Mike Coffman told The Denver Post’s Kurtis Lee over the weekend that Coffman himself will provide “very specific” answers to any question from his constituents.

As the people’s representatives, reporters should throw queries to Coffman, as well, because the Congressman’s record has yet to be fully aired out in the Denver media, possibly because just three months ago he was ducking not only journalists but friendly talk radio hosts.

Here are a few questions for Coffman:

If Coffman is a true believer in Social Security, as he says he is, why does Coffman repeatedly call it a Ponzi scheme, which is a criminal enterprise?

In light of Coffman’s position in favor of banning abortion in the case of rape and incest, with no exceptions, what would Coffman say to a teen girl who wants an abortion after being raped by her brother?

And what does Coffman have to say to women who use common birth control, like the IUD, that would be banned by personhood amendments, which Coffman endorsed in 2008 and 2010?

Does Coffman still think the Arizona immigration law is an “understandable response” to illegal immigration, now that the law has been struck down by the Supreme Court?

Why does Coffman oppose the Dream Act, which would help high-achieving children of illegal immigrants to attend college and give them a path to citizenship?

Does Coffman still think Obama is rushing “illegal” immigrants onto the voting rolls to influence the November election?

Why does Coffman think that too big a deal was made of his comment that Obama is not an American “in his heart” and too big a deal was also made of his statement that he doesn’t know if Obama was “born in the United States of America.”

Why did Coffman’s website call his private meetings at large corporations, like Home Depot and LabCorp, “town hall meetings?”

What is it about the flat tax that makes it have, in Coffman’s words, “tremendous value?” The taxing groceries part?

Why did Coffman vote in 2011 for the first Ryan Budget, which would have eliminated Medicare as an insurance option and would have forced seniors to choose among private insurance options? (The 2012 Ryan budget allowed seniors to choose from private insurance plans AND Medicare. But the 2011 version, which Coffman also voted for, did not.)

Those are just a few samples.

The Post explained how Coffman’s constituents can submit questions, but journalists might just have his direct line.

Anyone think Medicare will fall out of the news this election cycle?

Not likely. And at the center of the Medicare debate is, of course, Paul Ryan’s proposals, as outlined in his two budgets approved by the House of Representatives.

Not the word “two.”

Ryan’s first budget, in 2011, ended Medicare for people under 55, replacing it with a voucher system, giving seniors a fixed amount of money to buy their own health insurance.

His second proposal, this year, differs from his 2011 proposal, as it includes Medicare as an option, among private insurance plans. Seniors could spend their voucher on Medicare or a list of approved health-insurance plans.

As reporters evaluate claims about Medicare, they need to be sure to distinguish between the two Ryan plans, without ignoring either one of them.

For example, a recent ad from Joe Miklosi states that his opponent, Rep. Mike Coffman, “wants to end Medicare.”

Fact checkers at The Denver Post and 9News found this be false, without qualifications, even though Coffman voted for Paul Ryan’s budget last year (which eliminated Medicare for those under 55) and this year (which offers it as an option, for voucher use, with an uncertain price tag).

In Aug., ABC News’ The Note, summarized the 2011 Ryan plan this way:

Critics have called Ryan’s 2011 proposal the “end of Medicare as we know it,” and that’s true. Until now, Medicare has operated as a “fee-for-service” system; under Ryan’s plan, it would operate more like a voucher system, although Ryan and his aides have resisted this term. Medicare would cease to pay for health services directly, instead operating as a board that approves a menu of health plans for public sale and doles out predetermined lumps of money to people enrolled in Medicare, to help them buy those plans.

The Note points out that Ryan’s 2012 plan “made major revisions, including a provision like Democrats’ ‘public option,’ where seniors could opt out of Ryan’s most basic change altogether, enrolling in Medicare as a fee-for-service program that would continue to pay directly for care.”

Factcheck.org also does a decent job of comparing the two versions of Ryan’s Medicare proposal.

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.

The Denver Post’s new weekly columnist Rick Tosches is a great writer, no doubt, as anyone who’s followed him over the years knows. And he’ll be a great left-leaning addition to The Post’s right-leaning commentary section.

But he’s not the kind of raw partisan on the GOP side of the equation, like Mike Rosen and John Andrews, not to mention the not-so-raw partisan Vincent Carroll, who you see in The Post regularly (Carroll three times a week, Rosen weekly, Andrews every third week).

I mean, Rosen’s last column was titled, “Paul Ryan is no radical.” And Andrews’ last piece was, “Paul Ryan, Mountain Man.”

Not much subtlety there.

Tosches is too sophisticated to deliver crude Democratic talking points, like Rosen’s on the right. He’ll write about more interesting stuff, and only some of it will be political, you have to guess.

So that means The Post’s partisan gap on its commentary page may look like it’s going to remain open. (I’ve discussed this previously.)

But in announcing the addition of Tosches Sunday, Post Editorial Page Editor Curtis Hubbard wrote that The Post will also run columns from Democratic consultant Laura Chapin and others in the coming weeks, to offer more “voices on the left.”

Hubbard wrote:

I’ve heard from many of you in recent months that we need more voices from the left on these pages given the loss of Ed Quillen, Mike Littwin and others.

To that end, you’ll be seeing columns in coming weeks from two new writers: Laura Chapin, a Democratic consultant and former speechwriter for Gov. Bill Ritter; and Teresa Keegan, whose name may be familiar to you from her time as one of our Colorado Voices columnists.

Chapin is the kind of partisan writer who The Post needs to counter Andrews and Rosen. The title of her last Post column was, “Is there a GOP Obsession with LadyParts.”

Hubbard keeps a tally of the ideological bent of the content of the editorial page. Let’s hope he takes a close look at it, and factors in raw partisanship, as he decides how many columns he needs to add by folks like Chapin.

Channel 4 has jumped ahead of other Denver TV stations in fact-checking political ads so far this election cycle.

CBS4 has already aired segments analyzing 20 ads, over twice as many as 9News, its closest competitor among the four stations analyzing ads.

Sorry for the horse-race media criticism, but the numbers are worth pointing out, because Channel 4’s early analysis of the ads has undoubtedly been appreciated by regular people (none of whom read my blog), who’ve been trying to sort through all the political spots that have aired so early this election season.

“In the past, the ads didn’t start coming in nearly so soon or so often,” Denver Post Politics Editor Chuck Plunkett told me via email. “I’ve talked with national players who have visited Colorado this summer who couldn’t believe the number of ads that already were up and running.”

So it was a smart move for CBS4 to start dissecting the ads early, as part of its excellent “Reality Check” feature, led by “Political Specialist” Shaun Boyd. (Look for a post tomorrow with more on Boyd and Reality Check.)

“We’re committed to it,” said CBS4 News Director Tim Wieland. “We have a system in place that allows us to begin when the ads start rolling in. People are frustrated, and they want something that cuts through the BS. That’s the intent of this project.”

For its part, 9News is ramping up its ad-checking segments, called “Truth Tests,” with an idea that other media outlets may want to copy, straight up.

“Due to the sheer volume of political ads, 9NEWS has hired a team of three graduate students from the University of Denver to work as researchers for Truth Tests,” wrote 9News Political Reporter Brandon Rittiman, who’s the station’s primary Truth-Test reporter. “With the extra help, we hope to be able to tackle more ads than ever before this political season.”

9News, Denver’s NBC affiliate, will also work its newspaper partner, The Denver Post, according to Post Politics Editor Plunkett, with reporter Tim Hoover directing the coverage.

Channel 7’s “Truth Tracker” series is spearheaded by Producer/Presenter Marshall Zelinger, who’s scrutinized four ads so far and is scaling up the project now. Channel 7, Denver’s ABC affiliate, actually introduced the ad-checks to Denver TV viewers in the 1990’s, with reporter John Ferrugia’s “Truth Meter” series. It was later revived by Adam Schrager at 9News.

“I wanted to start a month earlier, because so many ads were rolling in,” Zelinger told me, adding that he plans to dedicate a significant amount of his time to Truth Tracker going forward, focusing on new ads and the ones airing the most.

For the first time, Fox 31, an independent station that’s become known as the local TV news leader in day-to-day political coverage, will produce a regular ad-check segment, called “Fact or Fiction,” anchored mostly by political reporter Eli Stokols. This might air once or twice weekly, Stokols emailed me, with a focus on “the most controversial ads and those airing the most frequently in Denver and around the state.”

Even though he’ll be fact-checking ads himself, Stokols is skeptical of his new endeavor, emailing me that, “especially now in this post-Citizens United world, [it] seems like a losing game of Whack-a-Mole — as soon as you finish checking one spot, it’s yesterday’s news and there are a dozen more popping up.”

“While campaigns are quick to cite such fact-checking spots in their effort to discredit opposition advertising, the campaigns we call out for blatant falsehoods don’t seem to care at all,” Stokols wrote. “And why should they? In a campaign that could see close to $1 billion in campaign spending, it’s inevitable that any TV ad, however false or misleading, will air hundreds of times, overwhelming any news outlet’s fact-check that might air a couple of times. Today’s campaign finance landscape enables political advertisements to have a reach that’s far wider than any fact-check — until, perhaps, the fact-check itself becomes part of a countering ad, just more noise in a never-ending echo chamber of allegations and attacks.”

Daily campaign-trail coverage and investigative journalism obviously had more of an impact than ad fact-checks in the last plagiarism-ridden election here, but political advertising can overwhelm all journalism, not just the stories fact-checking political ads. And the elucidation of facts can have an impact on the campaign trail, shaping the debate there, at press conferences and debates, for example, where they’re sometimes cited.

CBS4’s Boyd says in her normal reporting duties, covering events and such, she’ll often “turn a story and you don’t feel like you’ve influenced anyone.”

“Reality Check influences voters,” she told me. “I know that from the emails I receive.”

TV audiences pay attention to it.

“It’s the most popular thing we do in political coverage,” CBS4’s Wieland told me.

Maybe that’s because viewers don’t get enough day-to-day political journalism on local TV, like what you find in a newspaper, to get hooked on it. So the fact checking fills the void?

In any case, when you watch the ad-checks on TV, you can see why they work so well.

The ads themselves are usually already branded, if you will; they’re familiar to viewers. And the process of stopping and starting the ads, and analyzing segments with sharp graphics and simple analysis, is gripping, in its way.

The text-based fact-checking you’ve traditionally found in newspapers, without the video, doesn’t carry the same impact, at all.

The format for the fact-check segments at Denver TV stations varies a bit, but the basics are similar. Channel 7 provides a rating system with six options for the “facts” analyzed, including “misleading,” and “opinion.” 9News and CBS4 use a wider range of descriptions for the facts in question. And CBS4 concludes with a “Bottom Line” statement, which often offers a broader interpretation.

When Adam Schrager was at 9News, he actually taught people how to check ads themselves.

If you try it, you know how difficult it is to do. It’s hard to label the facts, found in a deliberately vague advertisement, as false or true, and partisans can almost always find something to get mad about.

But with an expanding sea of misinformation coming at us, the effort to shed nonpartisan light on political advertising is worth it. And the earlier the TV stations get started at it, like CBS4 did this election season, the better.

Despite the onslaught of lies coming at them, some journalists push on, trying to set the record straight.

Take, for example, Kurtis Lee, writing in Wednesday’s Denver Post.

Lee paraphrased Coffman spokesman Owen Loftus as saying Democrats voted for “a perceived $500 billion in cuts to Medicare” as part of Obamacare.

Lee didn’t just let Loftus’ explosive salvo fly out the window. Instead, like the Pueblo Chieftain’s Peter Roper did a while back, he set the record straight.

Lee added the following paragraph after Loftus’ accusation:

In a Washington Post fact check of similar claims, the health care law tries to identify ways to save money, and so the $500 billion figure comes from the difference over 10 years between anticipated Medicare spending (what is known as “the baseline”) and the changes the law makes to reduce spending.

In other words, the $500 billion reduction in spending was achieved through saving money, not cutting the program. (And, incidentally, Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget adopted the same Medicare savings.)

Here’s more information from the Washington Post article that Lee cites:

The savings actually are wrung from health-care providers, not Medicare beneficiaries. These spending reductions presumably would be a good thing, since virtually everyone agrees that Medicare spending is out of control. In the House Republican budget, lawmakers repealed the Obama health care law but retained all but $10 billion of the nearly $500 billion in Medicare savings, suggesting the actual policies enacted to achieve these spending reductions were not that objectionable to GOP lawmakers.

Numerous other nonpartisan fact checkers have arrived at the same conclusion.

This hasn’t stopped the Romney campaign from leveling essentially the same Medicare attack in an ad airing today, and it’s depressing as shit to see factual discourse trashed to such an extreme degree.

But don’t you love journalism when a reporter, like Lee, stands up for the truth?

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.”

KHOW’s Caplis and Silverman show featured Mike Coffman for a long segment yesterday, talking about his statement at a GOP fundraiser that Obama “in his heart” is “just not an American.”

Coffman happily answered Dan Caplis’ questions after his spokeswoman, Danielle Adams, told The Denver Post Coffman had nothing to say for a Post article about the “possibility of repercussions and challenges to his campaign.”

(Nothing to say? Coffman? You’d think The Post wouldn’t lie there and accept this response, but that’s what it did, running a tiny sentence in paragraph 15 about Coffman’s rude treatment of the state’s leading news outlet. When will The Post show its loyal readers that the newspaper hates it when public figures blow off its reporters?)

If it makes The Post feel better, Coffman is also ignoring KNUS’ Kelley and Company, a morning radio show that’s getting more conservative by the minute. KNUS’ Steve Kelley said today on air that Coffman, a frequent guest on the show, did not return calls (plural) to be on the program.

Under soft questioning from KHOW’s Dan Caplis, with Craig Silverman away for the day, Coffman reiterated his apology for the birtherish statement. Coffman did not do so in the automaton-fashion he used the other night when confronted by 9News’ Kyle Clark, who deserves a lot of credit for tracking down Coffman after he’d been ignoring his interview requests as well.

A progressive website, Think Progress, pointed out, in a blog post titled Birther Congressman Confirms That He Only Walked Back His Comments ‘For Political Reasons’, that Coffman acknowledged during the KHOW interview that “to some extent” Coffman actually believes Obama is not an American “in his heart.” Think Progress’ Scott Keyes wrote:

The hosts told Coffman that a gaffe in Washington “is when somebody tells the truth” before asking the Colorado Republican, “Were you just at that moment speaking what was in your heart and are you now feeling you need to walk it back for political reasons?” Coffman conceded that this was the case — “to some extent that’s true” — before explaining that his main regret was talking about the issue because birtherism is a “horrible issue” for Republican.

Think Progress also spotlighted Coffman’s statement, in the KHOW interview, praising birthers:

Later, Coffman praised those who don’t believe President Obama was born in the United States. “[Issues are] going to determine this election, not focusing on the birther question. God bless people that do that. I understand their passion.”

Yesterday’s Coffman interview on KHOW, as well as his response to 9News’ questions this week, shows the value, from a public-interest perspective, of going the extra mile to get public figures to air out their views on topics they’d rather dismiss with a simple sorry-I-misspoke soundbite.

Journalists shouldn’t settle for this treatment during the election season which is upon us.

Please take a look at the paragraph below, from Dean Singleton’s introduction to a speech by President Barack Obama, and tell me if “liberal media bias” leaps out at you.

“He inherited the headwinds of the worst economic recession since the Great Depression,” said Singleton, who’s a former Chair of the MediaNews newspaper chain and of the Associated Press. “He pushed through Congress the biggest economic recovery plan in history and led a government reorganization of two of the big three auto manufacturers to save them from oblivion. He pursued domestic and foreign-policy agendas that were controversial to many, highlighted by his signature into law of the most comprehensive health care legislation in history. And the budget plans proposed by the president on the one hand, and Republicans on the other hand, aren’t even on the same planet.”

Do you see anything offensive in Singleton’s words here, delivered prior to a recent speech before hundreds of journalists in Washington.

All I see is facts.

A big recession. That’s true. Yes, he saved two of three auto companies. Yes, his agenda was controversial and distinct from the GOP agenda. And yes, his economic recovery plan was one of the biggest in U.S. history.

Everything Singleton said was factual. He wasn’t being balanced, but Mitt Romney was on deck to address the same group of journalists the next day.

Besides, are you really going to recite the leader of the free world’s failures after he’s doing you the favor of speaking to your luncheon?

That’s rude.

But conservatives saw Singleton’s introduction as evidence of the liberal bias that they find everywhere in professional journalism, from The New York Times to CBS News and beyond.

“I’m surprised Singleton wasn’t wearing an Obama button,” Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly said about Singleton’s introduction. “I mean, come on. The president understands that most in the media will back him.”

Conservative Washington Times columnist Charles Hurt wrote that Singleton sang Obama “an icky love song in which he reminisced about all their hot dates and then pledged his undying love forever.” Actually, Singleton told anecdotes about Obama speaking at previous luncheons.

Not to be outdone, talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh told listeners that the AP’s CEO “stood up and just lauded Obama as one of the greatest human beings ever, one of the greatest presidents ever, one of the greatest quotes ever, one of the greatest guys ever.”

Clearly, the fact that Singleton is a Republican escaped these guys, as did the fact that he does things like belch out front-page, anti-union editorials. Once, he even demanded that The Denver Post editorial board reverse its unanimous decision to endorse John Kerry, insisting that the newspaper back Singleton’s buddy George Bush.

Singleton ended his introduction of Obama by saying that these days “the only thing anyone seems willing to compromise on is….well, I can’t think of anything.”

Here’s a suggestion.

Let’s agree to acknowledge the facts.

When a journalist says something like, Obama saved two of the three big U.S. automakers and he came into office during the worst recession since the Great Depression, let’s not cry media bias.

Let’s just say, yes, those are facts, and honor them as such, so we can have an honest debate about what we truly disagree on.

A version of this post was distributed by the OtherWords syndicate.