Mount Virtus

Yesterday I actually found myself in a mood to give national radio host Hugh Hewitt a chance to not embarrass himself in talking about Colorado politics. After all, with a great interview early in the show, Hewitt finally acknowledged the existence of rising star and Colorado Congressional candidate Ryan Frazier. (I haven’t listened much lately: has Hugh Hewitt finally noticed Cory Gardner, too?)

But toward the end of the program Hewitt started following the Jane Norton campaign’s lead and bashing the SurveyUSA poll that put Ken Buck ahead of Jane Norton, 53-37. The host asserted in all-too-typical bombastic fashion that the polling sample of 59 percent men vs. 41 percent women wildly skewed the results in Buck’s favor. (more…)

Last week, Republican U.S. Senate candidate and former Lt. Governor Jane Norton received a lot of attention for her 46-37 lead in a new Rasmussen poll over incumbent appointee Michael Bennet. Rossputin did a good job of summarizing the results.

One Norton primary challenger, Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck, showed a smaller lead of 42-38. Afterward, Buck told RMA blogger Don Johnson that the poll results show he can win in the general election.

Even so, what makes the strongest case on Buck’s behalf is the trend line. What do I mean? Look at the only clear apples-to-apples comparison: a pair of Rasmussen surveys conducted a few months ago. (more…)

And I thought I was anal. (H/T Betsy’s Page)

Now if someone could help with the AP’s whole ideologically-driven, selectively sloppy investigation problem.

Who knew the fawning love affair between the old guard media and President Obama could produce such irony? Toledo’s top blogger Maggie Thurber documents how in the same interview her local newspaper quoted Obama as being concerned about the blogosphere for having “no serious fact-checking”, while failing to fact-check exaggerations and distortions from Obama.

People who believe everything they read in the newspapers as the standard of gospel truth deserve pity. People who uncritically accept Obama’s statements on important issues of the day as factual betray their own painful naivete. People who read a newspaper’s interview of Obama without raising an eyebrow of suspicion…? Judge for yourselves.

Thanks, Maggie (and thousands of other top-notch bloggers), for doing the serious fact-checking.

First, it was Michigan-Ohio State football. Then it was the whole litany of Cleveland sports. The near-weekly disembarkation into the world of popular and classic movies. Of late, national radio host Hugh Hewitt has shown another entire topic about which he would be better served staying silent as opposed to demonstrating his ignorance: I speak of Colorado politics.

Memo to Hugh — Get away from the coasts, get out of the Beltway and the smog, and visit Rocky Mountain flyover country again. In the meantime, read up on Josh Penry, and watch this national video clip from Fox News: (more…)

Five weeks ago the Sunday Denver Post editorial page featured a piece by columnist Vince Carroll that made short shrift of the U.S. Senate candidacies of Ryan Frazier and Ken Buck, while making the pitch for Bob Beauprez. The Post‘s management clearly was using its editorial heft to tout Beauprez as the GOP’s great hope to defeat Ritter-appointed incumbent Michael Bennet.

Well, two weeks later Bob Beauprez officially announced he was NOT tossing his hat in the ring. So now the Post is rolling out the red carpet for Jane Norton. Witness today’s column by editorial page editor Dan Haley straining the bounds of credibility to tout Norton’s virtues and dismiss her opponents. (more…)

Tonight is President Obama’s latest in a long line of big speech about why he’s finally clear on just what exactly he intends to do about how government health care will magically improve lives through competition (and other assorted sweet-talking nonsense)….

The address to Congress is scheduled to start at 8 PM Eastern, or 6 PM local time. If you’re in a serious mood and want to follow along with the speech online, I suggest you head over to Cato at Liberty for live-blogging analysis by two of the nation’s foremost experts on health care policy. If you’re in a lighter mood, you can play Obama health care bingo — compliments of Americans for Tax Reform. (more…)

Everything is out of whack with the story about the nameless black man toting a semi-automatic weapon around at an Arizona townhall meeting. Just everything.

One of the driving Lefty narratives about the nature of the townhall protests and the general popular opposition to Obama Care’s proposed government health care takeover is exemplified in this comment to the local Fox TV news affiliate:

“All the claims of Nazism and socialism are really racist attacks,” said David Sirota, one of many liberal columnists who define the growing conservative uprising as a “white backlash” — that of a dwindling white non urban America, aflame with grievances and awash in self-pity as the country hurtles into the 21st century and leaves it behind.

No matter that there’s nary an ounce of truth to the claims of Sirota — he makes a living as a liberal Democrat propagandist. I expect it from him. Not necessarily from a mainstream news network that until today carried at least a shred of credibility.

This story is almost too hard to believe, but the evidence is undeniable. As reported by Newsbusters (H/T Rossputin), MSNBC manipulated video footage first to imply that the man toting the AR-15 was white, not black, then to launch into a self-righteous on-air debate about racially motivated threats against the President. Talk about making news up to fit a preordained narrative. I’d like to think even Keith Olbermann would be ashamed to be so deceptive! (more…)

Love how the Denver Post lends a hand to Barack Obama and appointed Senator Michael Bennet in the health care debate:

He acknowledged that the ire in town halls — in Colorado, and across the country — was mostly about fear of changing a system that hasn’t worked for years. [emphasis added]

Not “changing a system that he said hasn’t worked for years,” mind you. A stated opinion given cover with a straight news declaration of fact. Sigh. I’ll even give them the benefit of the doubt and suspect that the phrasing was an unintentional slip that reflects the newsroom’s own uninformed bias rather than some malicious attempt at partisan hackery.

I know of many personal friends and acquaintances who could tell stories — some of them rather compelling — that would cast doubt on the suggestion that the system “hasn’t worked for years.” But the plural of anecdote isn’t data. Time perhaps to check and see why 54 percent of Americans say no healthcare reform beats Obama Care and increased government intervention in the healthcare system (the public opposes the plan by a 53-42 margin).

Of course, the system is better than commonly portrayed — and the American people aren’t buying the lie. Are some changes needed? Yes, but not to the extent, and not in the direction, proposed.

So many good pieces are being produced during the course of the ongoing health reform debate, here are a few of the latest I recommend for your enlightenment:

• At the American Thinker, Paul Miller eloquently explains why the debate is so impassioned: because it’s personal
• As usual, the People’s Press Collective has some of the best coverage of the impassioned protest of the President’s Grand Junction visit and the Obama Care astroturfers this past weekend
• Ari Armstrong explains in a guest piece for the Gazette why rationing is inevitable under Obama Care

As Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey reports, Democrats are backtracking on the “public option”. Even the media can’t roll the leaden monstrosity of Obama Care uphill anymore. Still, the next Democrat gambit may be to push a more subtle advance toward government health care or, as Morrissey suggests, slip it back in quietly during a conference committee.

His advice and mine? “This is no time to get complacent.”

Today’s Denver Post news story on Governor Bill Ritter’s signing of Senate Bill 228 offers the generous headline: “Colorado’s fiscal knot loosens”.

I’ve taken the liberty to complete the thought with my own sub-headline: “Noose nearly large enough to fit around taxpayers’ necks”.

The article is correct insofar as it points out that the impact of this bill in repealing limits on the growth of discretionary government spending likely won’t be felt for a couple years. But that provides little solace, especially when you listen to the righteous confusion coming from the Democratic cast of characters behind this anti-taxpayer legislation. (more…)

From 9News:

Sure, he stuttered on occasion. He said strange things from time to time. But Rick Duncan was passionate about veterans in the state of Colorado. He told anyone who wanted to listen that he had served in Iraq on three occasions. That gave him an unofficial license to talk to journalists, politicians, and civilians about the war.

So, many people simply ate it all up.

The only problem was that Duncan wasn’t actually a Marine, a Naval Academy graduate, or a wounded Iraq War Veteran, according to those who have looked into his background.

His name, according to the Denver Sheriff’s Department, isn’t even Rick Duncan. It’s Rick Strandlof, and as of Thursday afternoon, Strandlof remained inside a Denver County Jail cell.

He was arrested earlier in the week on an El Paso County traffic warrant. His bond has been set at $1,000.

(more…)

As Barack Obama nears 100 days in office, major newspapers take notice. Yet what a difference a turn of the phrase makes.

First, Michael Riley leads off his “Potent voice of change” on the front page of today’s Denver Post:

One hundred days into his administration — forced by events and prodded by his own driving leadership style — Barack Obama has brought change to Washington that is bigger, bolder and far more risky than anything he articulated in his historic campaign.

What’s another way of saying that? Let’s ask the editors of the Washington Times:

Perplexed about complaints over Mr. Obama’s expansion of government, Newsweek editor Jon Meacham asked: “does no one listen during campaigns?”

It was these pundits who weren’t paying attention during last year’s campaign. In all three presidential debates, Mr. Obama promised to cut government spending and reduce the size of the deficit. He blamed the economic crisis on excessive deficits. At no time did candidate Barack Obama say that more deficit-spending was the solution.

Didn’t you hear, Washington Times? It’s not that Obama broke his promises. It’s that he is bringing change “that is bigger, bolder and far more risky than anything he articulated”. Riley seems to imply that Obama has had no choice but to pursue this reckless fiscal course. You can almost see where this is all going. If the massive government expansion is seen as succeeding, we must make obeisance before the President’s Olympian wisdom. If it is seen as failing, he can’t be held responsible; the choice was thrust upon him. (more…)

It’s quite often the subtle bias in the dominant liberal media that can make a significant difference. Witness yesterday’s San Francisco Chronicle piece on a California ballot initiative to impose tax-and-spending limitations on state government.

Writer John Wildermuth quotes from two Colorado sources to establish views on our own state’s experience with the stronger Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights limit (emphases added):

“Nobody disagrees that (the cap) kept government spending lower,” said Carol Hedges, a senior fiscal analyst for the nonpartisan Colorado Fiscal Policy Institute, which opposes the state’s budget cap. “But supporters don’t like to talk about the human cost of keeping government smaller.”

…

Across the nation, anti-tax advocates, small government activists and fiscal conservatives pointed to Colorado as an example of how less is more when it comes to taxes and government spending.

“What spending limits do is force politicians to make tough choices about priorities sooner, rather than later, when the state’s in a financial crisis,” said Jon Caldara, president of the Independence Institute in Denver, a free-market think tank.

Here’s my beef, and it’s with only one word in the story: Why call the Colorado Fiscal Policy Institute — an outsourced arm of the “progressive” Democratic machine — nonpartisan? Since it’s accurate only in the most technical sense, but in reality far more misleading to the uninitiated reader, why include it as a descriptor?

If the writer is going to use the adjective nonpartisan for CFPI, why not also use it to describe the Independence Institute? (Full disclosure: The Institute is my full-time employer.) It would be at least as true. But I’ll argue that the word nonpartisan should have been dropped altogether, as it only affords an undeserved degree of credibility.

Having cited Carol Hedges as the primary source, and a “nonpartisan” one at that, the story rolls downhill a lot closer to a predetermined conclusion than an objective story should.

Does anyone still wonder why newspapers are going out of business?