Under media scrutiny for saying in 2006 that a jury might believe an alleged rape victim had “buyer’s remorse,” even though her attacker admitted raping her, Ken Buck has responded, in part, by telling reporters he subsequently “started” a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners (SANE) program.

This highly regarded program trains hospital personnel to provide special care for rape victims.

But Buck did not start a SANE program.

Buck’s Weld County District Attorney’s Office was one of the agencies in Weld County that began participating in a SANE program, after a Larimer County hospital began operating one, according to SANE officials in Colorado.

Yet media outlets report that Buck’s campaign has claimed that Buck actually started a SANE program, even implying that he led the effort:

The Politico reported Oct. 11:

Buck’s campaign also notes that as a prosecutor, he started a multiagency sexual assault review team and sexual assault nurse examiner program to provide care to victims and collect evidence in criminal cases.

ABC’s The Note reported Oct. 12:

[Buck spokesperson Owen] Loftus pointed out that as district attorney, Buck started a program for victims of sexual assault and helped raise funds for a specialized nurse program to help treat victims of sexual abuse.

KRDO television in Colorado Springs asked Buck for comment on the rape case, and he “declined comment.” But his campaign issued this statement Sept. 21 to KRDO:

“As a prosecutor, I have dedicated my life to protecting people from heinous crimes like rape and incest. As District Attorney of Weld County, I have implemented several programs such as SANE and SART, to help victims and ensure that perpetrators are put behind bars.

“Before becoming District Attorney of Weld County, women who were sexually assaulted had to wait long hours in waiting rooms before being examined. I started SANE, the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner program, to provide compassionate and trained nurses to help victims of sexual assault. SANE ensures that victims are examined as soon as possible in a private environment. The program provides compassionate nurses who are trained in sexual assault examinations and qualified as trial witnesses to examine victims right away.”

In each of these cases, reporters should have stated that Buck did not start a SANE program.

“There is no SANE program in Colorado that was single-handedly initiated by a district attorney,” Val Sievers, Colorado SANE Director, told me.

“Sexually Assault Nurse Examiner programs are nurse-based practice programs that are typically associated with a hospital so they can see patients, provide them care, provide them medication, and provide them support,” she said.

“In the 15 years that I’ve been providing the SANE education to nurses and physicians in Colorado, SANE programs have been initiated and developed at hospital facilities with the support of social services, law enforcement, and district attorney’s offices. These hospitals typically submit an application for initiating a SANE program, which says we are going to have these components in place.”

It turns out that no hospital in Weld County has a functional SANE program, so rape victims in Weld County are transported to Loveland Medical Center of the Rockies, in Larimer County, for the specialized care provided by SANE-trained personnel, according to Susan Webster, SANE Coordinator at the Loveland Medical Center of the Rockies.

According to Webster, Buck had nothing to do with starting the Loveland SANE program, which serves Greeley, Ft. Collins, and Loveland, Longmont as well as all of Larimer County, Weld County, and portions of Boulder County.

Webster and an advisor started the program in Poudre Valley in 1997, she told me, and when it moved to Larimer County in 2008, the service was offered to surrounding counties, including Buck’s Weld County.

“Law enforcement agencies in Weld County have supported our effort by bringing their patients to our program, instead of having them go to the emergency room in Greeley, where there is no SANE program, and where patients may have to wait in the lobby if they go there,” Webster explained to me. “Law enforcement responds, and they are brought here after they have been medically cleared by an ER doctor.”

So it looks as if the SANE program would have come to Weld County, with or without Buck, though his office has been supportive of the effort.

And even if Buck only played a nominal role in getting the program off the ground, the fact is that rape victims in Weld County are better off for it.

Still, it’s disturbing that multiple media outlets allowed Buck to exaggerate his role in starting the program, apparently without checking in with SANE officials who were the real initiators of the effort in northern Colorado.

Buck’s office did not respond to multiple emails seeking comment on this blog post.

One of my unanswered questions is why Buck would support, much less tout, a program like SANE that provides Plan B to victims of sexual assault, if they choose it.

Plan B is designed to stop ovulation and the implantation of fertilized eggs in the uterus, with the aim of stopping pregnancy.

Buck believes that life begins at conception, when the egg and sperm meet to form a fertilized egg, and he’s opposed birth control methods that potentially threaten fertilized eggs; such birth control methods would include Plan B.

If he really had started SANE, to be consistent with his hard-line position on abortion, Buck would have insisted that SANE not offer Plan B to raped women, and more raped women would likely have gotten pregnant. And Buck opposes letting them choose abortion.

Reporters should consider asking Buck about this.

One reason reporters should insist on talking directly to political candidates, and not their spokespeople, is to make it harder for public officials to change a position without explaining themselves.

If a spokesperson makes a statement, and the candidate later changes his tune, the candidate can simply say that the spokesperson got it wrong or missed a nuance.

That’s why the Greeley Tribune deserves big-time credit for speaking directly with Ken Buck about why he stated that a jury could view a case, in which a man had admitted to raping a college student, as “buyer’s remorse.”

Buck’s explanation to the Tribune on Wednesday, which did not make a lot of sense to me, was:

“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.”

Back in September, Buck didn’t mention anything about “buyer’s remorse” as referring to the victim’s prior relationship with the suspect. The Denver Post reported today:

In a September interview, Buck said he never meant to imply that the alleged victim had buyer’s remorse but that “a jury could conclude this,” he said.

“If you take it in context, people understand it was my trying to give a brief comment of what a jury might find as opposed to my views on sex assault or victims,” Buck said.

In the Post’s quote above, it certainly doesn’t appear that Buck is saying that the jury might find that the victim had “buyer’s remorse” about the relationship not the sex act.

You’ll note that the Post’s interview was conducted in September.

Other than the Tribune, media outlets this week, since the Colorado Independent broke the story, have only quoted only Owen Loftus. (The Post’s Chuck Plunkett asked Buck about the general topic of insensitivity to women involved in rape cases yesterday, but Plunkett didn’t quote Buck in his blog post.)

So it appears that Buck doesn’t want to talk directly to reporters about the case or the “buyer’s remorse” remark.

Maybe his evolving explanation of comment is the reason he doesn’t want to talk about it.

Reporters should ask Buck what he meant when he said a jury might think the mostly unconscious victim, who told the suspect no, had “buyer’s remorse.”

Was Buck referring to having buyer’s remorse about the sex act?

Was he referring to the prior relationship?

And regardless, does he think it was an appropriate comment for a prosecutor to make publicly? If so, why? If not, will he apologize?

Hey, we all know talk-radio host and right-wing activist Jeff Crank loves Ken Buck. 

That’s why, you’d think, he would have asked a follow-up question Oct. 2, when Buck stated on KVOR’s Jeff Crank Show that he doesn’t really regret anything that’s been recorded on the campaign trail.

Crank: Have you ever said anything that you wish you hadn’t on the campaign trail that was recorded?

Buck: You know, not really.

What about all of the recorded statements Buck made during the primary that he’s now taking back (endorsing Personhood, opposing pro-choice judges and common forms of birth control, privatizing Medicare and Social Security, supporting a consumption tax, promising to carry anti-abortion legislation and to close the Dept. of Education immediately, doubting the constitutionality of Social Security).

He doesn’t really regret any of that recorded stuff?

You’d think he’d really really regret saying something that was so off-base that he had to take it back. If he doesn’t regret saying, for example, that he supports a consumption tax, then does his statment that he no longer supports it have any validity? Ditto on Personhood and all the rest of it.

Crank didn’t question Buck about any of this.

And these are not instances when recordings of Buck have been taking out of context, which Buck mentions in the transcript below. These are recorded statements of fact, in full context, that Buck is taking back.

Now, in the wake of Crank’s failure, a reporter should ask Buck this question:

“Mr. Buck, do you regret telling Jeff Crank that you don’t really regret saying anything that was recorded on the campaign trail?”

Jeff Crank Show, KVOR, 740 AM

October 2, 2010

Crank: Have you ever said anything that you wish you hadn’t on the campaign trail that was recorded?

Buck: You know, not really. I’ve got to tell you, the problem with having a tracker, and I had a tracker on me for 16, 17, 18 months on the campaign trail is, what they are doing now is they are taking four or five words out of a three-paragraph answer and completely out of context. So in the sense that do I wish I wasn’t recorded, sure. But the way they are using it is really, I think, unfair and deceitful.

Andrew Romanoff isn’t reading this blog post.

He doesn’t read blogs, he told The Denver Post.

The Post’s Bill Husted: Are there perceptions people have of you that need correcting or some explanation?

Romanoff: If you are in public life, you read about yourself …- making decisions you never made or doing things you never did or saying things you never said. One of the best decisions I ever made was, the day I announced, was to stop reading the blogs. The anonymous nature of the blogosphere liberates authors from truth, so people just start making things up.

Husted: How were you treated by the press in general?

Romanoff: We could have done a more effective job of engaging the press in policies. The press was kind of sold on the story that there were no policy differences. And that was factually false. My sense is that the press is short staffed. Journalism is falling under hard times. I’m not going to second guess their decisions now. It doesn’t do much good to whine about that. But if nobody is covering your press conferences, it could be a problem with your communications strategy.

I like Romanoff, and I actually like him even more after reading his great interview with The Post yesterday. He can be an inspiring politician. But swearing off blogs at the young age of 44? That’s not a good idea, especially if he wants to be an insurgent candidate.

Blogs, like other human creations, need to be evaluated one at a time. Romanoff might find one blogger credible (perhaps moi?) and the next blogster a piece of shit. If anonymity bothers you, peruse the ones that have real bylines. So you read the ones you like.

Also, of course, almost every journalist is a blogger these days. If Romanoff takes himself seriously on this, he’ll be left reading only the books that he’s boxing up as we speak.

As for Romanoff’s criticsim of the news coverage of his race, I think he makes a fair point, to a degree, but he’d have to be more specific about what he thought was under-emphasized and by which media. He had different policy positions than Bennet, to be sure.

The Denver Post on Sunday became the first major news outlet in Colorado, with the exception of the Associated Press, to report that Ken Buck opposes abortion even in the case of rape and incest.

This leads to a second question, which will be the first in my regular series, “Question of the week.” The question-of-the-week will be my suggested query for reporters to ask a specific policymaker, activist, elected official, or candidate. It will not always focus on Ken Buck, like this week’s question.

It appears that Ken Buck not only opposes a women’s right to choose abortion if she’s a victim of rape and incest, but he also supports a ban on the use of the morning-after pill or possibly other types of birth control, even in the case of rape and incest.

On KHOW’s Caplis and Silverman show Aug. 4, Buck suggests that he’s opposed the use of the morning-after pill, even in the case of rape and incest. Here’s the transcript:

Craig: -Let’s say, god forbid, that a 13-year-old boy impregnates his 14-year-old sister and does it by forced rape. You’re saying that the 14-year-old and anybody involved in the abortion should be prosecuted, if they choose to terminate the pregnancy, either through surgical abortion or a morning after pill?

Buck: I think it is wrong, Craig. I think it is morally wrong. And you are taking a very small group of cases and making a point about abortion. We have hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of abortions in this country every year. And the example that you give is a very poignant one but an extremely rare occurrence.

Craig: Incest happens. I’m sure your office prosecutes it. And we know rape and sexual assault happen all the time, and your office prosecutes it. So it’s not completely rare. I agree that most abortions have nothing to do with that. I don’t know if I’d go with rare.

Furthermore, Buck’s support of the Personhood amendment, which grants zygotes citizenship rights, would presumably include complete opposition to the use of some birth control measures, including the morning-after pill, even in the case of rape and incest. The Colorado Independent has been on this here.

So, the question for reporters to ask Buck:

Do you support a ban on the use of the morning-after pill even for a woman who is raped by a family member?

I asked former Rocky media critic Dave Kopel what he thought of the McInnis situation, in light of the plagiarism and media frenzy around Ward Churchill:

If McInnis were currently employed by a university, the standard course of action would be for an investigation. Sometimes, as in the Churchill case, scrutiny of a person’s published work reveals not only numerous instances of plagiarism spanning many years, but also many other instances of outright fraud. Compounding the problem in Churchill’s case was his total lack of repentance, and his absurd claims of innocence despite plain and overwhelming evidence.

In the case of the hypothetical Professor McInnis, a responsible administrator would want to know more before pronouncing final judgment. The Denver Post undoubtedly is working to gather additional information.

For a political candidate, any misconduct or bad judgment in a previous job is something that some voters choose to take into account when voting. Apparently the majority of voters in the U.S. in 2008 did not care much that Joe Biden in 1987 had plagiarized his “autobiography” from Neil Kinnock, or that Biden had thereafter continued to prevaricate about his autobiography.

While I wrote about media coverage of Churchill, I don’t recall that I ever called on him to resign. I have no opinion on whether McInnis should or should not withdraw.

One Republican has said that President Barack Obama “has a default mechanism” that “favors the black person.”

Closer to home, another GOP politician has said at least twice that President Barack Obama’s Administration “cares more about the rights of terrorists than the lives of American citizens.” 

The first statement is by Rep. Steve King of western Iowa, the second by Colorado Senate candidate Jane Norton.

If you’re a journalist, you don’t need to have an opinion on which of the statements is worse.

All you have to do is recognize that they are comparable.

If you think they are, and it’s clear that the two statements are in the same ballpark, then it’s fair to ask Rep. Cory Gardner, who this week canceled a $100-per-person fundraiser with King, if he’d un-invite Norton to a campaign event, if he were holding one with her. Or if he’d stand with her on stage at some point in the future.

Trouble is, Gardner cancelled the King event without comment, and his campaign isn’t talking to the media about it.

So what’s a reporter to do?

Don’t let this slip through the cracks. Ask Gardner about Norton’s statement (versus King’s) at a venue where he can’t run away from the question, like a televised debate or a direct, public interview.

Denver reporters should take a minute to read an op-ed by Lt. Gov. Barbara O’brien in Sunday’s Denver Post.

It discusses the broad ramifications of closing the federal Department of Education…-a position favored by GOP Senate candidate Jane Norton…-as well as GOP Senate candidates Rand Paul (in Kentucky) and Sharron Angle (in Nevada).

O’Brien did a good outlining the basic substance behind the soundbite, which is helpful because the issue has largely been ignored by news reporters across the state. Her opinion article defends the agency and describes the basic functions of Education Department, including innovative research, grant making , and job training.

You recall that in late December when Norton announced her position, The Denver Post, to its credit, tried to ask Norton about it.

Her spokesperson refused to comment, telling The Post, “It’s a holiday. Nobody cares.” 

Norton’s spokesman told The Post at the time that Norton would provide more details after the first of the year. But these details never materialized and, as far as I know, The Post hasn’t published any more information from Norton on the matter.

Also, as O’Brien’s op-ed pointed out, Ken Buck has a nebulous position to downsize the U.S. Dept. of Education, because it is “encroaching on local parents and educators.” His view…-and associated budget cuts–should be explored by reporters. Of course, Democratic candidates Michael Bennet and Andrew Romanoff should also be queried about this.

No matter what you think of the U.S. Department of Education, you’d agree that closing the $78 billion department would be a pretty radical change in U.S. education policy, one that should be thoroughly aired out during the election season given Norton’s and Buck’s views.

In the gubernatorial race, reporters should clarify Scott McInnis’ position on education cuts. Asked in February if there were any “Colorado agencies, boards, or commissions” that he would eliminate, McInnis replied, “You could look at the Department of Education.”  

McInnis isn’t joining an emerging national Tea Party backlash by gubernatorial candidates against state education departments, like his GOP compatriot Norton seems to be in attacking the federal Education Department.

Instead, McInnis is apprently staking out new ground in targeting a major state education agency for possible closure.

Reporters should find out the details of the state’s major GOP candidates’ thinking when it comes to the federal and state governments’ major education agencies.

Toward the end of Sunday’s front-page New York Times article about the November election, your eye will hit this quote from Colorado GOP Chair Dick Wadhams:

“Never in my wildest dreams did I feel we’d be in this position,” said Dick Wadhams, chairman of the Colorado Republican Party. “Voters got carried away with the charisma of Obama, but the bailouts, health care, cap-and-trade was not what they bargained for.”

If your eyes are like mine, you might see this as factually incorrect–because it was Wadhams’ own guy, President George W. Bush, who signed the dreaded bank bailout and, of course, McCain famously withdrew from the campaign trail to hunker down with his Senate buddies and agree to the bailout as well.

You hate to see a reporter quote misinformation from someone like Wadhams, without setting the record straight or challenging him somehow.

So I emailed NYT reporter Jeffrey Zeleny and asked him, “Do you think you erred by failing to point out that Dick Wadhams’ presidential candidate in 2008, John McCain, supported the bailout?”

He response: “Wadhams said bailouts plural — automotive, bank, insurance companies, etc — so he was referring to more than the TARP vote in the fall of 2008 in the final months of the Bush administration. It was a partisan quote, which probably half the electorate agrees with and half doesn’t.”

I told Zeleny he was right.

If Wadhams had said “bank bailout,” he would have crossed the line, and Zeleny would have been obliged to correct him. But “bailouts” covers Wadhams. It’s factually accurate.

With respect to the other parts of Wadhams’ quotation, from a reporter’s perspective, Wadhams is entitled to his view that the healthcare law and cap-and-trade legislation are not what voters bargained for–even though, of course, Obama campaigned on these things.

You can argue that reporters shouldn’t allow a GOP spinmeister to conflate various rescue packages without explanation–just as reporters shouldn’t allow GOP spokespeople to lump together the Recovery Act and the bank bailout. But Wadhams points weren’t central to the article, which was more about polling than policy, so I don’t think Zeleny made a mistake by not dissecting the quote’s meaning–or lack of a clear meaning–or readers.

I’m completely amazed at the air time and hype KOA’s Colorado Morning News is giving to dispatches from Iraq by anchor Steffan Tubbs.

Colorado’s Morning News has got to be the only major commercial drive-time radio show in the country that’s actually reporting from Iraq these days, if ever.

I mean, if you don’t know the show, it fixates on traffic, weather, entertainment sports, and the water-cooler headline news…-which is certainly not Iraq. You’ll hear political and entertainment heavyweights on the show, and the questioning they get from Tubbs and co-anchor April Zesbaugh ranges from fawning to lightly critical.

But ongoing reporting about something that’s off the news radar? Almost never. But this week, Iraq.

I’ve admired Tubbs for closing his show most days with, “remember our troops,” but now, there he is in the war zone, talking with commanders and troops and finding Colorado connections. And on KOA’s “Steffan in Iraq” page, you can read his blog.

Tubbs isn’t offering investigative reporting, and he’s being too much of a cheerleader, but still I have to say it’s great to hear our troops on commercial drive-time AM radio…-as well as Tubbs’ other stories.

Tubbs, who went to Iraq in 2006 as well, is part of a Colorado group, including Ryan Huff, a Boulder Daily Camera editor Ryan Huff and folks from Altitude Sports and Entertainment, that’s there to teach Iraqi reporters about journalism.

Here’s Tubbs’ blog on his presentation:

–today was a busy one, with my presentation to Iraqi journalists off-base at a place they call Camp Midicah. It is only a couple of miles from where we sleep… and consists of some older Iraqi buildings and mostly U.S. trailers.

I addressed them on TV, radio and overall journalistic technique. The group is about 50 in size… and they were attentive, inquisitive, funny and intelligent. They are a respectful people for the most part, though if they are bored, they will let you know!

They liked my examples of both my TV work and portions of KOA and Colorado Morning News… but they were most interested in whether or not I could truly report on what I want to report. They had a bit of trouble comprehending that… I think so many of them are set in their ways from the old regime. But they are changing. I hope I made at least a dent.

Even those of you who can’t stand KOA have to admit that KOA-style expression and journalism look pretty good, if you’re standing in Iraq. Good luck to Steffan Tubbs.