Correction Jan. 31, 2013. Michael Brown’s quote below was imprecise. The actual quote should read: On Denver radio station KHOW Jan. 16, Michael “Brownie” Brown, George W. Bush’s FEMA Director, told his talk-show listeners, “You hear these sob stories…. I don’t care whether they were two years old or they were 16 years old when their parents brought them across the border. They’re here illegally…. I really don’t have any sympathy.”

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As civil-unions legislation hits the home stretch at the State Capitol, along with a bill granting in-state tuition to undocumented college students, let’s take a moment to encourage reporters to recall a jump-up-and-down-arms-waving op-ed that appeared in The Denver Post, just days after the election:

Rupublican thinkers Josh Penry and Rob Witwer wrote about the problem with the Colorado GOP:

Now, two short months later, most Republicans at the State Capitol are lining up against the ASSET bill, offering reduced tuition to undocumented college students.

The Post’s Lynn Bartels is calmly pointing out that even fewer Republican lawmakers appear to support a civil-unions bill this year than last year, because the GOP moderates were booted out by voters.

Rep. Cory Gardner is proudly telling the media how much he’d love to fill the GOP tent with women and Hispanics, without saying he’s against all abortion, some forms of birth control, as well as comprehensive immigration reform. Ditto for the rest of the CO GOP delegation, at least with respect to a path to citizenship.

Republicans are NOT jumping-up-and-down-arms-waving to denounce bills, introduced by fellow Republicans at the State Capitol, attacking abortion rights, including a bill banning all abortion, even in the cases of rape and incest.

On the radio, you have Michael “Brownie” Brown, W’s FEMA director with deep Republican connections, effectively thumbing his nose at Penry and Witwer by saying: “You hear these sob stories… I don’t care if they were two-years-old when they came. They’re illegal.. I have no sympathy.”

Secretary of State Scott Gessler may not see the irony that, just as ASSET is debated in Colorado, he’s scheduled to join a panel tomorrow at the Heritage Center with Kansas SOS Kris Kobach, who played a big part in creating the much-maligned anti-hispanic, anti-immigration law in Arizona. They’ll be talking about how to get tough on voting, but tough talk about immigration may pop up given the venue and the audience.

I could go on here, but why make a blog post long when a short one makes your point–and you have other stuff to do, like go on a walk with your 83-year-old mother in Commons Park, where you can relax and watch the GOP self-destruct?

In his 5280 Magazine article Jan. 3, taking on the difficult topic of “What’s Wrong with Colorado Republicans?” Fox 31 political reporter Eli Stokols writes:

Stokols: “What the GOP needs to realize is that the immigration issue offers Republicans themselves a sort of political amnesty, a chance to forge a solution that legitimately and thoroughly addresses questions of border security and citizenship without alienating Hispanics.”

And who’s his example of a Colorado Republican who’s leading the charge? Rep. Cory Gardner.

Stokols: “Only clear-headed Republicans such as Gardner are beginning to internalize this new reality.”

Stokols, who’s widely regarded as the leading political journalist on TV in Denver, quotes Gardner:

Gardner: “Republicans have always talked about having a big tent, but it doesn’t do any good if the tent doesn’t have any chairs in it. Bringing Latinos to the forefront, bringing women in is absolutely critical.”

That sounds good, but it’s hard to find anything about Gardner’s record that supports what he told Stokols, and you have to wonder why Stokols failed to point this out. (See Stokols’ response below.)

With respect to women, Gardner not only voted to redefine rape, but is a full-on supporter of the personhood amendment, which would ban abortion, even in the cases of rape and incest, as well as common forms of birth control.

In this video, Gardner says: “I have signed the personhood petition. I have taken the petitions to my church, and circulating into my church. And I have a legislative record that backs up my support for life.” Personhood initiative leader Kristi Brown (formerly Kristi Burton) called Gardner “one of our main supporters” during the 2008 initiative campaign.

Stokols should have asked Gardner why, with these views and others, Gardner’s own presence in the GOP tent wouldn’t scare away women.

Gardner’s position on immigration would send Hispanics fleeing from the GOP tent along with the female humans.

In the Colorado Legislature, even when illegal immigrants were routinely attacked by both parties, he took some of the cruelist positions against illegal immigrants, including a 2006 vote against allowing state funds to be used for undocumented children to receive preventative care, like immunizations.

More recently, in 2010, in his race against Rep. Betsy Markey, Gardner made it clear he opposes a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, unless you’d call no path at all reasonable. As first reported by Huffington Post blogger Jesse Benn, and confirmed by me, Gardner wrote:

Gardner: Over the weekend, Markey told the Coloradoan newspaper she opposes amnesty but believes that immigration reform should include a path to citizenship.

The problem with Markey’s position is that “amnesty” and a “path to citizenship” is the same thing. Any proposal that allows people who are here illegally to cut to the front of the line is amnesty.

America is a nation of laws, and it is wrong for Congresswoman Markey to propose bending the rules for a group of people whose first act in this country was to break the law.

Congresswoman Markey is sending a clear message to millions of illegal immigrants that coming to America illegally carries no penalty. That is the wrong message.

Is that a sample of the friendly messages Gardner will be sending Hispanics?

Just this past June, he not only bashed Metro State University’s plan to reduce tuition for the children of illegal immigrants, he also again condemned the concept of helping any undocumented college student anywhere:

Gardner: And, of course, I oppose in-state tuition for illegal immigrants. I think it’s the wrong policy. It sets the wrong kind of message to people who are in the country illegally. And I think we’ve got to work on border security before anything else, and I think Metro State has it backwards.

Maybe Gardner has changed over the past two years–or over the past six months? You wouldn’t think so, from looking at his position on immigration on his congressional website:

Gardner: Our first line of defense against illegal immigration is the border, and it is the federal government’s job to make sure that it is secure. Americans are tired of watching the political establishment lack the will to enforce our nation’s laws when it comes to border security and immigration policy.

The solution to the problem isn’t for the Justice Department to file a taxpayer-funded lawsuit against the Governor of Arizona for responding to a law enforcement crisis. It isn’t giving amnesty to the 12-20 million illegal immigrants in this country, or giving those people benefits that will only encourage more illegal immigration.

The time has come to enforce the rule of law and end illegal immigration. To that end, I will support legislation that ensures employers only hire people who are here legally and that guest workers are here temporarily. The technology exists to accomplish this in a sensible way, and it is time that we implement that technology.

Where’s the Hispanic love here? If anything, Gardner’s putting himself in the teeny-weeny tent occupied by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, who’s mad at Obama for, for among other things, standing up for basic civil rights for Hispanic-American citizens.

Gardner’s current position says nothing about the comprehensive immigration reform that Gardner told Stokols will pass this year. Nothing about a path to citizenship or the Dream Act. Nothing about families and the great history of immigration in America. It’s just a bunch of meaniness, some thinly disguised, some not.

So (deep breath), why didn’t Fox 31’s Stokols ask Gardner about some of this stuff, instead of just praising him as “clear-headed” and writing that he’s “beginning to internalize” the need for the GOP to change its ways.

Stokols: “Rep. Cory Gardner’s past votes on women’s issues and positions on immigration are well worth examining and do seem to mirror those espoused by Mitt Romney, Todd Akin and other prominent Republicans who have collectively alienated women and Latino voters from the GOP generally,” Stokols told me via email. “I could have chosen to point that out but did not, this being a piece focused on the state’s shifting political persuasion and the lessons to be learned from the 2012 election results. My recent conversations with Cory took place following that election and, his past votes and statements notwithstanding, he indeed seemed to have learned those lessons and to be newly ‘clear-headed’ about the challenges now facing his party. Whether his own votes and statements have contributed to or exacerbated those challenges is another issue, but a relevant one — and an issue that I’m sure Democrats will be exploring further as long as Gardner’s stock continues to rise.”

It’s fair enough to report that Gardner recognizes the need to diversify his party, but, still, Stokols’ long-form article on why such change needs to happen would have been better had he asked Gardner for a scrap of substance showing what change looks like for Gardner himself, given his record.

Everyone remembers Gov. Rick Perry’s magnificent “Oops moment,” during the Republican presidential primary, when he suggested cutting three, count ’em, three federal agencies: the 1) Education Department, 2) Commerce Department, and 3) ???????????????.

Who remembers the last one?

It was the Energy Department!

It looks like Rep. Cory Gardner would have been able to get the words “Energy Department” out of his mouth if he’d been in Perry’s shoes, because our Congressman from the 4th Congressional District has the Energy Department on his own list for possible elimination.

On KFKA radio’s Amy Oliver Show Tuesday, Gardner suggested that the federal Energy Department is “something we ought to look at and see whether or not they are actually justified to be there anyway.”

OLIVER: Give me your thoughts on – and I’m sure you’ve heard—you served with him when you were in Legislature and he was the governor of the state of Colorado, the idea that Governor Bill Ritter is on the short list for Energy Secretary.

GARDNER: [chuckles] Governor Ritter is a nice guy. And I’m sure, you know, he is somebody you’d love to have a beer with. I was never invited, I don’t think, [laughing] to have a beer with him, but if you were I’m sure he’d be a nice guy to have a beer with! But I don’t think he’s the right person for the Secretary of Energy. In fact, Energy Department is something we ought to look at and see whether or not they are actually justified to be there anyway. So, let’s have a conversation about what we can do to consolidate and eliminate some of these spending programs, especially programs that aren’t working because of Solyndras and other wasted program spending. And I don’t think Bill Ritter is the right one to lead that conversation.

Full transcript and audio here.

You’d think KFKA host Amy Oliver, who rails against federal agencies like the EPA, would have been ecstatic, after hearing Gardner’s comments. I thought she might have said something like, “I was dying when Rick Perry couldn’t spit out ‘Energy Department,’ and you did it so eloquently, with no oops or hesitation. Thank you.”

But she stayed calm, like she did in 2011 when Gardner suggested on Oliver’s program that the Department of Transportation should be eliminated. He later changed his tune.

Oliver asked Gardner if there was sufficient political will to eliminate the Energy Department:

OLIVER: …I know that there isn’t the political will to eliminate the Department of Energy, even though I would love that. Is there ever any conversation about at least, not just reducing the amount of growth, but simply cutting a department’s budget?

GARDNER: That’s exactly what I meant by saying a decrease in the rate of increase isn’t enough. We have got to cut department spending, and I think that yes, if you look at the budget that we passed out of the House, we eliminated entire agencies and programs. Now, there were conversations early on last year about eliminating the Department of Commerce, or consolidating Department of Commerce with various functions.

It’s no fun to talk about specifics when you’ve got the budget ax out, but right then, at that point in the interview, would have been a great time for Oliver to get specific with Gardner about what Energy Department programs might be cut.

The renewable energy research budget? Nuclear weapons production and maintenance? Energy conservation? Fossil fuel and nuclear research programs? All of it?

Oliver knows a fair amount about energy issues. She had a great moment to trot out an intelligent question, or a specific question on what she’d cut, but she failed us, leaving the job to a reporter who cares about meaningful public-policy debate, not just bloviation.

Oops.

Rep. Cory Gardner likes to point his finger at the media when things don’t go his way, blaming Romeny’s loss on “television stations,” and once complaining that the “media” is biased against people like him who allegedly want smaller government.

Reporters have yet to ask Gardner for the evidence supporting his media bashing. They just lie there and let Gardner trash them.

Why not fight back? It would make good content, and it’s the right thing to do.

Gardner provided another opportunity for a fight, if journalists are brave enough cast off their chains and step up, this morning in a conversation with Steve Kelley on KNUS’ morning show, Kelley and Company, about the failure of House of Repblicans to pass full support for the victims of Hurricane Sandy:

KELLEY:  It should be scrutinized.  But it just looks bad.  Doesn’t it?  I mean, — and the way it is being played in the media, unfortunately, [is] Boehner, this mean guy doesn’t — and you guys in the House — don’t care about those Hurricane Sandy victims out there.

GARDNER:  Look, the media is going to criticize the Republicans every time we turn around, because we are not in lock-step with the President.  And they are going to criticize any time they get a chance.  Now, should this have been handled in a different way?  Uh, there’s always going to be speculation about that.  But the bottom line is this:  John Boehner is not a – nor is the House Republican majority going to turn a blind eye on the victims of a horrible natural disaster.

That’s nut-head nutty, isn’t it? The media wants Gardner to be in lock-step with Obama? What’s he talking about?

It would be fun to hear Gardner explain himself, wouldn’t it?

Sometimes KNUS’ Steve Kelley seems embarrassed by his own morning rants and rages against Obama and the nasty Democrats. The other day he asked, “Do you really want to hear a rant from middle-aged white guy?”

Kelley’s current behavior looks different from what you heard during of his 19 career at KOA, where he at least acted like he didn’t have the answers.

But Kelley’s more level-headed roots return when he conducts interviews, which usually feature straight-forward questions you’d want, but don’t expect, from someone seated behind a microphone.

This morning, for example, during his Kelley and Company show, he asked Rep. Cory Gardner this really good question:

Kelley: Why do you guys [Republicans] seem to be losing the PR battle [on the fiscal cliff]? I mean, it’s so easy to blame a Republican, but it seems to stick to you?

Gardner: Well, you know, it’s tough. We’ve got to do a better job of messaging and explaining to people who are in the middle class, people who are lower income earners, that people who will be affected by this tax increase are people like you, people who are working hard to make ends meet, people who are struggling to pay the mortgage, because their business are going to be hard hit. That’s going to result in lower take home pay because the businesses they work with are suffering and struggling to bear the burden of the tax increases. That’s the bottom line and so the President controls the bully pulpit, regardless of who it is in the White House, whether it is a Democrat or a Republican. They have a tremendous opportunity to shape the outlines of the message.

Listen to audio of Rep. Gardner talking fiscal cliff on Denver radio station KNUS 710 AM on 12-11-12

Kelley was on the right track, but to get to the heart of the GOP’s fiscal-cliff problem, Kelley should have contrasted Gardner’s head-spinning response with Obama’s crisp lines on the topic, which he delivered at a rally Monday:

Obama: “We can solve this problem. All Congress needs to do is pass a law that would prevent a tax hike on the first $250,000 of everybody’s income,” he said. “When you put it all together, what you need is a package that keeps taxes where they are for middle class families, we make some tough spending cuts on things that we don’t need, and then we ask the wealthiest Americans to pay a slightly higher tax rate.”

In another question, which Kelley didn’t acknowledge actually related to his previous question about the GOP’s PR problem, Kelley asked Gardner whether he’d compromise on a tax increase:

Gardner: “We cannot agree to a tax increase. That is not the solution. That is not going to solve our $16 trillion debt. That’s what I am urging our leaders, Speaker Boehner and others, to make sure they are adhering to…I think he knows that the [Republican] conference does not support a tax increase, that there is no will to increase taxes amongst the Republican Party and the House majority.”

That’s obviously part of the Republican PR problem on the fiscal cliff, but Kelley didn’t get into the fundamentals. Maybe he thinks it would be bad PR.

Update: In my haste to leave my office on Friday afternoon, I didn’t give 9News’ Brandon Rittiman sufficient time to respond to some points I raised after he responded to my intial questions. I pomised to include any additional thoughts from him, if he had any, and I should have waited longer to receive them. So, I’m including more thoughts from Rittiman here:

I’d add that I’m not taking a side on the issue itself.

It’s not my place to tell people what to think of the idea. It’s pretty clear where the electorate stands, regardless.

This a matter of what the supporters say their initiative would do (which we can prove) versus what it will actually do (which we don’t know for certain.)

If I could go back in time to August 7, I’d have added attribution to what I said on camera: “The sponsors say it would ban abortions in cases of rape or incest.”

I take your point about other ballot questions needing to survive court tests, however, with this initiative, I think it goes beyond merely surviving a court challenge.

The language itself requires court interpretation. It’s incomplete, which is why we have so much room for interpretation of its various effects.

It doesn’t spell out any method for enforcement of its provisions or penalties for violating its provisions.

I’m no lawyer, but I suspect that this vagueness of wording is intentional to force the courts to codify some form of law more restrictive of abortion, to the maximum amount possible.

All we can say would happen for certain is that if this passed the courts would have to decide what to do with it.

Since state law doesn’t trump an existing SCOTUS decision, I don’t know that we can say with certainty that this initiative “would” ban abortions in all cases, even if that’s the intent of its sponsors.

I think the Truth Test piece accurately represents that idea.

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Many journalists in Denver and beyond (e.g, Washington Post, Denver Post, 7News) write, as a factual matter, that the 2012 personhood amendment would have banned all abortions.

Among them is 9News’ Political Reporter Brandon Rittiman, who reported Aug. 7 that personhood “would ban abortions, including in cases of rape and incest.” (Watch the video to see the quote, as it’s not included in the text version.)

So on Wednesday, I was surprised to see Rittiman, in a Truth Test of an anti-Joe-Coors-Jr. ad, call the following statement “debatable:”

“The ‘personhood’ initiative backed by [Joe] Coors would have banned abortion even in cases of rape and incest.”

Via email, I asked Rittiman about the apparent contradiction between his two stories, and he responded as follows:

The short answer is because the wording of the ballot question has changed over time.

The long answer gets into a lot of layers of this story, but here goes:

This year, the supporters of “personhood” decided to use stronger language and publicly stated that the goal was to ban abortions with no exceptions.

In the version that Joe Coors supported in 2010, the supporters did not make that claim, though opponents argued that it could have the effect of banning abortions without exception for cases of rape and incest.

The struggle here is that the proposed personhood amendments are worded in such a way as to practically guarantee the need for court interpretation of the extent and effect of the law.

This story would be a lot easier for all to understand if it were a clearly worded ban on abortion that contained language specific to the exceptions.

Otherwise we are all just trying to determine the effect of a law that has not been vetted by the third branch yet. That is what I had hoped to communicate in the Truth Test.

Rittiman is right that, in this year’s version of personhood, there’s an explicit statement prohibiting exceptions for rape and incest. And there was none in 2010.

Still, both give legal rights to a “person” at early stages of development.

In 2010, personhood gave general legal rights, including “equality of justice, and due process of law, to every human being from the beginning of the biological development of that human being.” The Bluebook, interpreted this as meaning, in part: “If a person’s legal rights are violated, this section guarantees that a judicial remedy is available.”

How could the state of Colorado protect one “person” (conceived under happy circumstances), while another “person” (conceived after rape) would not be protected?

Rittiman might say, that’s debatable, and, look, here we are debating it! Fair enough.

But I’d say that, even though you can debate the point, it’s most fair, when you look at the personhood text and interpretations, to say that all abortions would be banned under personhood, even abortions for rape and incest.

The fact, pointed out by Rittiman in his online piece, that Coors, Jr, says he believes in exceptions for rape and incest, does not make the ad’s statement any more “debatable,” given that Coors indeed supported personhood previously.

Neither does this information, which Rittiman included in his Sept. 5 piece:

A spokesperson for Coors says he would encourage women who are pregnant from instances of rape or incest not to terminate their pregnancies. But he does not believe the law should “criminalize” abortion in such traumatic circumstances.

As to Rittiman’s other point, that there would be a court case if personhood had passed, any initiative faces likely court challenges.

Regardless, journalists still have to talk about what it would do, without always adding that it might get tossed by the courts.

In any case, it’s hard to argue that the “rape-and-incest” line in the 2012 version personhood makes it more court-proof than the 2010 version. They both are equally vulnerable.

But for the purposes of fact checking, it’s fair for a political ad to assert that the personhood initiative, if passed, would have banned abortion, even in the cases of rape and incest, even if the courts might have nixed it

If you’ve been soaking up the sound waves from talk radio the past month, you know that Rep. Cory Gardner has been talking a lot about the horribleness of President Obama and the greatness of Romney vice presidential selection Paul Ryan.

For example, here’s Gardner on KFKA’s AM Colorado Aug. 23:

HOST TOM LUCERO: So, Cory, give us your thoughts on the selection of your colleague, Paul Ryan—vice presidential pick by Mitt Romney.

GARDNER: I think it’s a brilliant selection. This is a guy who understands the budget and the economy perhaps better than anybody other than Mitt Romney. This is a person who actually knows the numbers. He has –I’ve seen him personally, I’ve witnessed him personally explain to the president of the United States why his policies have been such a disaster, and why the policies we have pushed forward would actually get this country back on track, [and] do so in a way that was simple for everybody to understand across the country. I’m not sure the president understood it because he continues with his failed policies. But the fact is, Paul Ryan adds a level of excitement and certainly a level of solutions that we were missing. [Listen to the audio here.]

It would be nice if AM Colorado’s co-hosts, Lucero and Devon Lentz, aired out a couple of the controversial issues dogging Ryan.

A good one for Gardner would be personhood, because Gardner, like Ryan, supports it, and has left no doubt about it in the past.

Gardner didn’t co-sponsor it federal personhood legislation, like Ryan did, but he’s been a full-on endorser of personhood amendments in Colorado.

This means both Gardner and Ryan oppose common forms of birth control, as well as all abortion, even in the case of rape and incest.

So, is this part of the reason Gardner thinks Ryan is a brilliant selection?

Or does the brilliance emanate from Ryan’s proposal to partially privatize Medicare? Is Gardner worried that a disproportionate number of healthy retirees would use their Medicare vouchers to buy health insurance from private companies, leaving Medicare to serve the less healthy population, which, in turn, could cause Medicare costs and Medicare premiums to rise, sending even more of the healthier retirees to the private sector as Medicare costs spiral out of control?

A report from the liberal Center on Policy and Budget Priorities concluded in March:

The budget resolution developed by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) would make significant changes to Medicare. It would replace Medicare’s current guarantee of coverage with a premium-support voucher, raise the age of eligibility from 65 to 67, and reopen the “doughnut hole” in Medicare’s coverage of prescription drugs. Together, these changes would shift substantial costs to Medicare beneficiaries and (with the simultaneous repeal of health reform) leave many 65- and 66-year olds without any health coverage at all. The plan also would likely lead to the gradual demise of traditional Medicare by making its pool of beneficiaries smaller, older, and sicker — and increasingly costly to cover.

How about Ryan’s votes against the Dream Act, which would allow the best and brightest undocumented teenagers, brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents, to become productive members of our society?

Why is that so brilliant?

The list of interesting topics goes on and on, and it’s more interesting to debate it than to hear Gardner’s platitudes about Ryan.

As it happens, I’ll be discussing “media bias” tomorrow morning at 7:40 on KFKA’s “AM Colorado,” with Lucero and Lentz.

Maybe I’ll be able to convince them to bring in more viewpoints on their show more often, or at least bring back Lynn Bartels, who was on their program weekly during the legislative session.

The story continues about Rep. Mike Coffman’s apology for saying Obama isn’t an American “in his heart.”

And when an apology drags on, questions rise up, like did he really want to apologize? Did he mean it? Who’s pressuring him? What’s wrong with him? Etc.

You recall that after 9News aired “Coffman’s Birther Moment,” Coffman first said he misspoke, and he apologized, but not fully, because he was defensive. Coffman stated:

COFFMAN: “I don’t believe the president shares my belief in American Exceptionalism. His policies reflect a philosophy that America is but one nation among many equals,” the statement read. “As a Marine, I believe America is unique and based on a core set of principles that make it superior to other nations.”

Then Coffman wrote a letter to The Denver Post with a full-out, nondefensive apology.

Later, when confronted by 9News, he apologized five times in a row, saying the same apologetic words unapologetically in response to five different questions, including, “Is there anything I can ask you that you’ll answer differently?”

Two days later, Coffman said on KHOW that “to some extent” he’d apologized for political reasons.

On KHOW, he also said of the birthers: “God bless those people; they’re well meaning people,” and he said, “I understand their passion.”

Meanwhile, Peter Boyles called Coffman’s apology “weenie”, and KNUS Steve Kelley was thinking the same thing, though he didn’t put it that way.

So, on June 8, to his credit, Kelley asked Rep. Cory Gardner what he thought about it:

KELLEY: Listen, we haven’t spoken since – and I don’t want to drag you into this unnecessarily, but Congressman, your colleague Mike Coffman and his comments. And I guess it speaks to on some level this whole idea of investigation and you know, qualifications and birther and Fast and Furious – it’s all kind of bundled together which really causes one to question anything that goes on in this White House. Have you talked to Congressman Coffman? We cannot get him to get back on the air, here, and it frustrates me to no end. I don’t know that he needed to apologize as vociferously as he did. A comment on that, please.

GARDNER: Well, you know I certainly talk to Mike Coffman and understand his frustration with the president. I believe the President, as does Mike Coffman, that the President is a citizen of the United States, born in this country. I think what you saw was somebody who is extremely frustrated with the failed policies of this president that is actually making our economy worse. You know, this country needed the president to succeed in 2008 when he was elected. We’ve now seen forty months in a row where unemployment’s been at or above eight percent. The jobs numbers that came out last week where unemployment actually increased. Mike Coffman, myself, and others are all extremely frustrated with the failure of this president’s policies to move the country in the right direction. And so, you know, I think he did what he felt was necessary, and I think he did the right thing. But again, the issue in November is what we are going to do to move this country in the right direction.

Gardner is defending Coffman in a similar fashion as Coffman defended himself immediately after the story broke, saying Coffman did the right thing by apologizing, but implying that the underlying frustrations that Coffman has toward Obama might somehow explain or justify Coffman’s birther moment.

And Gardner’s apology/defense, which includes the line, “he did what he felt was necessary,” also harkens back to Coffman’s statement on KHOW, where Coffman acknowledge that his apology was motivated partially by political necessity.

The evolving apologies and strange behavior by Coffman, and his current position, which is one of silence and avoidance of reporters, points to the need for journalists to air out this issue fully with Coffman, when this becomes possible.

Obviously, this will happen at some point, probably sooner rather than later, and when it does, the full details of Coffman’s response to the 9News story, when it broke last month, as recounted above, should be covered.

Conservative talk radio hosts don’t have too many kind words for Metropolitan State College these days, after Metro’s decision last week to offer a reduced tuition rate to undocumented students.

Everyone knows this issue potentially alienates Hispanic voters in a swing state where Hispanics could decide the election.

Still, the conservatives on the radio, many of whom define themselves as partisan Republicans, are attacking Metro with abandon.

For example, KNUS Steve Kelley, who denounced Metro, had Rep. Cory Gardner on his morning show Friday, and he put the question to him. Gardner replied:

Gardner: I read that in the paper this morning, and of course I oppose in-state tuition for illegal immigrants. I think it’s the wrong policy. It sends the wrong kind of message to people who are in the country illegally. And I think we got to work on border security before anything else. And I think Metro State has it backwards.

KNUS’ Kelley was open-minded about the issue compared to Devon Lentz on KFKA’s “AM Colorado” June 5.

Lentz is a KFKA host and the temporary chair of the Larimer County Republican Party.

She went beyond Metro, stating that Hispanic grade-school kids shouldn’t be allowed in public schools:

LENTZ: Are their parents being kicked out of this country yet? And besides the fact that my taxpayer dollars are educating them in the public schools, that their parents are not paying into the school system. Not okay with this one. Oh, so many levels…

I think I’m missing something here. Why are we continuing to reward illegals in America? Why? That’s what we are doing. We are continuing to reward them. So, yeah, I get the whole ‘they’re innocents, they’re minors’, they got their education. I don’t care if they’ve been here for 3 years and graduated from high school, or if they’ve been here 10 years. They’re on my dime in the school system. Their parents are not paying in. I’m not looking to backhand minors that didn’t have a choice in this country, but at what point does even the schools system learn that this 6^th grader coming in and their parents are here illegally. Why are they being allowed in the school system to begin with?

Both Kelley and Lentz were mixed up on the facts related to this issue, and I’ll get to the fact-checking in a future post, but clearly the conservative talk radio world isn’t holding back.

You have to wonder whether Rep. Mike Coffman admires their passion.

Rep. Scott Tipton said in a radio interview last week that Japan’s Fukushima nuclear reactors “held up reasonably well” after being struck by an earthquake and Tsunami.

So they could have been flattened, yes. But did they really hold up reasonably well?

It’s widely agreed now that the disaster caused a meltdown in three Fukushima reactors. Over ten thousand people were evacuated, and the fate of dozens of plant workers who experienced serious radiation exposure is unknown but of serious concern (at least three died, but not due to radiation exposure). Elevated levels of radiation have been found in rice, beef, milk, spinach, and tea. Leaks of radioactive material to the ocean and land still threaten fish and wildlife. The reactors remain vulnerable to earthquakes, and cleanup is estimated to take 40 years.

In his Jan. 12 KVNF interview, Tipton wasn’t asked how bad the Fukushima disaster needed to be in order for the reactors to move, in his view, from the “held-up-reasonably-well” category to the “collapsed-horribly-badly” category.

I called Tipton’s office to find out, but I didn’t get a call back.

Tipton made his comments about the world’s second-worst nuclear accident in a discussion of a proposed uranium mill for western Colorado. Tipton supports the mill.

He argued that nuclear power shouldn’t be held back due to the “big fear factor” caused by the Japanese disaster, which, he said, could be avoided if proper attention were paid to geography and safety.

“You know, as you go over into Europe, France is an example, there’s an abundance of nuclear power plants that are providing reliable energy,” Tipton told the KVNF audience. “The big fear factor, which we all understand, was after the tsunami in Japan. Those plants, for the most part, given multiple tragedies, earthquakes and Tsunami coming in, held up reasonably well. We can’t afford to have any sort of uranium leak, obviously. But we can design those plants with due consideration to where they’re going to be put, in terms of the geography that’s there, and to be able to provide reliable energy. I signed the letter in the State Legislature being supportive of the development of the [uranium] mill. When you get on the west end of Montrose County, these are good jobs. And again, we’re taking advantage of new technology, new protective measures, that are able to be put in place to be able to do it in a proper fashion to be able protect all of our varied interests. So it’s something I will be supportive of.”