August 14, 2009 05:11 PM UTC

Scooter's Short Fuse, Memory Lane Edition

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• by: Colorado Pols

As the Denver Post reports:

Call it the mayhem on AM.

For the past two days, former Colorado U.S. Rep. and current Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis has been engaged in a verbal battle with radio-show hosts Craig Silverman and Dan Caplis.

The issue: whether McInnis made good enough on a congressional staffer’s statement in 2004 that McInnis intended to use the $1.3 million left over in his congressional campaign war chest to help fund breast-cancer research and other worthwhile causes.

The battle started on Caplis and Silverman’s afternoon drive-time show on Denver’s KHOW-630 AM Wednesday when Silverman asked McInnis about the campaign funds. It deteriorated from there until Caplis, a Republican, and McInnis exchanged this bit of dialogue:

Caplis: “That is silly, and it’s beneath you and it’s beneath the office you’re running for.”

McInnis: “Now don’t tell me that.”

But the battle appeared to end Thursday when McInnis made an encore appearance on the show and laughed off the previous day’s scuffle as nothing more than friendly debate.

“I had fun with you,” McInnis said. “I know that the thing sounded like a little heated kitchen, but the reality is that’s life in the day of a talk show and that’s life in the day of a politician.”

It was fair of Caplis and Silverman to give Scott McInnis another chance after Wednesday’s eye-popping disaster of an interview, and McInnis was obviously under strict orders to, you know, be cool this time. And to a substantial extent it appears he was. We haven’t seen anyone allege any violation of law here, just ‘unethical appearances’ and ‘broken promises’–McInnis turned this into a much bigger story with his own out-of-control defensiveness on a GOP-friendly talk show. So now that he’s had a second, less-controversial appearance, all water under the bridge–right?

Not exactly. One thing that happens in the aftermath of an outburst like the kind McInnis had on the radio Wednesday is people start asking whether what they just witnessed was an isolated incident, or indicative of a pattern of behavior. Americans, after all, don’t usually elect irrational hotheads who fly into a rage at any trifling provocation to executive office.

With that in mind, in addition to being careful asking questions about his campaign funds, it appears to be a really bad idea to call Scott McInnis a “fruitcake.”

As CNN reported back in McInnis’ congressional days in 2003:

Capitol Police were called Friday to a contentious House committee meeting marked by a Democratic walkout and accusations of name-calling, vulgarity and physical threats.

Witnesses described flaring tempers. One GOP lawmaker said he almost came to blows with a Democratic colleague he said was threatening him.

The police told lawmakers to work things out themselves and took no action…

[72-year old Rep. Pete] Stark “threatened me with physical harm,” said Rep. Scott McInnis of Colorado, a Republican who sits on the committee.

“I think it was entirely appropriate for the chairman of the committee to call the sergeant at arms and the Capitol Police,” McInnis said. “I considered that a bodily threat and I fully intended to defend myself. [Pols emphasis] To calm this down — that is why the chairman did that.”

But apparently,

Rep. Kenny Hulshof, a Missouri Republican who sits on the committee, read what he described as a transcript of the meeting.

In it, he quoted Stark as saying to McInnis, “You little fruitcake, you little fruitcake, I said you are a fruitcake.”

Now, um, you can probably make a good case that congressional representatives calling one another “fruitcake” is not exactly a shining example of parliamentary decorum. But it’s also pretty far removed from anything you’d call a “bodily threat,” isn’t it? Especially coming from a man over twenty years his senior? Think about that for a minute–a barely 50 former cop seriously worried about being beat up by a 72-year old man?

As the 2003 CNN article explains, nothing came of this other than a few angry floor speeches on C-SPAN. The Capitol police told the representatives to ‘work it out.’ From their point of view, it was an isolated incident, people just got a little overheated–over a bill about retirement account rules.

Like the old saying goes, the first time something bad happens, it’s an accident. The second time can usually be written off as a coincidence.

Third time makes a pattern, folks–after the week McInnis just had, everybody’s going to be watching for it. And if McInnis’ intemperance under pressure really is this easy to tip into full-on self destructive behavior, foes in both parties will be looking for every opportunity to help.