Personhood, Schieffer then asked Buck if he was in favor of turning veterans hospitals over to the private sector.

Buck said Schieffer was getting “the Democrat speaking points here.”

Schieffer said, no, “these come from newspaper clippings, but I want to hear your side of it. That’s why I asked.”

It’s great Schieffer is reading newspaper clippings, but he wasn’t reading them very closely. If he had, he’d have pressed Buck harder.

The BigMedia question of the week is, are any of the 33 candidates who endorsed the Personhood Initiative, other than Ken Buck, clued into the fact that the measure would ban stuff like the Pill and IUDs?

You recall last week Buck withdrew his endorsement of Personhood, Amendment 62, saying he didn’t “understand” that the measure would ban common forms of birth control (even though his campaign understood that the measure would ban IUDs and at least some forms of the Pill.)

Over the weekend, to fill in the journalistic gap, I asked a few of the other best-known Personhood endorsers (the Personhood 33) if they knew the Initiative would ban common forms of birth control, and if Buck’s decision changes anything for them.

Nate Strauch, spokesman for Personhood endorser Dan Maes, said of his boss, “He has not changed his opinion on the matter.”

Fellow gubernatorial candidate Tom Tancredo, also a Personhood endorser told me “nothing has changed there,” regarding his endorsement of Amendment 62.

Asked if this means he supports banning common forms of birth control like the Pill and IUDs, Tancredo said, “I must admit, on the rest of this stuff, I have to look into it.” (I’ll check back with him later and report back.)

Cory Gardner, running for CD 4, is another high-profile GOP candidate who’s thrown his backing behind Personhood. His campaign didn’t return my call over the weekend, but the Ft. Collins Coloradoan reported Sunday that Gardner supports Amendment 62.

Asked by the Coloradoan if he opposes abortion even in the case of rape and incest or if the mother’s life is in danger, Gardner replied: “I’m pro-life, and I believe abortion is wrong.”

I’ll try to find out if Gardner, unlike Buck, understands that Amendment 62 would ban common forms of birth control.

I’ll be calling other members of the Personhood 33 as well.

Denver Post editorial page editor Dan Haley got a fact wrong in his column today.

He wrote in reference to Colorado’s U.S. Senate race:

“No one in 2010 is talking about social issues except Bennet.”

Most likely, Ken Buck is the GOP nominee precisely because he talked so much and so passionately about social issues during the Republican primary, scoring much more love from the social-conservative wing of the Republican Party than his opponent Jane Norton. Arguably the support from social conservatives tipped the close primary in his directions.

So it would have been true for Haley to write that Buck doesn’t like to talk to him and mainstream journalists and average-regular-angry voters about social issues now. And Buck is trying not to talk about social issues to anyone now that the primary is behind him.

But Buck undoubtedly blabbed and blabbed about social issues to select audiences who heard his words clearly, and these folks were part of his Tea-Party victory formula.

I’m really sorry to offer this exchange again from Jim Pfaff’s social-conservative radio show (560 KLZ), but it’s emblematic of how Buck dangled his social-conservative lines to select audiences who wanted to hear them.

Pfaff: “These social issues, like marriage, these are critical issues. It has been one of the great weaknesses of the Republican Party not to deal with these critical issues.”

Buck: “I agree with you that I think it has been a weakness of the Republican Party in the United States Senate, and I think it’s time that we look at the people we are sending back to Washington DC and making sure those people are sticking by the values they espouse on the campaign trail.”

This kind of talk paid dividends for Buck.

As the Colorado Right to Life blog put it after the 2010 primary:

“The biggest victory for Personhood today was Ken Buck, for U.S. Senate.”

So, you’re right Mr. Haley, Ken Buck must not have said anything about social issues in 2010 to get that kind of response from Colorado Right to Life, which we all know cares only about jobs and the economy.

Reporters are having a hard time figuring out Ken Buck.

His statements on key issues are at odds with each other, and this has left some reporters, like local TV fact checkers, disagreeing about what some of his real beliefs are.

I have sympathy for these reporters. How do you sort out a guy who says we should “immediately flip the switch” on the Department of Education one day, and then calls for slowly phasing out the Department the next.

How does a reporter reconcile Buck’s view that government shouldn’t be in the retirement or health arenas at all with his view that we have an obligation to make Social Security and Medicare work for our seniors?

To give the public a better handle on how Buck thinks about these issues, reporters should take a few minutes to learn what he thinks about the U.S. Constitution and the intent of the founders.

Speaking to a Tea Party group in December Buck made it clear that we need to honor what he sees as the intent of the founders, which was to keep the federal government small.

“We have for 70 or 80 years put ourselves in a bind where we have grown government in a way that’s inconsistent with the way the founding fathers saw the government,” Buck said. “And I’m not ready to say unconstitutional because the Supreme Court, according to our constitutional structure, is the decision-maker on whether something is constitutional or not. It has said it is constitutional. It’s certainly not consistent with what I think the founding fathers intended. But I’m not sure it’s unconstitutional at this point. But that’s semantics.”

“And so,” Buck continued, “I think we need to recognize what the federal government shouldn’t be doing, and we need to develop a plan to move those programs into the state and the private sector. But again, it isn’t going to happen overnight.”

This view of the federal government gone awry, going back to the New Deal, explains how Buck can be so hostile toward, for example, Social Security, Medicare, and the Department of Education…-and yet not want to flip the switch on all of them (though he has said this about the Education Department, perhaps because his primary opponent was ready to shutter it immediately.)

Buck’s recipe for how he would scale back the New Deal initiatives and other federal programs may help resolve the dispute among reporters about whether Buck really thinks Social Security is constitutional or not, much less “horrible” policy.  It may well be that Buck was literally speaking his mind when he said, “I don’t know whether it’s constitutional or not,” if he reduces the distinction to mere semantics, while Social Security itself is “fundamentally against what I believe” since it would be one of those government programs that have put us “in a bind” in the last 80 years.

People need help understanding how Buck would get us to the world where major federal programs, like Social Security and Medicare, are privatized and the states have more control.

What’s Buck’s plan to create a government consistent with Buck’s view of the intent of the founders? What are the details? How many years until he could see Social Security and Medicare being fully privatized and out of the control of the federal government? How long until the Education Department is cut back and returned to the states, and which programs would be cut outright in the long term and which put in state control?

These and other questions spring forth from BigMedia’s question of the week for reporters:

What’s Ken Buck’s plan for moving major federal programs to the state and private sectors?

Partial transcript of Ken Buck discussing the U.S. Constitution and the size of government December 6,2009, at a Tea Pary gathering.

We have for 70 or 80 years put ourselves in a bind where we have grown government in a way that’s inconsistent with the way the founding fathers saw the government. And I’m not ready to say unconstitutional because the Supreme Court, according to our constitutional structure, is the decision-maker on whether something is constitutional or not. It has said it is constitutional. It certainly not consistent with what I think the founding fathers intended. But I’m not sure it’s unconstitutional at this point. But that’s semantics. I think your point is government has grown beyond where it should be, in ways that in shouldn’t be, and I agree with you. And I think the key is to find ways over time to reduce programs and privatize programs and return programs to the states.

But what about that kid with student loans who couldn’t go to college otherwise. Are we really going to say for 70 years we’ve had student loans, and that is an unconstitutional program, and now you can’t go to college? Or are we going to find a way to move from where we are now, which is wrong, to a system that recognizes human behavior and human needs and let the states take over these programs in a thoughtful way. And so I think we need to recognize what the federal government shouldn’t be doing and we need to develop a plan to move those programs into the state and the private sector. But again, it isn’t going to happen overnight. We didn’t get into this problem overnight and we aren’t going to solve this problem over night. And people who say we are going to solve it overnight are either ignorant or lying to you. And it’s very frustrating to have those people out there with simplistic answers to these very complex problems.