Denver writer and radio-show host David Sirota claimed in a tweet Friday that Denver Post Editorial Page Editor Curtis Hubbard blocked Sirota from Hubbard’s Twitter feed:

David Sirota‏@davidsirota

Following my @harpers piece, @DenverPost editor @CurtisHubbard blocked me on Twitter. Dear lord, that’s friggin’ hilarious.

He followed that tweet up with this one:

David Sirota‏@davidsirota

Can’t say I blame @curtishubbard – he knows Dean “Citizen Kane” Singleton signs his paycheck and is watching…

You wouldn’t expect Hubbard to block Sirota over one article, even if it comes down hard on The Post. Hubbard gets hit constantly.

So I asked Hubbard if it was true, he wrote:

“No, it’s not true.

I tried to unfollow him several months back. For some reason his tweets kept coming through, so I blocked him. My guess, and I’m not going to waste any time researching it, was that it was in the spring or early summer. It’s nothing personal.”

In the Harper’s piece, Sirota argues that big-city dailies, even in their weak state, wield as much power over civic life or more than they did in their heyday. Hence the article’s title, “The Citizen Kane Era Returns.”

There’s no question The Post is a major force in Colorado politics, and Sirota’s argument has some validity, and it’s fun to read, especially with so many local media observers quoted.

But Sirota gets carried away at times, for sure. He doesn’t prove that the Post is pushing a conservative agenda in its news section.

For example, in trying to prove that The Post’s conservative bias ushered Michael Bennett into the U.S. Senate, Sirota writes:

Considering that a mere 14,200 votes would have changed the outcome of the race, the Post’s omissions and evasions almost surely helped secure the Senate nomination for Bennet. They also serve as a smoking gun in a larger journalistic crime against voters.

In particular, Sirota thinks Bennet’s financial deals, as Denver Public Schools Superintendent, should have gotten more play in The Post, which, Sirota argues, would have sent shock waves throughout other Denver media and to the public.

I think the story was indeed underplayed in The Post, and it should have been reported earlier by the newspaper, but to assert that it was a game changer? No way.

Actually, conservatives can make a stronger argument that the McInnis plagiarism story was overplayed by an inordinately powerful Denver Post and resulted in the election of Hick. This might have better proven Sirota’s point about the staying power of newspapers.

But neither side can prove bias at The Post, which is largely owned by venture capitalists, not Singleton.

No doubt Singleton likes power, but he doesn’t get his way like he wants to, as described in Sirota’s article:

“He fancies himself an oldfashioned power broker–publisher,” says former Rocky Editor John Temple. who is now a managing editor at the Washington Post. “He loves the idea that he can call people into his office and be in the center of everything.”

So overall, with respect to the part of Sirota’s piece that focuses on The Post, Sirota is right that the paper, even in economic decline, has more power than it deserves, and in some ways as much or more influence on politics, due to its influence on elites, as it ever had.

But as for a conservative agenda, beyond cultural norms, I don’t see it, overall, though you can point to anecdotes, just like righties do in alleging liberal bias.

But you should read Sirota’s article yourself.

As for Sirota’s tweets, I, unlike Hubbard, like receiving them, even if Sirota stetches things a bit sometimes.

If you listened to progressive talk-radio host David Sirota and conservative Michael Brown on the radio, before they were paired up on KHOW’s new afternoon talk show, you know that Brown was explicitly pro-Romney.

But you might not know whether Sirota would vote for Obama at all.

So you wonder, how will this play out on their new show, called the Rundown.

Will Brown be telling listeners to vote for Romney, while Sirota says both candidates are, as Ralph Nader liked to say, tweedle dee and tweedle dum?

If so, who wants to listen that one-sided conversation?  It sounds too much like some bizarre permutation of the conservative love fest you’d hear on the Caplis and Silverman Show, which used to occupy Sirota and Brown’s afternoon slot on 630-AM KHOW (3 – 7 p.m.)

Asked about this via email, Brown, whom President George Bush thought was doing a “heck’ve a job” during the Katrina disaster, wrote:

Brown: “I do plan to vote for Romney and will actively support him. I probably am more enthusiastic about Romney than Sirota is about BHO. But, having said that, we’re not really discussing that issue much on air. My guess is left-leaning listeners might be upset at both of us — me for supporting Romney and David for criticizing BHO.”

Exactlty. Left-leaning listeners like me might get upset and turn off the radio, like I did when Caplis and Silverman piled on Obama. I mean, among other things, it’s boring, even if you don’t love Obama. It’s bad radio.

I asked Sirota how he’d counter Brownie when he starts telling us to vote Romney, or that Romney will do a heck’ve a job as President:

Sirota: “When this show was formulated, one thing that was central was that our show was not going to be agenda radio. It’s not going to be Crossfire. I really take that to heart. It’s not foremost on my mind to convince people to vote for one candidate or another. I’m not enthused about Obama or Romney.”

But, still, I said to Sirota, what if Brownie is sitting next to you telling people to vote for Romney?

“I would ask people to think about how much of a difference there is between Obama and Romney,” Sirota told me. “There are some differences but they are not epic.”

Sirota said that when the issue of Obamacare come up on a recent show, Brownie trashed the legislation but Sirota defended aspects of it, saying he did not like the way it was structured but that “uninsured people will at least be a little better off.”

“I was not a big proponent of Obamacare, but I took general side of the progressive push for universal health care, and he disagreed.”

“One of the things we are trying to do,” Sirota continued, “is to remove the issues from the candidates themselves, and talk about the bigger issues.”

“The only way to reach a broad audience of listeners is to get to the bigger, more universal issues. That’s one of the reasons the presidential race won’t be a big part of our show.”

“The people aren’t interested in the minutia,” Sirota said.

It’s true that issues inspire and motivate people more than the horse race, and usually more than candidates.

But if Brownie is holding forth about how we should vote Obama out, I’m hoping Sirota will tell us who he’s going to vote for and why, even if he thinks the difference is small. It will make for a better radio show.

Conservative talk-radio hosts aren’t warming to the idea of tightening gun-control laws in the wake of Friday’s Aurora shooting.

Some are saying that Cinemark’s reported gun-free-zone policy, banning movie goers from carrying concealed weapons, could be responsible for the deaths of some of those killed at the theater.

For example, Sunday night on KOA, Bill Cunningham, talking to a national audience from his home radio station in Ohio, offered the view that the “movie theaters should reconsider having signs up telling permit holders not to carry on their premises. If there were five or six permit holders in there firing back at James Holmes, maybe lives could have been saved….”

Bill Cunningham (speaking to a caller who identified himself as someone who carries a concealed gun): Guys like you should be considered an extension of law enforcement. Cops can’t be everywhere. So there’s guys like you to help cops do their job… There are hundreds and hundreds of crimes thwarted each year by permit holders. And I would think, if there were permit holders permitted in that theater early Friday morning, there’s a chance that all the victims of James Holmes would not have been killed. And none of us should consider the cries of liberal democrats to do something more with restrictive gun laws as necessary… AMC movie theaters should reconsider having signs up telling permit holders not to carry on their premises. If there were five or six permit holders in there firing back at James Holmes, maybe lives could have been saved…

The other thing is, [the shooter] had no vest below his navel. He could have been gut shot. He could have had a leg shot off. He could have had an arm shot off, in which case he would have stopped.

On KLZ’s Grassroots Radio Colorado Friday, fewer than 24 hours after the shooting, host Ken Clark said that he’d “bet money” that the Aurora shooting would lead to a campaign by Obama for the United Nations Small Arms Treaty.

Clark: “I will bet money that the [Obama] Administration uses this to justify the UN Small Arms Treaty, because that is gun control, and that’s coming after each and every one of us.  And as Dick Morris was so – the way he pointed it out on Grassroots Radio Colorado, if Obama signs that or Hillary Clinton as his surrogate, it will become the law of the land.”

On the radio, the news media also comes up as an advocate for gun control, post shooting. Monday morning, former Larimer County Republican Chair and KFKA morning talk-show host Tom Lucero, told his listeners that the media is “interjecting themselves into the stories and advocating gun control,” and it’s “fun to watch” the hysteria coming from the media.

Tom Lucero: I don’t know how much of this you caught, whether it’s on radio or TV or in print. The media is interjecting themselves into the stories and advocating for gun control. The predictable politicians, Diane Feinstein was on Fox this weekend calling for an extension of the assault weapons ban, because it had sunset. And so here we are right in the middle of another gun-control debate. It’s fun to watch. You can pull out the playbook and predictably turn from page to page and see the hysteria that’s going to come from media and politicians.

To their credit, local conservative talkers on some shows have, to some degree, held back in talking too much, with too much anger, about gun control and the political aspects of the shooting. This undoubtedly won’t continue as the story’s focus shifts, which is good thing, because the conservative views on gun control should be aired out.

On his KOA radio show yesterday (June 11), Mike Rosen asked Secretary of State Scott Gessler about a paragraph toward the end of a  July 10 Denver Post article about Gessler’s efforts to get the Department of Homeland Security review lists of voters.

Rosen read the following sentence from The Denver Post:

“The state has also identified 430 people who contacted Gessler’s or their local county elections office, and asked to be removed from the voter registration list because they are not citizens.”

Then Rosen and Gessler had this exchange:

Gessler: “Well, let me tell you exactly what’s going on. There’s a little bit of a misquote there. We’ve got 430 people statewide over the last several years who either, when they filled out a voter-registration form said, I am not a citizen, and some of them, many of them, were erroneously registered to vote.”

Rosen: They checked the wrong box when they filled out the form?

Gessler: Well, there’s a question as to whether they checked the wrong box or the right box. I think a lot of people are being truthful. They are saying they are not a citizen but they think they have the right to vote, which they don’t. Or they actually wrote us, and there are a lot of people who wrote us. And I say ‘us,’ the state, one of the clerks and recorders or someone like that, and said, please remove me from the voting rolls. I am not a citizen… They were not on the voting rolls. We’ve taken those people off.

Gessler is saying there’s an incorrect statement in The Post, and it appears to come from Gessler spokesman Rich Coolidge, that 430 people contacted the state and asked to be removed from the voter rolls.

What’s the correct figure? He doesn’t appear to know, and that’s what media types need to keep in mind when Gessler makes any numerical utterance.

It’s been fun to watch politicos jumping up and down to catch the attention of  Hispanic media outlets, when there was a time not long ago when such outlets were ignored and ignored again.

Hence, in May, President Obama made what appears to be the first appearance by a U.S. President on Spanish-language radio in Colorado. He spent 20 minutes answering questions from host Fernando Sergio on “La Voz del Pueblo,” which airs weekdays KBNO-1280 AM.

In telling the story of Obama’s appearance on KBNO, I reported that, not to be outdone, Colorado GOP Chair Ryan Call had promised Sergio that Mitt Romney would make not one but two appearances on La Voz Del Pueblo, prior to the November election.

Sergio told me at the time that no dates had been set for the Romney appearances, but Call had promised that he’d get Romney on his show. “The doors are wide open,” Sergio said. “We will be as respectful with Governor Romney as we were with the President.”

Now Call has told Sergio that there was a misunderstanding, and Call was promising to make himself (that would be Ryan Call) available for two interviews, not Romney, according to Sergio.

Now, Ryan Call can give a decent interview, and he even Speaks Spanish, but, let’s face it, most reporters can’t stop turning to bygone Dick Wadhams for comments on GOP matters. In any case, Call is no Mitt Romney.

Sergio says that Call has assured him that Call, as well as Romney campaign staff, will still do their best to land Romney. But there’s no promise.

In response to an email query, Sergio wrote me:

After you wrote the article related to my interview with President Obama, Ryan told me that he never implied that Mr. Romney would be a guest of mine. Rather, he was making himself available to be interviewed and that he would do his best to help me land Romney. I have been in touch with Yohana de la Torre, who works for the Romney campaign, and she also promised to try to schedule an interview with the Governor.

Thus, my cordial conversations with Ryan and Yohana have led me to understand that both will try to encourage the Romney campaign to look into scheduling an interview with me, but there are no guarantees.

To put this situation in perspective, you should know that Romney has already appeared on most of the major talk radio stations in Denver this year.

He’s been on KOA Morning News once in May and again in June.

In February, Romney took time from his busy schedule in Colorado to be on KOA’s Mike Rosen Show, KHOW’s Caplis and Silverman Show, as well as Steamboat Springs’ syndicated Cari and Rob Show (now, like Caplis and Silverman, defunct, though Romney undoubtedly didn’t contribute to the downfall of these shows).

And I could easily have missed a few radio shows that Romney was on.

So if I’m Sergio at KBNO, I’d be expecting a visit from Romney soon, or I might get pissed off, if I’m not already feeling jerked around.

Mike Coffman’s been dodging reporters since his birther moment last month, when he said he didn’t know if Obama “was born in the United States of America,” but he did know that “in his heart, he’s not an American.”

Coffman’s media avoidance tactics have turned his apology into a dramatic multi-part series.

So you’d hope any media figure interviewing Coffman on any topic would bring up the birther subject to help clarify things for the public, not to mention us media watchers.  You’d hope so, but you also know some media types would proudly and arrogantly ignore it.

But KOA radio’s Steffan Tubbs didn’t shy away from the topic this morning, even though Coffman was on his show to talk about Eric Holder.

Tubbs: Ah, I hate to bring it up, but I have to because we haven’t talked to you about it.  I mean, are you over this whole Obama controversy?  Has that gone by the way-side?  Was it made too big of a deal?  Were you taken out of context with the un-American comment with the President?

Coffman: [nervous chuckling] I’d say all of the above.  What I found out, certainly, is that when you make a mistake like that and you’re off message, it certainly hurts.  And obviously, be more careful going forward, much more measured in my comments so I can’t be misinterpreted, and also to, I think, clearly be more professional in my demeanor, because the American people have to make a decision in this election coming up – on president, on my race, on other races.  This is such a critical time for the country. I think we’re at a tipping point.    And we need to stick with the issues.

I would have preferred if Tubbs hadn’t told Coffman that he hated to bring up Coffman’s birther moment, as if there were something wrong with questioning Coffman about it, but, still, Tubbs’ questioning of Coffman, however short, shows, again, that KOA radio’s newsroom is a serious spot news operation and is worth listening to.

Tubbs’ questioning of Coffman sheds new light on Coffman’s thinking on the matter, illuminating that Coffman thinks:

1. He’s over the controversy.
2. It’s gone by the way-side, he thinks.
3. It was made too big a deal of.
4. And Coffman thinks he was taken out of context.

How many follow up questions for Coffman flow from this? Many, to put it mildly. So there’s plenty of material for journalists to work with when Coffman comes out of hiding again and wants too talk about something that’s on his agenda, like he did on KOA today.

If you’re a connoisseur of conspiracy theories, you know that consparicists take great pleasure in each other. They thrive in the closeness they achieve through their shared beliefs, especially because everyone else thinks they’re crazy.

That’s why talk radio is such a beautiful medium for conspiracists. The voices and emotion on talk radio, and the familiarity of the hosts and guests, create a sense of intimacy doesn’t exist on blogs or other media.

This is the kind of environment, as others have pointed out, that validates fringe beliefs, where the embattled can feel good about themselves.

As a case in point check out this discussion yesterday between KHOW’s Peter Boyles and John Sampson, a private investigator who’s also running for Colorado Senate District 25.

Sampson and Boyles were both selected by The Denver Post’s Curtis Hubbard as top birthers in Colorado. Sampson got the number five spot; Boyles hit pay dirt, snagging number one.

BOYLES: Well, so, congratulations on being number five. You certainly deserve more than that.

SAMPSON: Well, you know, I’ll leave you to be number one.

BOYLES: You know, Terry [Lakin] … I mean, every one of you guys… I mean, I’ve tried to make this point. Sampson, Hollister, Wolf, Doc Lakin … All you guys risked a hell of lot more than I ever did. I just get up at three o’clock in the morning and do a radio show. But Terry lost everything. Phil Wolf took an enormous amount of heat. Hollister took huge heat. You’ve taken heat. And, you know, and, you guys, well, set aside.

SAMPSON: Well, we swore an oath to defend the Constitution, Peter, and that’s where my core value is.

BOYLES: Long story short, I’m, I mean, like Sheik was saying, you know, we’re number one, but, truly, looking at you four guys, I don’t even belong on the list. But…

SAMPSON: Well, you’ve been carrying the water, also. I mean, you’ve been persistent covering this issue where others… where angel fear to tread… you know, it’s…

BOYLES: It’s “Fools rush in.” [laughing]

SAMPSON: Yeah. Fools rush in.

See what I mean by embattled people feeling good about themselves? This is what talk radio does best.

The birthers are on the run (witness Rep. Mike Coffman), but there’s obviously a different reality on Peter Boyles’ radio show.

But Sampson is candidate for public office, and so media types should pull out some of the things he’s saying, extract them from the false reality of talk radio, and subject them to rationality.

In a previous radio interview, Sampson said, “I have not and do not have sufficient evidence that would warrant me to make a statement as to whether or not he is eligible or not eligible.”

But yesterday Sampson said on the radio, straight up, that he thought a George judge should have found President Obama ineligible to appear on the November ballot in Georgia. Sampson said that because the President of the United States did not make a personal appearance to defend himself against lunacy, Obama’s name should have been scratched from the ballot.

Discussing the Georgia case yesterday (And you can find a summary of it here, including a link to Sampson’s testimony at the trail.), Sampson had this exchange with Boyles:

SAMPSON: And from what I had been told, the judge was indicating clearly, unequivocally, that he was going to issue a default judgment–

BOYLES: Yes, against–

SAMPSON: Against Mr. Obama.

BOYLES: Yeah.

SAMPSON: Unfortunately, it didn’t turn out that way.

Sampson said some other strange things on the show that merit scrutiny.

In a discussion of how Obama could have been issued a Social Security number that belonged to a Connecticut resident, which is what Sampson believes, Sampson, with no hint of humor in his voice, threw out this “rampant speculation:”

SAMPSON: You know, there’s been some rampant speculation that Bill Ayers and his wife, given their prior affiliation with the Weather Underground knew very well how to obtain counterfeit or false documents.

Sampson also believes there’s convincing evidence, even though he says we don’t know for sure, that Obama’s Selective Service records have been falsified:

SAMPSON: Okay. However, the Selective Service record that also has that Social Security Number of 042-68-4425 was purportedly filed by Mr. Obama in 1980. But then again, you know, Zullo has very convincingly shown me, and has shown a bunch of people either in presentations or behind closed doors how he recreated that postal cancellation stamp, and there are problems with it. But, you know, we don’t know. We simply don’t know. And that’s where it’s a little problematic. At some point, hopefully, the truth is going to come out, and we’ll see what happens.

As you can imagine, there’s much more where this came from. And if you like conspiracy theories or not, you should listen to it, especially if you happen to be a reporter and it’s your job to let the public know about Colorado Senate candidates.

In a promo for his show tomorrow morning, Peter Boyles is promising to interview the four men identified by Denver Post Editorial Page Editor Curtis Hubbard as “Colorado’s 5 Most Prominent and Passionate Birthers.”

The “passionate” part is a direct reference to Rep. Mike Coffman, who told KHOW last week that, with respect to birthers: “God bless people who do that. I understand their passion.”

So, if you disregard Hubbard’s advice to “pay attention to [Colorado’s top 5 birthers] at your peril,” you might tune to the KHOW birther fest tommow.

It will feature John Sampson (who believes Obama is using the Social Security number given to another citizen in 1977); Col. Greg Hollister (who may have broken the law in pursuit of Obama’s Social Security number); Phil Wolf (who’s errected a series of anti-Obama billboards at his car dealership in Wheat Ridge), and Terry Lakin (who refused Army deployment due to his birther beliefs).

And, of course, you’ll also get to hear Hubbard’s number one Colorado birther, Peter Boyles himself.

If you listened to Boyles today, you know he’s been joking, in between his jabs at Hubbard, Obama, and others, about how much he loves being “number one.”

Does this mean he’s okay with being called a “birther?”

“Birther is a term that was given, not accepted,” he told me. “In other words, the term came from guys like you. I never called myself a birther.”

Boyles made no mention of Coffman being on tomorrow’s show, but that’s not surprising because Boyles has been calling him a “weenie” for apologizing for his birther comments about Obama.

Wolf, of birther billboard fame, had a similar response when asked if he calls himself a birther. “Of course not,” he said. “I’m a thinker. I ask questions. Maybe we haven’t been dumbed down like so many people have been. I question a lot of things. If there’s not an answer, the question lingers.”

I listened again to Tuesday’s interview with Mitt Romney on KOA radio, and I thought co-host April Zesbaugh asked Romney a good question, but Romney’s answer was shallow and deserves scrutiny by reporters at the national level.

Zesbaugh asked Romney if he had any regrets about his work at Bain Capital.

Romney replied that he regretted “all the things that didn’t work out,” and the “decisions that weren’t right.”

Then Romney went on to say that he’d just seen a letter from Bain stating that in 80 percent of cases in which the firm made investments, over 28 years, “the businesses grew.”

“Well, that’s pretty good,” Romney said.

But in five percent of the cases, he continued, businesses went bankrupt.

“Well, that’s not so good,” Romney said chuckling.

“You’d like not to ever have that happen,” he said.

Does Romney have any regrets about how Bain treated the 80 percent that did not go bankrupt?

Does Romney regret how the workers and others associated with those companies were treated, even if they did not go belly up in the end?

I’m guessing any decent person would look back at some of the business tactics that were used by outfits like Bain and have some regrets, but maybe I’m wrong.

I mean, I’m just a blogger, and bloggers aren’t known for their ability to judge business ethics, which doesn’t stop them from doing it, of course.

In any case, it’s a question that reporters should put to Romney. Does he only regret the businesses that went bankrupt? What other aspects of the Bain business model, if any, does he regret?

Co-host Zesbaugh: Well, let’s switch gears and talk about the economy. It’s only May and we can’t stop hearing about your time at Bain Capital. I’d like to know what you learned that can help you turn the economy around, at Bain. And what you may regret, if anything, from your time there.

Romney: Well, I can tell you that if you’ve never spent a day in business, you don’t understand how government makes business have a difficult time. Whether it’s a small business or a big business, government can get in your way. I spoke with a banker today that is in northwest Colorado. He said that he spends about sixty percent of his time trying to deal with regulators and government intruders as opposed to working with customers and making loans. So, I understand the impact of regulations. Some regulation is helpful. Some is not. I understand which is which. I understand the impact of Obamacare on small businesses, and why it is that small businesses are not looking to hire people right now, in part because of the peril of Obamacare and the extraordinary increase in health insurance costs that folks are seeing. I understand also, when the president puts in place a series of folks in the National Labor Relations Board who want to force unions on businesses where the employees don’t want them – I understand what that will do to jobs in this country. You see, having started a business and having run a business, I understand how policy in Washington affects whether or not businesses grow in America or decide to either not invest at all or go elsewhere to invest. And so I want to use my experience to make America the most attractive place in the world for small business and other businesses, so we have jobs growing again and rising incomes again. It’s what we deserve.

Zesbaugh: Any regrets?

Romney: Oh, I’m…. all the things that didn’t work out. All the… There’s no question but that the benefit of hindsight is such that if you could go back and erase the decisions that weren’t right, that ended up not working out, you’d want to do that. I just saw a letter from the folks at my old firm Bain Capital, now twenty-eight years of business existence. They put out a statement that said in eighty percent of the cases where they made investments, the businesses grew. Well, that’s pretty good. But in five percent, businesses went bankrupt. Well, that’s not so good. [chuckles] You’d like not to ever have that happen.

Mm-hmm. [ …] The Obama administration, Obama for America, sent out a press release yesterday, and I don’t know if you’ve seen this but I’ll read “in both the public and the private sectors Romney would allow his energy policies to be shaped behind closed doors by billionaire donors benefitting from the same massive Big Oil tax breaks Romney has pledged to protect.” More than just specifically to that statement, are you still fighting this battle of image that you are just a rich, wealthy guy who… the next step on your resume, you want to be the leader of the free world.

Just when you thought birthers were running away from their inner birtherness, a new birther jumps out of the closet on the op-ed pages of The Denver Post today.

That would be the ever-rational Mike Rosen, of the Mike Rosen Show on KOA.

Rosen wrote a column today, titled “Mike Coffman was right about Obama in the first place,” defending Coffman’s statement, first aired on 9News May 16, that he doesn’t know if Obama is a U.S. citizen or if our president is an American “in his heart.”

The funny part is that, even as Rosen defends Coffman for saying these things, Rosen is still birtherphobic when it comes to accepting that both he and Coffman are birthers.

Rosen wrote: “To set the record straight, in his remarks at the Elbert County Fairgrounds on May 12, Coffman did not challenge the legitimacy of Obama’s natural-born citizenship. This was not, as 9News falsely captioned it on-screen in its slanted report, ‘Coffman’s Birther Moment.'”

(Incidentally, 9News acknowledged its story was stimulated by a tip from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.) In fact, Coffman separated himself from ‘birther’ activists who express certainty that Obama wasn’t born in the U.S. On that matter, Coffman said, ‘I don’t know.’ Neither do I. I’m not certain Obama’s birth certificate is a fraud, but I’m suspicious.”

Mike, you don’t know Obama is a citizen, and you still think his birth certificate might be a fraud. If you hold these beliefs, you can’t say, categorically, that the President is a citizen. That means you’re a birther.

And the Oxford American Dictionary agrees with me, defining a birther as:

“a conspiracy theorist who challenges President Obama’s US birth certificate.”

At risk of repeating myself, but I can’t resist: By definition, if you don’t know for sure that Obama’s birth certificate is valid, and you don’t know whether he was born in our country, then you’re “a conspiracy theorist who challenges President Obama’s US birth certificate.”

Thus, I hate to tell you, Mike, you’re a big old birther just like Coffman was during his “birther moment,” as correctly labeled by 9News.

It was “Coffman’s birther moment,” because Coffman told 9News that he misspoke. If you believe Coffman’s apology, it was Coffman’s moment of birtherness.

9News didn’t label its video “Birther Coffman,” or something like that, which would have unfairly attributed permanence to Coffman’s birther statement. 9News was accurate.

It’s true, to be fair, that if you research this topic, you’ll find different definitions of the word “birther.” Some claim the word means an absolute belief that Obama is not a natural-born citizen. But legitimate sources, like the one above, support my view and 9News’ use of the word.

But you can be sure of one thing. You’ll find plenty of birthers who will argue about how they define themselves. And they’ll cite seventeen million pieces of evidence to support one definition of “birther,” corroborated by nine million pieces of missing evidence.

Other birthers will find ancient newspaper clips and numbers to support their position on “birther.”

And the birthers will argue about what it means to be a “birther.”

But there’s one thing they will agree on. Like Rosen and Coffman (for a moment), they’re at least not yet sure that Obama is a natural-born citizen. They’re birthers.