Scott McInnis likens his gubernatorial disaster to a sting by a honey bee that he got in his youth, according to a front-page Denver Post article today.

And he apparently believes the ouchy bee is The Denver Post, which he mostly blames for his meltdown this year.

Unfortunately, the Post doesn’t bother to defend itself in its front-page article today, but Post Editor Greg Moore, you’ll recall, published a column in July pointing out that the story was reported fairly and that his newspaper doesn’t have a political agenda.

As for McInnis’ claim that the Post’s reporting is responsible for his downfall, anyone with a brain knows that McInnis himself is to blame–though today’s Post doesn’t offer this perspective.

But McInnis is almost undoubtedly correct that this story would have never seen the light of day had not been for the Post. First, it asked all the gubernatorial candidates to release their tax returns, as part of the newspaper’s usual process of asking for financial disclosures from state candidates. McInnis initially refused. But facing public embarassment about this, McInnis eventually released portions of his tax returns to the media. This revealed income of $150,000 from the Hasan Family Foundation, a fact that was first reported in the Post. Later McInnis told KHOW that the money was used to write water articles, and the story evolved from there culminating in The Post publishing the evidence of plagiarism.

A particularly damaging piece of the story was KMGH’s interview with Rolly Fischer, the octogenarian researcher whom McInnis said was the real copy cat. Yet, McInnis isn’t blaming channel 7.

In any case, the news media definitely spotlighted the plagiarism story, as they should have, but they don’t deserve blame for the series of events that led to McInnis’ early exit from the gubernatorial race.

In a post-election analysis story last week, The Denver Post quoted conservative political analyst Katy Atkinson’s views on Tom Tancredo’s future.

“He’s always going to have an audience. He is a really great communicator,” said conservative political analyst Katy Atkinson.

I would have liked one more sentence explaining why she thinks this. So I asked her.

“Have you ever heard Tom Tancredo speak?” Atkinson kindly replied via email. “I’ve known the guy for 30 years and his enthusiasm is contagious. Combine enthusiasm with passion, sincerity and the ability to make complex subjects comprehensible, sprinkle on a sense of humor and you get a great communicator. You don’t have to agree with him all the time, or any of the time, to admire his abilities.”

I admire Atkinson’s abilities, but I’ve criticized The Post in the past for quoting her and other familiar pundits too often. So when I queried her, Atkinson added, “I’ve just been relishing the irony of you asking for my opinion.” (Nowadays, I think there’s a wider variety of pundits quoted in The Post’s political stories, which is a good thing. But I’ll do a bean count at some point to see if this is true.)

In any case, Tancredo is clearly great at getting media attention, and he is a good speaker, but he’s not so great as a communicator, because he goes off message too often, and it’s not clear what he’s trying to achieve…-except to draw attention to himself.

Extreme media stunts, like the kind Tancredo is famous for, can work for extremists as long as they are on message, but Tancredo too often goes over the cliff.

For example, when he says the U.S. should bomb Mecca in retaliation to a terrorist attack, and Tancredo’s agenda is to foment anger against illegal immigrants or Islam, he’s gone too far because his message about immigrants gets lost in the outcry about bombing a religious site and the ramifications. The ensuing debate does not focus on immigrants or Islam per se.

But when Tancredo says Obama is more of a threat to America than Osama Bin Laden, and Tancredo’s agenda is to tear down Obama, he’s actually succeeded in injecting his message into the mass media. The ensuing media discussion centers on how bad Obama really is.

Still, you’d never guess that strategic communications occupies Tancredo’s thoughts very often, but that’s how it goes with bomb throwers. And he’s a great one.

Bob Kinsey came really, really close to becoming Colorado’s version of Ralph Nader this year.

As Colorado’s Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate, Kinsey got 2.1% of the vote Tuesday. Bennet beat Buck by a 1.1% margin, with 97% of precincts reporting.

Kinsey says many of his supporters wouldn’t have voted at all, and others might have voted for Buck. Still, if Green Party voters here reflect the Green Party voters in Floriday for Ralph Nader in 2000, then Kinsey took more votes from Bennet. Had the race been close enough, this could have swung the election to Buck.

Does Kinsey have regrets?

“Well you know what, Bennet is in favor of increasing military spending. Neither one [Buck or Bennet]  is going to challenge the military any more than Obama is. No I have no regrets. I have no regrets that I tried to get this country to talk about the military.”

Kinsey, who got about 2% of the vote when he ran for U.S. Senate in 2008, was almost invisible in the Denver media this election cycle. His name appeared once in The Denver Post over the past year. He said he got some decent coverage statewide, but not much, even by left-leaning outlets like KGNU radio in Boulder. I asked him what the media missed in not covering him.

“My major focus is foreign policy,” he said. “I want to cut the military budget by 75% and use that money to create jobs. If you include in miliatrey spending the drug war, Homeland Security, the CIA, and other agencies, that’s over a trillion dollars a year. The AFSC calculated that you could provide every unemployed person with a $50,000 job and the U.S. would still spend more on the military than any other country in the world.”

In 2008, Democrats worried that Kinsey could tip the election away from Mark Udall. They worried again this year. But Kinsey will be one Green candidate they won’t have to worry about when Udall is up in four years.

“I am 73-years-old,” Kinsey told me when I asked if he’d run again. “Next time around for Senate, I’d be 77. What I plan on doing is trying to get the Green party to get some other good candidates and build a party. I don’t think so. I’ve done it three times, once in the 4^th Congressional [2004] and twice for Senate, and  I gave people the opportunity to vote against militarism, and I got 35,000 votes.

I don’t have the energy at 77 to do it again, but I will continue to speak out against militarism.”

Even though Walker Stapleton has been elected State Treasurer, The Denver Post shouldn’t forget to make sure he turns over, at some point, the police report from his 1999 DUI arrest in San Francisco.

In an interview Oct. 27 on KHOW’s Caplis and Silverman show, Stapleton said he ordered the report and promised to deliver it to The Post’s Tim Hoover as soon as he gets it.

Last week, I criticized The Post for not interviewing one of two woman whose cab Stapleton hit when he drove his car through a red light and into their taxi. An interview with this victim was published in the Colorado Independent.

In the KHOW interview, Silverman seems to have made a mistake (uncorrected by Stapleton) when he said on the air that “as recounted by you, the accident wasn’t even your fault.”

In fact, Stapleton said told Silverman:

“What happened is, I had been drinking, and I had been under the influence of alcohol at the time, and I was hit by a taxi cab. And it was at an intersection where I had a blinking red and the taxi had a blinking yellow light. It caused my car to spin, to do a 360, and there were two people in the back of the taxi at the time.”

To me, it appears that the accident was Stapleton’s fault, even if the taxi hit him.

One of the women in the taxi also said Stapleton’s car ran a red light.

This victim also said something that Stapleton has denied, namely that he tried to flee the scene, but his car was cut off by other cars, possibly taxis.

The police report may clear this up, to some extent, as could documents requested by the Independent, which has raised questions about possible drug use by Stapleton.

When Stapleton turns over the report to The Post, a full story…-including an interview with the victim…-should be run to clear up the air or pollute it, depending on what the record shows.

Partial transcript of interview with Walker Stapleton on the Caplis and Silverman Show

10/27/2010 HOUR 4

Silverman: This involves a DUI conviction. Isn’t that something that the voters should know and determine whether it’s important to them or not.

Stapleton: Sure. Absolutely. And that’s why I admitted to this transgression 12 years ago. I was 25 at the time. It was a mistake that I’ve owned up to, that I’ve been honest about. In fact, the first time I was asked about it I was honest about it in a very public forum, and I’ve taken full responsibility for it. I served my community service as a result of this. It’s not something I feel great about. It’s not something that needs to be put into a political attack ad where the facts are twisted and distorted to make it look like things happened that simply didn’t happen. That is disingenuous to voters and it’s also insulting to voters…-as if voters would vote on issues like this and not issues that pertain, policy issues, which pertain to the job of being state treasurer of Colorado.

Silverman: Sure, good people can get DUIs. There was an accident involved, and some people were shaken up. There was an issue about whether those people were in a taxi or on foot, and whether you left the scene of the crime or not. Why don’t you explain what really happened?

Stapleton: Well, you know quite well from your experience as an accident attorney that a lot of things take place in an accident. What happened is, I had been drinking, and I had been under the influence of alcohol at the time, and I was hit by a taxi cab. And it was at an intersection where I had a blinking red and the taxi had a blinking yellow light. It caused my car to spin, to do a 360, and there were two people in the back of the taxi at the time. I didn’t even know that there were two people in the back of the taxi, wasn’t even told about it until my insurance company contacted me and said that both of these two individuals had applied for and received back massages. Liberal interest groups tried to drum up this story by saying that I had hit a number of pedestrians. That did not happen, and it was confirmed that it did not happen by the San Francisco Police Department. But they still did not drop the story even though The Denver Post spent the time and got a categorical denial from the Office of Public Safety of the San Francisco Police Department that pedestrians were not involved in this accident. When I explained that I had pulled out of traffic to the San Francisco Police Department, they dropped the hit-and-run charge. You know, from being a lawyer, that just because you are charged with something and you go through the legal process, now 12 years old, doesn’t mean you’re guilty of it-.

Silverman: I agree. A lot of good people can have a DUI. And as you recounted, the accident wasn’t even your fault. And I could see how that could happen. But there are DUIs and then there are DUIs. Some people have a .082 blood alcohol content, which gets them in trouble in Colorado right now under with DUI. Heck if you’re over .04 you can be charged with driving while ability impaired. And  you sometimes seepeople with huge blood alcohol content and, what was yours? Did you take…-

Stapleton: The answer is, I don’t remember. It was well under .2, I can tell you that. And, just as evidence that I have absolutely nothing to hide, and Tim Hoover of The Denver Post can confirm this, as soon as the Kennedy campaign, in an effort to smear me, brought this issue up again, I immediately attempted to order the police report from the San Francisco Office of Public Information, at which I will deliver a full report to Tim Hoover at The Denver Post as soon as I receive it. Unfortunately, there are bureaucratic circles involved with receiving such a report. But I have told Tim at The Post that I have absolutely nothing to hide with this accident. I have owned up to my mistakes-.

A headline in today’s Denver Post reads, “Buck clarifies comments on global warming ‘hoax.'”

One problem: As you know if you read the article, Buck never clarified his comments on the matter. His campaign spokesman, Owen Loftus, did.

So the headline, most likely written by an editor, didn’t accurately reflect the article, written by a Post reporter.

It’s a significant error to someone like me who likes candidates who talk to reporters themselves. (And I like reporter who insist on this when possible.)

But I might not bother to point the headline out if not for the fact that Buck himself hasn’t been quoted in The Post much lately. Instead, he mostly, relies on his spokespeople. (To be fair, so does Bennet.)

But the headline gives readers the impression Buck is out there fighting for himself with reporters, when, in fact, in this instance–and in by far most cases in Post articles published in October–his spokespeople were the ones to talk to reporters.

If you follow Vincent Carroll at the Denver Post, you know he likes to be a media critic every now and then, and sometimes he makes a good point.

But he whiffed completely in his column today in asserting that poor U.S. Senate candidate Ken Buck was the victim of media bias during his appearance on Meet the Press Sunday.

“With Buck, on the other hand, Gregory hardly let up,” moaned Carroll, whose column was headlined, “A glaring example of media bias.”

The most effective way to illustrate the absurdity of Carroll’s attack is simply to list the questions Meet the Press host David Gregory asked Buck.

Check them out below, and you’ll agree that any political candidate in Buck’s position should be able to knock these questions out of the park.

There’s not a single “gotcha” query in the bunch, nothing Buck shouldn’t have known inside and out.

So, to cry “media bias” over them is an obvious distraction from the real issue, which, of course, is Buck’s answers to the questions.

MR. GREGORY:  And the question is whether the tea party represents an extreme, insurgent political force, or whether it’s a legitimate political movement.  What do you say?

MR. GREGORY:  If you’re senator, do you think these elements [anti-Semites, racists, bigots, hard-core white nationalists] in the tea party need to be dealt with and need to be rebuffed?

MR. GREGORY:  Senator, is this a legitimate question?  Is this [Tea Party}a mainstream movement?  Because this is high stakes in your, in your campaign, in this debate.

MR. GREGORY:  Mr. Buck, the issue of the tea party matters, though, because one of the big knocks against you, it’s been subject to the campaign between you, is whether or not you took positions to appeal to primary voters, to get that tea party support that you’re now backing away from….  Is that charge fair?

MR. GREGORY:  But isn’t it also easy to flirt with positions in a primary, and then back off and say, “Well, I’m not sure I’d actually vote for that,” you know, once you get into a general election?  Isn’t that what people really dislike about politics?

MR. GREGORY:  I want to–you want to button this up before I move on to some questions.  You say…

MR. GREGORY:  Why is that unreasonable in your view [that politics haven’t allowed us to make tough choices]?

MR. GREGORY:  And you take responsibility, as well, for what Republicans did in terms of running up the debt before that?

MR. GREGORY:  Well, let me ask you on that point, do you agree with Republican leaders who say that tax cuts do not have to be paid for?

MR. GREGORY:  Well, extanding–extending the Bush-era tax cuts for the highest earners.  The president says it all the time, it would cost an extra $700 billion.  Should those be paid for if the–if, if Republicans like you want to cut that deficit, bring it in balance, do you then have to pay for the tax cuts you want to extend?

MR. GREGORY:  But how can that be bigger?  You either believe in the balanced budget or you do not.  If you extend tax cuts, you said just a moment ago they have to be paid for.  Then how do you pay for it?

MR. GREGORY:  But not–it’s not fair to compare him to all Republicans. Republican leaders don’t agree with what he just said, which is that you have to pay for tax cuts.  So isn’t he–aren’t you guys more in line, wouldn’t you say?

MR. GREGORY:  You’re talking about growing the economy?

MR. GREGORY:  And I wonder whether you regret using those words [buyer’s remorse], and whether you think women should give some weight to those issues in deciding whether to vote for you.

MR. GREGORY:  But do you regret the way you either talked to her or talked about the case?

MR. GREGORY:  Right.  But what about what you told the Greeley Tribune [about “buyer’s remorse”]?

MR. GREGORY:  The issue of gays in our country, in a debate last month you expressed your support for “don’t ask, don’t tell,” which we talked about with Mr. Gibbs, and you alluded to lifestyle choices. Do you believe that being gay is a choice?

MR. GREGORY:  Based on what?

MR. GREGORY:  Why do you believe that?

MR. GREGORY:  You don’t think it’s something that’s determined at birth?

MR. GREGORY:  How do you answer that, Mr. Buck [on Afghanistan]?

MR. GREGORY:  What if General Petraeus says, “You know what, it’s July 2011, but if we’re going to achieve our goals, we can’t pull any troops out.  May need more troops, may need to surge up again here.” Well, you could support that because you don’t believe in deadlines?

MR. GREGORY:  Let me ask you a question about the Supreme Court.  Obviously a crucial role as a U.S.  senator, confirming a justice who’s nominated by the president.  Which sitting justices would you have voted against?

MR. GREGORY:  Mm-hmm.  Are there Clinton-era nominees as well, down the line?

MR. GREGORY:  But is that part of the problem, that you want to come to Washington and not have any friends?  How do you solve problems if you can’t work with people on the other side?

MR. GREGORY:   Ashley Newberg:  “This is what I would ask them:  What do you hope to accomplish, both in your political career and in life in general outside of politics?” But you’ve got to be very brief. 

If you’re so inclined, list some tough questions for Buck in the comment section, so Carroll gets a better sense of the possibilities.

If you’ve been watching the evolution of political blogging at The Denver Post, you know that the Spot blog, is by far the best effort yet, way better than the newspaper’s blog in the days when rightie Ross Kaminsky wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote, while his left-leaning Gang-of-Four counterparts were often AWOL, along with any audience to speak of.

Now, with Kaminsky safely booted back to his Rossputin blog, The Post’s political blog features bylined reporting, fact-based with breaking news and some humor but without rumor and slander.

The Spot also offers two opinion writers (sometimes more, but rarely): right-leaning Chuck Plunkett, who posts as much as once per day, and libertarian David Harsanyi, who posts less frequently.

I’ve got nothing against Plunkett and Harsanyi. I respect both of them.

But it’s obvious to me that the Spot, by adhering to basic journalistic standards in the vast majority of its blog posts, strives to be fair and accurate, like The Denver Post generally.

And featuring two right-leaning opinion bloggers, amid the eight news writers, isn’t fair and doesn’t reflect well on The Post’s commitment to even-handedness.

So, for example, last week. On Tuesday, the morning after the 9News-Post-sponsored Bennet-Buck debate, there’s Harsanyi bashing Bennet on health care, with no blogger offering counter-spin.

And Wednesday morning, there’s Plunkett defending Buck in the “buyer’s remorse” case.

Then Plunkett is at it again on Thursday, trotting out a rape victim who praises Buck’s treatment of her.

The previous week, Bennet got unfairly punched in the mouth by Plunkett, in a Spot piece titled, “Bennet ought to drop his hypocritical strategy.” 

I know Plunkett doesn’t always side with the GOP (e.g., McPlagiarist), but he seems to be on a particularly conservative jag of late (See list at end of this post.)

Since the primary, Plunkett wrote eight pro-Buck posts, versus four siding with Bennet. Harsanyi tossed in five more attacking Bennet and, no surprise, none favoring Bennet. (Well, that’s not exactly right. Harsanyi posted a piece Friday pointing out that even though he “fundamentally” disagrees with most of Bennet’s policy positions, Harsanyi doesn’t believe Bennet hates the Broncos, as Republicans claimed. And on Friday Plunkett posted The Post’s endorsement of Bennet.)

I emailed The Post’s Editorial Page Editor Dan Haley, who’s in charge of the opinion posts on the Spot, while Political Editor Curtis Hubbard oversees the news posts.

I asked Haley if he thinks the situation is fair and, if not, if he’d balance out the Spot by adding a couple left-leaning opinion writers from the editorial page.

I suggested that, with the election raging, the Spot should dump Plunkett and Harsanyi for the final weeks of the election season, in the name of basic fairness. Or balance them out immediately.

His response:

You make an interesting point, and one I hadn’t thought of. When we created The Spot, the idea was to join forces with the citydesk reporters, so we could have one strong blog (with news and views) rather than two weaker blogs. I’ve encouraged everyone on my staff to blog, but I don’t make it mandatory. Given our staff size, our main goal each day is to produce two editorials and create a compelling op-ed page. (Of course, online and social media have taken on a bigger role, as they should.) I have no plans to ask David and Chuck to stop blogging during the campaign because I think their contributions are a valuable part of the blog, in specific, and the public discourse in general. But I do think we should encourage more of our left-leaning editorialists and columnists to do more blogging for more balance, and that’s a broader discussion that we should have here.

Also, I would argue with your characterization of Chuck Plunkett’s blog posts. While those you point to can be viewed as conservative, or right-leaning, he also has written numerous posts that could be seen coming from the left, if you feel the need to put everything in a neatly labeled box. Beside critiquing Scott McInnis and Dan Maes, for example, he has taken on Tom Tancredo in a few posts, including one after Tancredo called for Obama’s impeachment. He also has defended Michael Bennet in numerous instances and criticized Dick Wadhams when he tried to lump Hickenlooper and Ritter together as “Hickenritter.”

I was obviously happy to receive this, since Haley essentially agreed with me that more left-leaning posts on the Spot would bring more balance, and he seems ready to move in this direction.

Though I’d dump Harsanyi and Plunkett now to achieve immediate fairness, I wouldn’t eliminate them or the opinion posts from the Spot forever. I like the news-opinion format of the blog, as long as it’s balanced.

The question is, how to achieve balance in the long term?

Adding posts by left-leaning bloggers is the place to start, obviously.

It’s also a necessary to acknowledge that Plunkett leans right.

Harsanyi, for one, doesn’t think so, as he told me in an email, that Plunkett is a centrist.

Asked if he thought of himself as right-leaning, Plunkett wrote that “free-market libertine” had a “nice ring to it.” He emailed me:

“I think of myself as a centrist. So do others who know me well. I’m progressive on social issues like gay rights and a woman’s right to chose. I’m passionate about protecting the environment. But I am skeptical of government over-reaching in many ways, and I am a free-markets kind of guy, as long, of course, as those markets are conducted under the rule of clear and reasonable laws and regulations. In my life, I have voted more often for Democrats than Republicans, but it is true Democrats have deeply disappointed me of late. I also think Republicans share the blame in the present situation.

 So no, I don’t lean GOP. I no longer lean Democrat. I don’t even know if you can say I lean Libertarian. What I think is going on is you and others are seeing a Chuck Plunkett who is a centrist by nature but who is writing and commenting during a unique time in our history when the conservatives are generating much of the energy.”

Looking back at Plunkett’s writing, I have to agree with him that he’s not partisan, for sure. He’ll take unexpected positions.

But before you believe he’s Mr. Centrist, read the following excerpt from a speech he gave at conservative gathering Sept. 15, called “Denver Liberty on the Rocks.”

Plunkett describes how he want back two years ago, after he joined the Post editorial board, and read “key passages” of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, which was an “exciting and affirming” experience. “I thought it was an overwhelmingly positive message, and I note that you guys think that way,” he said, adding that a lot of Americans “don’t see that free markets could structure a beneficial society.”

“Vast segments of our population either believe or act like they believe that Americans only enjoy their standard of living at the expense of others,” he said.  “They experience guilt when they ought to experience gratitude. They don’t understand that wealth creates wealth. They don’t understand that the poor countries in the world are almost always poor not because Americans are stealing all of their resources, but because their governments prevent free markets from forming and empowering their people…-because over-reaching governments won’t help them make money. You need to frame the narrative so more people understand that.”

“Too many Americans believe that here at home only the rich get richer,” he told conservatives. “You hear that all the time that the system has gotten rigged somehow against the middle class and especially against the poor.”

I know the political center in the United States has been moving steadily to the right, but if this quote represents the new center, the right has been moving so fast I lost track of it.

I mean, the Spot needs a voice to stand up for unions and government interventions in the economy to create economic equality–countering Plunkett and Harsanyi.

Still, the addition of more progressive blog posts on the Spot, written by other writers, would help balance the blog.

But it won’t solve the fairness problem because it’s true what Haley says: Plunkett in particular and even Harsanyi will sometimes attack conservatives and their ideas.

So you could run into a situation, like during this year’s primary season, when Plunkett was in his “McPlagiarist” period, when the Spot’s opinions could tilt left, instead of the current rightward tack.

That wouldn’t be fair either.

So it’s up to Haley to flag situations where the Spot starts to look one-sided, favoring one candidate or view, whether left, right or center. Or when it’s doing the opposite. This makes The Post look bad, and right now that’s what’s happening. There are plenty of opinion mongers out there to make the situation right, if need be, on short notice.

I’m not alone in thinking that newspapers will survive only if they can convince people that they are the source for credible, fair, and accurate information…-even on their blogs.

By sponsoring a blog that tilts rightward, particularly in a Senate race that has huge national implications, The Post isn’t doing itself or us any favors.

A SUMMARY OF RECENT OPINION WRITING ON THE SPOT BLOG

 The vast majority of Spot pieces are not opinion. They are written by Denver Post reporters Lynn Bartels, Michael Booth, Karen Crummy, Jessica Fender, Tim Hoover, Michael Riley, and Allison Sherry. Political Editor Curtis Hubbard also contributes.

Opinion pieces are mostly written by Chuck Plunkett and David Harsanyi

A sample of recent Spot posts by Chuck Plunkett:

• Oct. 18: Buck’s gay gaffe and what Republicans should learn from it (States that Buck’s views are wrong.)
• Oct. 15: Denver Post picks Bennet for Senate
• Oct. 14: Rape Victim Praises Ken Buck for his assistance (Reports on rape case in which victim praises Buck)
• Oct. 13: Sex and Politics in the Senate Race (Supports the way Buck handled rape case)
• Oct. 12: Dan Maes blames his supporters for believing in him
• Oct. 7: Did GOP just drop Dan Maes? Really?
• Oct. 6: Bennet ought to drop his hypocritical strategy. (Slams Bennet ads)
• Sept. 24: WhoSaidYouSaid catches its “They Spend You Pay” stride (Praises free-market website)
• Sept. 9: Bennet gets it right (supporting Bennet positions against more stimulus funds and Afghan war)
• Sept. 8: Hickenlooper’s strange bedfellows
• Sept. 3: Maes snubs reporters; proves pundits right
• Aug. 31: NRO finds Bennet also faults stimulus as “immoral” (digs at Bennet for faulting bill he supported)
• Aug. 27: More on Bennet’s “Nothing to show for it” comment (defends Bennet remark.)
• Aug. 25: Bennet’s “Nothing to show for it” comment” isn’t really a bombshell (adds context and defends Bennet remark)
• Aug. 24: Bucking the Federal footprint (defends Buck against extremist label by NYT)
• Aug. 13: Buck to use candor against crazy label (explains how Buck will answer charges of extremism)
• Aug. 13: On trying to label Ken Buck (Suggests Buck perfectly represents GOP)
• Aug. 12: Team Buck versus Team Obama (Suggests national GOP will like Buck)

David Haransyi’s sample Spot blog posts:

• Oct. 15, 2010, “Does Michael Bennet want Kyle Orton to get injured?” Um, no.
• Oct. 12, 2010, Where’s Michael Bennet on health care? Anywhere he needs to be (bashing Bennet)
• Sept. 9, 2010, What is Dick Morris talking about? (defending Ryan Frazier)
• Sept. 7, 2010, So let me get this straight-.  (questioning poll showing dead heat in U.S. Senate race)
• Sept. 3, 2010, Who is Michael Bennet? (bashing Bennet)
• Aug. 26, 2010, “Oh, the hypocrisy (Suggests Bennet is a hypocrite)
• Aug. 11, 2010, What the Atlantic and others got wrong about Colorado (saying Buck will be tough candidate)

Alicia Caldwell is a Post opinion writer, but her posts on the Spot are not hard-edged like Plunkett’s. She wrote last week that U.S. Rep Jared Polis and State Senator Michael Johnston appeared on Time Magazine’s list of rising stars of U.S. politics. She wrote wrote Aug. 24, spotlighting a Washington Post piece that quoted Buck lauding the Tea Party movement but distancing himself from it. Before that, in an Aug. 20 piece titled Buck gets no love from the NYT, she wondered whether Buck’s being labeled “extreme” in a New York Times editorial would hurt or help him among moderate voters in Colorado. She wrote three other pieces in August and more frequently in July, mostly passing on information from other media outlets, some of it left-leaning.

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.

If you’ve been reading the news coverage of U.S. Senate candidate Ken Buck’s decision not to prosecute a man who admitted raping a 21-year-old University of Northern Colorado student in 2005, you know there’s a major omission: Ken Buck himself.

He’s not quoted in stories in The Denver Post, Associated Press, Politico, Roll Call, Politics Daily, ABC’s The Note, or the Colorado Independent, which was the first news outlet to obtain a  audio-taped discussion among Buck, the alleged rape victim, and two others, and to interview her directly.

Buck is apparently not talking to the media about the case, leaving reporters to chat with his spokesman.

Except, that is, for a reporter at the Greeley Tribune.

Buck talked directly to the Tribune’s Nate Miller, who wrote an excellent article covering different aspects of this complicated story.

The Tribune reports, unlike The Post and the Associated Press, among others, the key fact that the perpetrator “told police she had told him no, but he thought she invited him to Greeley because she wanted to sleep with him.” (The Independent provided a transcript of this admission, as part of its in-depth coverage.)

The Tribune gives Buck ample inches to defend his decision not to prosecute, allowing him to point out that he had numerous deputies review the case, as well as the Boulder District attorney.

The Tribune also asked Buck about his statement to the Tribune in 2006 that a jury might think this was a case of “buyer’s remorse.”

At the time, a Tribune editorial criticized Buck for using the phrase. A Tribune editorial stated:

“Buck told the woman he could not press charges against her attacker, despite the man’s admission to police that she said no. Buck said he must only prosecute cases in which he has a reasonable chance of convicting someone, and this was not one of those cases.

…A jury could very well conclude that this is a case of buyer’s remorse,’ Buck said.

While we support his legal reasoning, we believe Buck could have, should have been more sensitive in his choice of words, regardless of what he may have thought a jury or defense lawyer would conclude.

He added, …I don’t want victims to be deterred from the pitiful facts in this case from coming forward.’

We, too, hope other victims won’t be discouraged by this case. Again, though, Buck’s selection of words could have been more appropriate. Calling the facts of the case …pitiful’ could be construed by other victims as discouraging.”

Yesterday Buck told the Tribune that the phrase “buyer’s remorse” was taken out of context. The Tribune reported:

“I listed five or six reasons why I thought a jury would not convict in this case,” Buck told the Tribune. “She said she was passed out during the sexual act, so I wasn’t referring to whether she had buyer’s remorse for the act that they engaged in, but rather for the prior relationship they had.”

But either way, why infer publicly that the victim might have “buyer’s remorse,” either for the sexual act or for the relationship? Why use such a condescending phrase?

That’s the kind of question reporters should be asking Buck now, because it gets to the heart of the accusation that Buck isn’t sensitive to women, forcing them to birth babies resulting from rape, for example.

He’s not apologetic about using the phrase “buyer’s remorse,” which we all can agree is a loaded term. Instead, he’s defensive. Why?

Which leads to an error I spotted in the Tribune article.

The Tribune reported that Buck apologized for joking that women should vote for him because “I do not wear high heels.”

In fact, Buck was defensive, not apologetic, about his joke during the GOP primary.

The Associated Press reported that he defended the joke, conceding that it “wasn’t very funny” and it was not meant to be offensive. But he was unapologetic.

I cannot find a record of Buck actually apologizing for the high heels remark. Please let me know if you find this.

In any case, now he’s defending his “buyer’s remorse” comment as well.

Reporters should ask, why doesn’t he think this merits an apology, along with other comments he made about the case, including his statement in 2006 that the facts in the case were “pitiful,” which would presumably include the fact that the man admitted having sex with the woman even though she said no.

Ken Buck is having second thoughts on yet another issue, The Denver Post reports today.

This time, it’s the consumption tax, which Buck called “great” during the GOP primary but now says was “never my alternative,” according to The Post.

The Post reports:

“Buck’s stance Wednesday on the consumption tax is the latest instance in which he has offered a different position from in the primary.”

We all like a person, especially if she is your wife but even if he is a political candidate, who’s willing to change his or her opinion.

But the key phrase in The Post’s sentence above is “different position from in the primary.”

It’s one thing to consider new information and make a change. It’s another to take a position to appeal to one group of people (right-wing GOP primary voters) and change it to appeal to another group of people (average everyday angry voters).

In this case, whether you’re the angry right winger or the average angry voter, you’re wondering whether Buck will say anything to get elected.

That’s why Buck’s recent changes are important, and why media outlets like The Post deserve credit for spotlighting them for us.

In today’s article, The Post reviewed three other issues, on which Buck has flipped since the primary:

Personhood. He supported it during the primary, briefly came out against it, and now says he’s neutral, but is still in favor of personhood “as a concept.”

Pro-choice judges. During the primary, Buck said he wouldn’t confirm “pro-abortion” candidates for any federal job, including judges. Now Buck will confirm pro-choice nominees.

Anti-abortion legislation. During the primary, Buck promised to sponsor anti-abortion legislation. Now he won’t.

Now that Buck is establishing a record of backtracking, The Post and other media outlets should offer readers a wider view of his before/after primary positions. The expansive list includes:

Social Security and Medicare. During the primary, Buck says “the private sector runs programs like [health care and retirement] far better” than the federal government.  Now the Buck campaign says, “Ken is not in favor of privatizing Social Security,” and we have to keep a “promise” to seniors and maintain the program, with tweaks including privatization and a higher retirement age for younger people.

Constitutionality of Social Security. During the primary, Buck said he was “not sure” about the constitutionality of major federal programs passed over the past 70 or 80 years. Now he says he’s “never had doubts” about the constitutionality of Social Security.

Privatization of Medicare. During a primary debate (Mike Rosen 7-19-10), Buck said he supports “privatizing as many of the areas of health care as possible, including the decisions of folks that are on Medicare.” Now he tells the New York Times that he hasn’t “decided whether some form of vouchers would work or not.”

Department of Education. During the primary, to select audiences, Buck advocated shutting it down immediately. Now he consistently says it should be cut back.

Common forms of birth control. Consistent with his position during the primary, the Buck campaign told 9News that he’s against common forms of birth control that prevent implantation, such as IUDs as well as some forms of the Pill. Now he says he is “not in favor of banning any common forms of birth control in Colorado.” (But still opposes killing fertilized eggs, which are killed by common forms of birth control.)

Social Issues. (See above.)

Consumption tax. (See above.)

News outlets like The Post, Associated Press, Grand Junction Sentinel, and others have covered Buck’s before/after primary stances on a case-by-case basis, but I’d like to see more reporting that brings all these issues together, a bit like Buck’s interview with New York Time reporter John Harwood here, and delves more deeply into why Buck staked out the positions he did initially and why he is changing his views post-primary on some issues and not others.