No matter what you think of abortion, it’s fair to say that U.S. Senate candidate Ken Buck’s opposition to abortion, even in the case of rape and incest, is newsworthy.

But surprisingly, this tidbit about Buck has barely seen the light of day in the Colorado mainstream media.

It has yet to appear in The Denver Post, and it got exactly 21 words in one Spot blog post and a vague link in another.

In fact, Buck’s stance on abortion has been covered by only one major news outlet in Colorado, and that is, the Associated Press, according to Nexis search, though you might have heard about his view on this issue via the local blogosphere or from a few national news outlets.

The Aug. 11 Associated Press piece ran in some smaller Colorado newspapers, or at least on their websites, but the AP story gave only passing treatment (12 words, to exact) to Buck’s abortion position, listing it among other positions cited by progressive organizations as “too crazy for Colorado.”

Denver local TV news apparently haven’t mentioned Buck’s abortion stance at all, according to an admittedly non-comprehensive web search.

 Even if I missed something, and please let me know if I did, it’s fair to say that Colorado’s major news outlets have essentially ignored Buck’s position that women should not be allowed to choose to have an abortion if they become pregnant after being raped, even by family members.

That’s a serious omission, but Buck sprang up unexpectedly, and I have no doubt that Colorado’s major news outlets will get around to covering his position on abortion, now that he’s the official GOP nominee for U.S. Senate.

In questioning Buck on this issue, reporters should follow the lead of KHOW talk-radio host Craig Silverman, whose detailed questioning of Buck Aug 4 on this issue sets a high standard for journalists who interview Buck about abortion in the future.

Notice in the transcript below how Silverman leads Buck through a line of questioning that ends with the most important and relevant answers.

He first establishes that Buck believes if you allow for abortion in the case of rape or incest “you’re taking a life as a result of the crime of the father.”

Silverman then asks Buck the key question of whether his personal position on this issue would guide his actions if he became a U.S. Senator.

Buck responds that he would indeed favor a federal law banning abortion, even in the case of rape and incest.

It’s worth taking a moment to read the transcript of Silverman’s interview with Buck below:

Craig: You’re saying even in the cases of rape or incest, you’re not for abortion?

Buck: That’s correct. You know, Craig, if you believe that life begins at conception, which I do, then with the exception of rape and incest, you’re taking a life as a result of the crime of the father. And even though I recognize that the terrible misery that that life was conceived under, it is still taking a life in my view, and that’s wrong.

Craig: Right. And I believe life begins at conception. I think that’s a matter of science. To me the question is, when does somebody become a human being and entitled to the same rights and protections that any human being in America deserves, or frankly around the world. To me, that’s the debate. How did you come to your position? Is it informed by your religion?

Buck: It’s my upbringing. It’s my faith. It’s my life experiences, the three things that have brought me to that position.

Craig: And have you always been there, or is this something that you’ve evolved to.

Buck: No, I think it’s something I’ve evolved to. It’s something that I realized in my mid-twenties. I certainly as a teenager hadn’t thought through the positions. As I got out of school and was observing things and growing in my faith I came to that position.

Craig: And would it transfer into the legal world. You’re going to be a legislator if you’re voted into the United States Senate. Would you create a law that would prohibit abortion in the cases of rape or incest?

Buck: I would favor that position in law, yes.

Craig: …Let’s say, god forbid, that a 13-year-old boy impregnates his 14-year-old sister and does it by forced rape. You’re saying that the 14-year-old and anybody involved in the abortion should be prosecuted, if they choose to terminate the pregnancy, either through surgical abortion or a morning after pill?

Buck: I think it is wrong, Craig. I think it is morally wrong. And you are taking a very small group of cases and making a point about abortion. We have hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of abortions in this country every year. And the example that you give is a very poignant one but an extremely rare occurrence.

Craig: Incest happens. I’m sure your office prosecutes it. And we know rape and sexual assault happen all the time, and your office prosecutes it. So it’s not completely rare. I agree that most abortions have nothing to do with that. I don’t know if I’d go with rare.

Talk radio can put you in the middle of a political worldview that’s completely foreign, with an intimacy and intensity that some people can’t stand. That’s understandable, but it’s also unfortunate because there’s a lot to be learned from radio talk shows.

My own world is almost completely void of social conservatives. So I like listening to them on talk shows. Not always, of course, but sometimes, especially if they have interesting guests.

If you’ve been following my blog, you know that recently I’ve enjoyed listening to Jim Pfaff, who holds the social-conservative flag over at 560 KLZ.

So after Ken Buck won on Tuesday, and I abruptly had to stop writing about media lapses and triumphs relating to Scott McInnis, I turned to Pfaff’s radio show to find out more about how Buck operates in the social conservative world.

Talk radio generally is a great place to learn about candidates, and Pfaff’s show on Buck, which aired May 21, did not disappoint. In about an hour, Pfaff pretty much provided his listeners with everything they might want to know about Buck’s views on social-conservative issues.

In a year when Colorado Republicans started out generating Denver Post headlines like, “Colorado GOP campaigns on a single issue: the economy,” Pfaff boldly told Buck:“

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,” Buck responded.

A host like Pfaff doesn’t just ask about Buck’s position on Roe V. Wade. He goes beyond it, asking Buck: “Let’s say we overturn Roe V. Wade. What should we do to address the issue of abortion nationally, if anything?”

Buck responded: “I think it is a federal issue. You know, you look at the founding documents, and one of them is the Declaration of Independence. And it clearly states that among our inalienable rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And life to me means life, and life begins at conception. So we need to honor that in how we deal with the federal government. Others would insist these are issues for the state legislatures and they certainly would have a role in that but I think the federal government has to guarantee life.”

Asked by Pfaff about the Supreme Court, Buck said:

“I think those Supreme Court Justices really need to be scrutinized. They’ve got to have a record, and we’ve got to probe to make sure we know exactly what they are going to act like on the Supreme Court. I am a strict constructionist, and I believe strongly that we need to make sure Supreme Court justices and other judges are not legislating from the bench.”

If you’re like me, you might not even think about where a candidate stands on religious freedom. So you might learn something completely unexpected when Pfaff asks Buck about this, and Buck says he questions the application of “separation of church and state” and argues for a vague “coexistence between government and religion.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Pfaff establishes that Buck opposes same-sex marriage and “would certainly be in favor” of an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, if required, to ensure that states like Colorado don’t have to “acknowledge” gay marriages from other states, like perhaps Massachusetts.

Along with gay adoption, I found a few items Pfaff didn’t cover. These were Buck’s support of the Personhood Amendment, his opposition to abortion without exceptions for rape and incest (which Buck announced later), and his view that, actually, “we could be much better off with a closer relationship between church and state” but without state-sponsored religion.  (Colorado Right to Life pointed to Buck’s primary win as the “biggest victory” for Personhood in Tuesday’s results.)

So here’s my advice. If you want to learn about our surprising new GOP candidates, and do it in a lazy and entertaining way, listen to a podcast or two.

Some say I’m beating my head against the church wall by critiquing conservative talk radio, no matter how reasonable my criticism is. But KOA’s Mike Rosen and KLZ’s Jim Pfaff, both righty radio hosts, recently responded on their air to issues raised in this blog.

With respect to Rosen, you may recall that I asked him and other talk-show hosts if they thought Scott McInnis should withdraw from the gubernatorial race as a result of his plagiarism, given that Rosen advocated firing Ward Churchill.

Rosen responded via email that Ward Churchill’s plagiarism was completely different than that of Scott McInnis. I asked him why he thought this, and he refused to answer.

But he addressed my question later on the air.

On his KOA show July 14, he said, first, that he didn’t want “to give a leftist fuel to quote me and make a bigger issue out of this.”

But, to Rosen’s credit, he went on to answer my question directly:

Ward Churchill was by profession a supposed scholar. And plagiarism coming from somebody who’s sole profession is based on much more honorable treatment of other people’s work is much more serious than the situation Scott McInnis found himself in, especially since Scott has said he hired someone, he hired a researcher, to provide the expertise in this area…. If I had had my druthers, I would have had the University of Colorado go after Ward Churchill and fire him not just for the plagiarism but for his abuse of academic freedom, for casting the University in a bad light based on his behavior and his comments not only in his classroom but at various speaking engagements. The University decided to play it safe and go after Churchill where they thought they could nail him for plagiarism and didn’t want to open that can of worms regarding the abuse of academic freedom. I would have been delighted to see them open up that can of worms regarding academic freedom… I would have fired Churchill for his general proslyletizing in his classroom and the outrageous statements he made while being connected to the University of Colorado and various other places around the country. So I don’t compare Scott McInnis to Ward Churchill.

So, there you have Rosen’s view on the matter, for which I thank him.

This month, I also asked Jim Pfaff, a conservative activist and talk-radio host on 560 KLZ, if he would please ask McInnis why he claimed to have a “zero rating” from NARAL during his years in Congress.

McInnis told Pfaff:

“My record is pro-life. When I was in Congress, I had zero rating by NARAL. And that’s very easy for people to look at.”

McInnis actually had an above-zero rating more often than not.

To his credit, Pfaff sort of asked McInnis about this, as I requested he do, Aug. 5.

Jim Pfaff: You mentioned that last time we were on the broadcast that you had a zero percent rating with NARAL… [Jason Salzman] pulled out NARAL’s numbers…. A little earlier, 1995 through 1999 you did not have a zero percent rating but, quite frankly, it went from 45 percent to 7 percent and zero from 2000 to 2004. I mean, you and I had talked about the fact that on the issue of protecting life that you had moved from a pro-choice position way back to a very solidly pro-life one. I mean it’s honest of Jason to point out that you did not have a zero rating those early years, but man you had four straight years when that changed. I’d love it if you could remember what you shared with me privately, because we did not talk about it on the broadcast, how important this is.

Scott McInnis: I’d be happy to do that. Well, it’s important. I struggled with the issue. When I was younger, I was never pro-choice, but I was inclined to go that way. I would sit down with pro-life people and I could never answer that question they had, Jim. And the question was, Scott, when does life begin? I thought how can life begin at any point other than conception? And finally I reached the conclusion, as a lot of people have, a lot of people struggle with this issue. Look, life begins at conception. If life begins at conception, how could you be pro-choice? I couldn’t. So, I changed my position.

Thanks to Pfaff, any of his show’s regular listeners who thought McInnis had a zero rating by NARAL during all his years in Congress now know that he did not.

I love it when any candidate (Democrat, Republican, or American Constitution Party) tells a reporter to prove him wrong and the reporter proceeds to prove him wrong. You’d think even talk-radio hosts would jump at such opportunities.

Back in May, and I apologize for getting to this so late, Scott McInnis threw down such a challenge during an appearance on the Jim Pfaff show on KLZ radio.

McInnis said:

“My record is pro-life. When I was in Congress, I had zero rating by NARAL. And that’s very easy for people to look at.”

He’s right, it is very easy to look at, and Pfaff himself should have gone and looked for it, but he didn’t. So I did, like others have done, at least partially, in the past.

It turns out McInnis indeed got a zero NARAL rating for five of 12 years in Congress, but for seven years he did not, meaning he got a greater-than-zero rating (between 7% and 45%) more times than he got a zero rating.

Here are scores from NARAL Pro-Choice America’s Congressional Record on Choice for McInnis when he served in Congress, and please email me if you want documentation: 1993, 25%; 1994, perfect record (Same as Pat Schroeder); 1995, 45%; 1996, 33%; 1997, 13%; 1998, 22%; 1999, 7%. Then he got a zero rating in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004. Even McInnis campaign strategist Mike Hesse told the Denver Post back in November that McInnis got a zero NARAL rating only near the end of his time in Congress. So Hesse was more clear than McInnis.

Pfaff is known to ask pointed questions to all his guests on the abortion issue, so I asked him if it occurred to him to check McInnis on his assertion that when he was “in Congress,” he got “zero rating by NARAL.”

“I believe that you see a pattern with him of moving forward on the issue and realizing he needed to come to better conclusions,” Pfaff told me. “He was wrong on that issue for many years.”

I pointed out to Pfaff that, regardless of McInnis’ evolving position on abortion, he made a misleading statement on his radio show, and Pfaff is the host.  I suggested to Pfaff that on his next talk-radio show, he set the record straight for his listeners, who might think McInnis got a zero rating by NARAL throughout his career in Congress, not just for five of 12 years.

“We’ll have to see,” he responded. “I mean, we’ll talk to him about whatever is most important to talk about. As a conservative, and I have a strong track record in the pro-life pro-family movement, I don’t limit my viewpoints to those opinions.  I believe in free market economics. I believe that we should protect life from conception to natural death, but I also believe we should protect life all the way in the middle by keeping government off our backs. I’m going to question candidates on a whole range of issues.

He added later: “I want to know why media critics aren’t criticizing the media for not pointing out that Democrats shut out pro-lifers, shut out free-market- thinking blue dog Democrats. They get shut out. The media never point out that there’s an assault on pro-life free market Democrats.”

I told Pfaff I would not criticize the news media for this because I don’t believe it’s true, but I said I’d talk to him more about it sometime.

Excerpt of Interview with Scott McInnis, May 17, Jim Pfaff show, KLZ radio, 560-AM.

Jim Pfaff: What is, though, very important is the discussions that have happened regarding your position on the life issue and your participation in an organization that’s been called Republicans for Choice. Your name showed up on a letterhead in 1998 while you were in Congress. And you’ve obviously taken some steps to try to explain what all this meant. First of all, how did your name end up on that letter? Explain that first.

Scott McInnis: Let’s start at the very beginning by saying I’m pro-life. I’ll be a pro-life governor. And when I become governor I will do just exactly like Gov. Owens did and that is we will defund the funding that Ritter and Hickenlooper would keep in place in regards to Planned Parenthood. So there’s no question about that. Second, in regards to my record, which is the beauty of what I have. Nobody else out there, they all say they are pro-life, but nobody has a record. My record is pro-life. When I was in Congress, I had zero rating by NARAL. And that’s very easy for people to look at.

It seems like an age has gone by since the Denver media, gamely led by the bygone Rocky Mountain News, was in full-bore media frenzy over a CU professor named Ward Churchill.

And who was leading the frenzy, calling for the firing of Churchill after, and in some cased before, it was determined he committed plagiarism? Denver’s top-rated talk show hosts. Those guys.

KHOW’s duo of Caplis and Silverman was out in front of the pack.

On July 27, 2007, the Rocky Mountain News reported that Dan Caplis cut a vacation short to broadcast the Churchill firing. Caplis told the Rocky at the time: “This is the people’s victory, and talk radio played a part in it. But that’s what we’re here for. We shouldn’t be bragging about it – we just did our job. If we don’t do our job, bad guys like Churchill win.”

Asked today whether he thought McInnis should withdraw from the race, Caplis responded:

“Fair question. The same standard should apply to a candidate for any higher office as applies university professor. Plagiarism is extremely serious. Now we just have to see what the facts are. Hopefully we’ll have a chance to talk to Scott on the show today. Absolutely the same standards should apply to a candidate as a university professor.”

 Caplis is an arch conservative who considered a gubernatorial run himself. For a talk-show host like Caplis, who openly supports McInnis and opposed Churchill, you might say, if you were Ward Churchill, that the chickens have come home to roost.

I asked his co-host, centrist Craig Silverman, if he thought McInnis should withdraw. Silverman first questioned McInnis about what he did for the Hasan Family Foundation after the job was mentioned in the Denver Post, eliciting the response from McInnis that a “series of in-depth articles on water” were written.

Like Caplis, Silverman called for Churchill’s firing, but strictly due to the plagiarism issue, not because of his inflammatory essays.

“I have lots of thoughts on the subject,” he told me. “I’m going to formulate them and let them spill forth on my radio show [KHOW, 630 AM] between 3 p.m. and 6. We are going to be talking about it big time, as Dick Cheney would say.”

Silverman added: “I definitely made the Ward Churchill connection before you brought it up.  So I’ll talk about it.”

KOA talk show host Mike Rosen was also on the Churchill war path, saying over and over and over that the case against Churchill had nothing to do with free speech and everything to do with plagiarism, an act of unforgivable academic misconduct.

In an Aug. 3, 2007 column in the Rocky, Rosen wrote: “ The party line of Churchill apologists is that he was really fired for expressing his beliefs and that the findings of CU faculty panels that investigated his serial academic fraud were merely a ruse. Nonsense. Churchill is a proven liar and cheat.”

Via email, I asked Rosen if he thought, in light of his previous criticism of Churchill, that McInnis should step aside. “No,” he answered. “Not comparable.  Churchill’s behavior was far more serious.”

You might think that KHOW talk-show host Peter Boyles, who polluted the air with the Jon Bonet Ramsey case, would have been one of the anti-Churchill leaders, but he was more restrained at the time.

Today, when I asked him if McInnis should go the way of Churchill, he told me, “That’s a great question. You know, I read Crummy’s piece, and I’m not trying to dodge ya, I don’t know enough about it other than what I read in Crummy’s piece. Nobody’s better than Crummy.”

He went on to say, “The worst campaign I ever saw was Bruce Benson, until I saw Pet Coors, until I saw Bob Beauprez, and this one is the icing on the cake.”

On KVOR radio in Colorado Springs June 19, talk show host Jeff Crank tossed this question at GOP U.S. Senate candidate Jane Norton:

“You know, people get frustrated because politicians run and say well, yeah, I don’t know about the Department of Education and things like that. I don’t know if we can kill it. It’s like, nobody’s bold enough to want to make the tough decisions and do it. Where are some cuts that you would make in spending to get us to a balanced budget?”

It’s a fair question from a right-wing host, and here’s Norton’s response:

“Jeff, I have talked about looking at Departments like Education, block granting the money to the states, rather than this huge bureaucracy of 5,000 people.”

Crank’s been around long enough to know that transferring money from the Department of Education to block grants for the states doesn’t save the feds any money. Yet, Crank didn’t ask Norton to explain how you balance the federal budget by moving money form one corner of the budget to another.

To be fair, in response to Crank’s question, Norton recited some other money-saving ideas, like stopping earmarks. But transferring money out of the Education Department was among her biggest money-saving notions, even though this wouldn’t save any money.

You’d think Crank’s ears would have also tuned into Norton’s statement that she’s “looking” at the Education Department, not pledging to cut it, which is a different position than she’s expressed in the past, and it may put her in the category of waffling politicians whom Crank says he’s frustrated with. If Crank were to visit Norton’s website to seek assurance that she won’t leave him frustrated about the Education Department in the future, he won’t find solice there. I couldn’t find any mention of cutting the Department of Education on Norton’s web site.

Instead of calling Norton on this, all Crank could say to Norton was, “Thanks for all you do and good luck on the campaign trail.”

Maybe other frustrated right-wing talk show hosts on the campaign trail will pursue the question further with Norton and give us some clarity.

Sometimes it seems that if you flutter from radio station to radio station in your car, like I do, and you light for more than a few minutes on a conservative talk show, you inevitably hear the host slamming journalism, not just The Denver Post or a specific story, but journalism in general.

I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with criticizing The Post. I do it all the time. But it’s the sweeping condemnations of journalism that are destructive and unnecessary, like the unsubstantiated claims that The Denver Post has a liberal bias.

I mean, just this morning, as I was driving to work and considering a blog post on this topic, I hear KHOW’s Peter Boyles agree with a caller who compared today’s journalists, like those at The Denver Post, to Catholic Church leaders who tried to stop the Gutenberg press because the Catholic Church didn’t want the masses to have their own bibles and their own access to the scriptures.

“Sure they are,” said Boyles in agreeing that journalists are like the self-serving Popes of yore who tried to put the lid on information and shut down the printing press.

Is that a stomach-turning and untrue analogy or what? The Post isn’t trying to stop ordinary people from learning on their own or publishing whatever they want on the Internet, whether it’s true or not. 

The Post is actually trying to give us the credible facts (not always accurate, but mostly) to help us be involved in public life in a meaningful way and to figure out stuff like who we want to vote for.

Boyles brought up this topic because Denver Post publisher Dean Singleton was on KHOW’s Caplis and Silverman show earlier this week saying, essentially, that people should be wary of all the untruths on the Internet. He argued that his newspaper is a credible source of information, versus much of the Internet.

And Boyles opinion of  Singeton’s radio appearance, as uttered on his show this morning: “That was bad.”

It was actually great to see Singleton defending journalism, and it raises the question of why don’t journalists defend themselves more often? Rocky Editor John Temple did it occasionally in his weekly column, even if his style was on the snooty side sometimes.

It’s ironic, of course, that talk radio hosts trash journalism, because they rely on it day after day for their shows. It’s hard to imagine how Boyles would fill his three hours if he didn’t have The Post to beat up on.

That’s the point I tried to make in this op-ed in Today’s Ft. Collins Coloradoan. KCOL’s Gail Fallen and Keith Weinman were perfectly happy to pat gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis on the back, as he condemned The Denver Post for doing its job and asking him to release his income tax forms.

Did the talk show hosts point out that The Post was performing the basic function of journalism, to get the facts on the table. Of course not.

Maybe they don’t care, but how great would it be if talk radio hosts changed course and defended journalism, instead of letting their callers and guests misrepresent the what reporters do and the role they play and have played historically in public debate?

Boyles knows better than to compare journalists to Popes. You can do better, Peter. So can other hosts.

Over the weekend, The Hasan Family Foundation posted a series of articles on its website called “Musings on Water.”

Guess who’s listed as the author? Yup, Scott McInnis.

The 12 articles, plus five speeches and several TV interviews, appear to be some, but not all, of McInnis’ work produced during his two-year fellowship at the Hasan Family Foundation, for which he was paid $300,000, $150,000 per year, according to Hasan Family Foundation attorney Glenn Merrick.

(I previously reported that he only got $150,000 total for two years, but he got $150,000 per year. Sorry about that mistake.)

In a Dec. 2, 2005 memo accompanying the articles, McInnis writes that his work for 2005 “resulted in 12 researched articles (in a series format that requires continued research) supported by speaking engagements.”

But three of the 12 articles listed as his work product for 2005 are missing.  The missing titles are: “Who gets the water? Nothing much has really changed,” “West of the 100^th Meriden (sic),” and “Dividing the Waters.”

McInnis expected to write over a dozen more articles in 2006, during the second year of his fellowship, according to his end-of-the-year memo in 2005.

“At this point I think we are well on track to have a very active 2006, including 15 to 20 more articles and several speeches,” McInnis wrote in 2005.

But only three articles stamped with 2006 dates were released by the Hasan Family Foundation. So either McInnis came way short of producing the expected 15 to 20 articles in 2006, or most of his 2006 work has yet to be released.

Each of the articles posted on the foundation website has “MUSINGS ON WATER” at the top, usually followed by a headline beneath it, like “A River Stretched too Far” or “A Start for the Upper Basin.”

Each article concludes with “Thank you until next time.”

The first article in the series begins: “WATER! It is an absolute human and economic necessity. WATER! You and I cannot live without it. Colorado’s economy and people absolutely depend on water.”

The articles are mostly descriptive, with some opinions and interpretations interspersed.

Oddly, the titles of the missing articles indicate that they might contain more of McInnis’ opinions on water issues, but who knows, given the content of the articles that were released. McInnis wrote in his cover memo to the foundation that, per the agreement between him and the foundation, his articles were “written at a level that non-water experts could easily understand.”

This seems to be true, but I’m familiar enough about Colorado water issues to know that as a “non-water expert,” I’m in no position to evaluate these articles.  

So I’ll find a few experts to look them over, and reporters, who should not have left it to me to dig into this topic, should also take a look.

As a sometime writer, I’m thinking that McInnis got one hell of a deal, getting $300,000 for these 12 articles and five key speeches and “several TV interviews.” At $150,000, he got a screaming writing gig, but $300,000 goes into the stratosphere, given what was produced.

So I asked the Hasan Family Foundation attorney, Glenn Merrick, if the Foundation had other McInnis’ water articles that were not posted and if McInnis was consulted.

“In response to your questions, Mr. McInnis served as a Hasan Family Foundation Fellow for two years and received $150,000 per year in that capacity,” he responded via email. “The decision to publish his work product for the Foundation was made exclusively by the Foundation. Neither Mr. McInnis nor any of his staff or advisors was consulted about the decision. All of Mr. McInnis’ work product in the possession of the Foundation is being published.”

Merrick leaves open the possibility that more articles exist, possibly in McInnis’ possession, but the Hasan Foundation does not have them. Previously, you recall, Merrick told me that McInnis would have to release the articles himself.

In addition to the articles, memo, and news release, the Foundation posted a revised description of McInnis’ fellowship, as well as an updated photo.

Questions remain for journalists to pursue: Judging from the articles produced so far, does McInnis have a grip on basic Colorado water issues? Where are the three missing articles from 2005? Where are the dozen or so missing articles from 2006? Why $300,000 for this work?

I’ve been on the hunt for any article about water, written by GOP gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis.

And guess what appeared in print when I was on vacation last week? A water article by Scott McInnis, titled, “Why I changed my position on the Southern Delivery System.” 

It was published May 31 in the Colorado Springs Gazette, in response to a column by Barry Noreen that raised questions about a McInnis vote on a water issue just prior to his leaving Congress.

Unfortunately, McInnis’ Gazette water piece was written too recently to be one of the articles in the series that McInnis wrote for the Hasan Family Foundation, which paid the former Congressman $150,000 from 2005 - 2007 to write a “series of in-depth articles on water.” (McInnis won’t talk about them to me, and reporters aren’t asking him about them. So I’m forced to keep searching for them myself. Hence this post.)

I thought there might be a remote chance I could find a clue or two in McInnis’ Gazette water article that might lead me to McInnis’ expanded writings on water issues, or at least to a reason for their disappearance.

In the Gazette piece, McInnis says that as a Congressman, he voted against the Preferred Storage Option Plan (PSOP), which would have provided funding for a study of, among other things, enlarging Pueblo Dam, a project possibly connected to the construction of the Southern Delivery System (SDS), which would move water from Pueblo Dam to Colorado Springs and areas around there.

In his column, McInnis writes that in Congress he didn’t support PSOP or the SDS.

Noreen’s column cites a Republican who said McInnis was originally in favor studying PSOP and SDS, as long as it didn’t take western slope water. But he allegedly changed his mind at the last minute, allegedly under pressure from McInnis future employer, Hogan and Hartson, and voted against the PSOP.

If that’s true, Congressman McInnis was for SDS before he voted against it. And now candidate McInnis has come out in favor of it again in his Gazette article. Why?

“Simply put, I believed then that the project needed significant improvements — improvements that a ‘no’ vote could encourage,” McInnis writes in the Gazette.

Colorado Springs City Councilmember Sean Page, who tracked the issue when McInnis was in Congress and continues to follow it , told me he didn’t think the project has changed much between then and now.

“The plan is basically the same today as it was back then, which is to run a pipe from Pueblo reservoir into Colorado Springs and put it into a reservoir and so on and so forth,” Page told me. “The argument that somehow Scott McInnis improved the SDS by blocking the PSOP legislation is specious in my view and not supported by the facts.”

McInnis wrote in the Gazette that he changed his view on the project because there’s more collaboration around the project now.

“This collaboration, which was frankly lacking in 2004 and is alive today, is why the project has earned my support,” McInnis wrote in his column. “I’m also very pleased with the required safety and environmental projects on Fountain Creek. As with many folks in the region, while my support didn’t come easily, it’s enthusiastic for this reformed and vastly improved project.”

City Councilmember Page, who’s a Republican not backing McInnis or his primary opponent Dan Maes, thinks the collaboration (He calls it “extortion.”) would have happened as part of the normal regulatory process even if McInnis had not “torpedoed the PSOP.” 

Page believes McInnis changed his view on the water project because he’s looking for votes from El Paso County.

“Back then, he was representing his congressional district, and Bob Rawlings of the Pueblo Chieftain, had a lot of pull in his district,” said Page. ”When you run for statewide office you have to take the bigger perspective, because all of a sudden the people in El Paso County and Colorado Springs matter to your election. I’m sure he has changed his view based on the fact that he’s running for statewide office. You know, parochialism and being parochial is common for politicians, to look for what suits them in the short run for their district. Maybe this is just a lesson that sometimes you have to project down the road a little bit. I wish that five, six years ago he [McInnis] had taken a more statesmanlike position and looked out for not just his district but for the good of the rest of the state, or I should say the Arkansas Valley.”

Whatever you think of McInnis’ different positions on SDS, it’s clear that his recent Gazette piece reflects a detailed understanding of at least one Colorado water issue. So, I’m thinking maybe McInnis excerpted a portion of a previously written Hasan water article for his Gazette piece. That’s mostly a joke, but I think McInnis knows a lot about Colorado water issues, and I have no reason to doubt that McInnis wrote water articles as a Hasan ”senior fellow.” McInnis said so. Why in the world would he misconstrue this?

The simple reason for McInnis’ apparent refusal to produce his water opus might be the fact that these issues are so mind-bogglingly sensitive that he feels he has nothing to gain politically by exposing more of his thinking on the topic.

McInnis alleged temper tantrum (described in City Councilmember Page’s blog) in a private meeting in CO Springs, when a water issue was raised, is proof of the sensitivity of the issue. As is the Noreen’s recent column on the topic.

This is speculation, I know, but until McInnis explains what’s going on, or reporters dig into it, what more can we do?

I’ve been hoping that journalists, being writers and all, would take more interest in the fact that gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis managed to cut a deal with the Hasan Family Foundation, paying him $150,000 to write a “series of in-depth articles on water” that could be used in a “series for education on water in Colorado.”

Denver Post columnist Ed Quillen, having toiled as an editor and writer in Colorado for more years than most living journalists in the state, knows the going rate for freelance writing better than your average congressman.

So I wasn’t surprised that the $150,000 received by McInnis for writing the water articles got Quillen’s attention. He wrote in a column yesterday:

“So $150,000 divided by zero disseminated words works out to something like infinity. Thus, Scooter must be the best-paid writer in our state. And if he doesn’t get elected governor, I want to engage him as my literary agent, since he knows how to cut some sweet deals.”

Since so many reporters hope to break out of the daily grind by publishing novels or something, I’d suggest they contact McInnis, too.

Meanwhile, one of them should ask McInnis to make his water articles available or, at least, to tell us why no one who knows anything about water in Colorado seems to have seen them. McInnis’ campaign won’t tell me.