In October, you may recall, Jose Nevarez-Coronado was charged with vehicular homicide in the death of Prof. Yvonne Frye of the Community College of Denver.

On the radio Oct. 8, a couple days after the crash, Peter Boyles, who has little good to say about The Denver Post these days, except about reporter Karen Crummy whom he praises, ripped into the newspaper’s coverage of the crash.

The Post had reported that Nevarez-Coronado had a criminal record showing multiple arrests for theft, and he was on probation for one of them.

Boyles claimed that the suspect, Nevarez-Coronado, “stunk to me” and “used nine different names, three different places of birth, and he has a criminal record that’s really lengthy.”

Boyles went on: “Guess who this guy is, right? Now, The Denver Post isn’t going to tell you who this guy is. The Denver Post actually did an editorial saying Denver is not a sanctuary city. Just Google sanctuary city, and Denver comes up. And they’ve endorsed the sanctuary mayor for governor.  So none of this is surprising.”

But guess what, you Boyles listeners, and there are a lot of you because his program tops the rating charts for Denver radio in the mornings.

Nevarez-Coronado turns out to be an American citizen, born in Albuquerque. He’s not an illegal immigrant. (Boyles’ much-hated Denver Post editorial board got Nevarez-Coronado’s citizenship wrong, too, and posted a correction.)

But the point of this blog post is not to beat up on Boyles for speculating about Nevarez-Coronado, even though his conjecture, and the hateful way he delivers it on the radio, makes me sick personally, and it should make Boyles himself ill because of the hatred this can whip up toward innocent people.

But, putting that aside, the question is, how can this be avoided next time? How can journalists and talk-show hosts like Boyles report or discuss the news and respect Hispanic citizens?

Last week, I asked Post City Editor Dana Coffield what The Post’s policy is on reporting the citizenship status of criminal suspects.

I had noticed that in its coverage of the Aurora Central High shooting in December, it reported repeatedly that the suspect has an ICE hold and is “believed” to be an illegal immigrant, according to police.

Coffield emailed me:

“We only report a person’s immigration status when it becomes part of and material to the public record. If I recall correctly, Aurora PD made a statement regarding the arrest of Luis Guzman-Rincon that included a mention of the ICE hold pending investigation of his immigration status.

The public records databases that we have access to do not let us know whether a person is a U.S. citizen or not (imagine looking yourself up in ACURINT …• you get age, name, voter registration, property ownership, licenses, stuff like that, or the criminal records database, which shows charges and disposition.) I know that police have access to more detailed records that may detail immigration status, but they’re not something we’re allowed to look at.”

I asked Coffield if she thought she’d get more information under the new Secure Communities program, which uses fingerprints to determine if a suspect is a known illegal immigrant. Coffield said she didn’t think this would change anything.

Coffield wrote:

“[It seems inappropriate to presume that anyone is NOT a citizen or legal resident of the U.S. When Weld County deputy Sam Brownlee was killed in Evans in November, people were quick to presume Rueben Reyes was not a citizen (and were wrong). Would they have done the same if the assailant was named Jason Salzman, presuming that a shooter by that name was in the country illegally from Austria, or named Peter Boyles, presuming that a shooter by that name was in the country illegally from Ireland (who had intentionally changed his appearance using plastic surgery to evade identification by police- I joke, but-)?”

I asked Boyles if he thinks The Post should speculate about a suspect’s citizenship status, whether he or shie is Hispanic or half Polish like me.

He said no. Boyles does not want The Post to speculate.

“What should they report?” I asked Boyles.

“They ought to say that the suspect has given multiple DOBs [dates of birth] and POBs [places of birth],” he answered.

“It’s easily found out,” Boyles said. “You tell us. Those aren’t tough records. People run those records all the time.”

Coffield wrote that if this information is in the public record, The Post will report it, but she added that this type of information is found in the police databases that are not public.

So, a way forward emerges.

I’m hoping that next time a Hispanic suspect is arrested, Boyles will be more humane and refrain from speculating on the person’s immigration status or accusing The Post of deliberately hiding part of that suspect’s criminal record, if it’s not available in public records.

And if Boyles knows details about a suspect’s criminal history that aren’t publicly available, he will tell us where they came from and how he got them and where, specifically, The Post can find them.

Then before bashing The Post, he might ask someone there why something was left out.

In an interview on KHOW’s Peter Boyles show last Friday, former (but thankfully fired)  CNN fixture Lou Dobbs said, “We’re at a crossroads in this country. We’ve got so many people so uniformed they don’t even know what the hell the issue is, let alone what can be done about it.”

Then Dobbs and Boyles together went on to demonstrate one reason for the confusion out there.

They were discussing Boyles’ favorite topic, illegal immigration, and Boyles got mad at The Denver Post for not identifying the suspect in a vehicular homicide case as being an illegal immigrant. Boyles did some of his own research and asserted that the suspect used nine different names and three places of birth.

“Now The Denver Post isn’t going to tell you who this guy is,” Boyles said. “The Denver Post actually did an editorial saying Denver is not a sanctuary city. Just Google sanctuary city, and Denver comes up! And they have endorsed the sanctuary mayor for governor. So none of this is surprising. They don’t list an address, which leads some of our retired ICE guys to think he doesn’t have a license. He’s been arrested so many different times, and in Jefferson County they’re prosecuting an old man for shooting at an illegal. He used eight different names in Jefferson County.”

Then Boyles says to Dobbs: “And no one cross pollinates any of this, Lou.”

Dobbs: Well, they don’t think. They don’t work. They don’t research, and they don’t understand what’s happening in this great country. The Denver Post at one time didn’t have an agenda. It was a newspaper of breaking news, doing investigative reporting. It now pursues a political and ideological agenda.”

Boyles: I agree.

Dobbs: Not unlike the Los Angeles Times, or the New York Times, or the Washington Post. Their commitment is to their agenda, not the public’s right to know, not to the national interest, not to oversight of the government that is operating right now without checks or balances.

I wanted to ask Dobbs what agenda The Post has and how he figured out what it is, but he didn’t return my email. Neither did Boyles.

But I’ve looked far and wide and there’s no data supporting Dobbs’ and Boyles’ view that The Denver Post has a “political and ideological agenda.” And data aside, I couldn’t tell you what its agenda is, and I’ve at least perused it most days of my adult life.

Boyles seemed upset when the Rocky Mountain News closed, and he hosted some memorable programs with staffers. Everyone agreed the closure would hurt Denver. Now he’s pushing The Post down off the cliff, even though he relies on the newspaper for so much of his show’s content that you have to wonder what he’ll talk about if he succeeds in killing the newspaper.

“Right now the only person talking about social issues in this campaign is Betsy Markey.”

That’s what Cory Gardner told Al  Malmbert Oct. 5 on KCOL Fox News Radio AM 600 in Loveland.

You’d think Malmberg might have pointed out to Gardner that, hey, Malmberg himself had just asked Gardner about social issues, so it’s obvious that Markey is not the only person talking about them.

And Malmberg asked the question after having just read the Coloradoan, which reported Oct. 3, two days before the interview, that Gardner had dropped a previous campaign pledge to carry legislation outlawing abortion. But he was standing behind his endoresment of the Personhood Amendment.

So social issues are very much part of the CD4 campaign, as they should be, with Gardner changing his position and with Markey and Gardner holding such different views on these issues.

Also Gardner was anything but shy about talking about his support, for example, of Personhood Amendment during the primary. Colorado Right to Life lists Gardner as supporting Personhood with no exceptions, meaning he opposes abortion even in the case of rape and incest. Gardner was proud to talk about social issues primary candidate forums, when he obviously knew that a larger percentage of his target audience were social conservatives.

It’s likely that Gardner will repeat his line about Markey being the only one who’s talking about social issues, and reporters and talk-show hosts should interject and point out that this is false.

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.