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February 20, 2013 08:22 AM UTC

Joe Salazar Reaps The Two Minutes Hate

  • 14 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: The Washington Post's Alexandra Petri, a take on this business with which we must strongly agree:

Rep. Joe Salazar (D) in Colorado, arguing against concealed carry on campus, said: “It’s why we have call boxes. It’s why we have safe zones. That’s why we have the whistles, because you just don’t know who you’re going to be shooting at. And you don’t know if you feel like you’re going to be raped, or if you feel like someone’s been following you around or if you feel like you’re in trouble when you may actually not be, that you pop out that gun and you pop … pop a round at somebody.” This was certainly a stupid thing to say. Oh, those hysterical women, popping off rounds!

Where, the conservative blogosphere asked, are all those bloggers who complained about the portrayal of women as irrational and incapable?

And then, just when everyone was worried that we would be forced to confront this apparent double standard, the Top Conservatives On Twitter crowd stepped up and started making rape jokes. Nothing says, “We are the party that is really sensitive to the issues rape victims face” like “We are going to make a bunch of rape jokes now.”

Twitter, as mediums go, really brings out the best in people.
—–
Yesterday, the controversy over remarks by Colorado Rep. Joe Salazar about a bill to ban concealed weapons from college campuses boiled over as conservatives from across the nation lined up to vilify him though every medium at their disposal. As we began to report yesteday, Rep. Salazar's ill-advised comments during testimony on HB13-1226 late Friday night, foremost the now-infamous sound bite "you don’t know if you feel like you’re gonna be raped," have been seized upon by conservatives nationwide looking to undermine support for Colorado Democrats as they pass a package gun safety legislation. This has been done not only without irony after Republicans defended routine and far more crass statements from their own about rape: in fact some of the principal voices going after Rep. Salazar today are the very same people who led the defense of Missouri Senate candidate Todd "Legitimate Rape" Akin, like St. Louis-based conservative radio host Dana Loesch.

Needless to say, the psychology behind vilifying Rep. Salazar after defending someone like Akin is, well, complicated. 

And there's a new problem: in headlong pursuit of Salazar, his out-of-state detractors have told enough lies that not even our maddeningly deferential local press can stomach it any longer. That is, after they helped make it worse. FOX 31 reports, and we'll explain:

A webpage from 2006 on the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs website sparked outrage on social media Tuesday after it appeared the university was suggesting anyone who was the victim of an attack should vomit or urinate on their attacker as a last line of defense…

The advisory made national headlines and went viral on Twitter and Facebook.

However, Tuesday afternoon the university released a statement saying the page was created in 2006 as part of an intensive self-defense program, said university spokesman Tom Hutton.

The problem is, the original story on FOX 31 falsely claimed this advisory, which we're inclined to agree is kind of ridiculous, was posted "just hours after the state House passed a bill banning guns on college campuses." It has since been corrected. Apparently an editor at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs student newspaper had freshened the page of their own volition, which updated the timestamp. Huffington Post Denver also erroneously reported that this advisory was in response to the passage of HB13-1226, which it was not. 

Here's what Loesch and her Twitter hordes twisted the story into:

 

loeschuccs1

Which quickly evolved into:

loeschuccs2

And way, way back in your rearview mirror, you can see the truth disappearing over the horizon.

We're pleased to see reporter Lynn Bartels call this out in her story today, where she correctly identifies the ferocity of the attack on Salazar as the product of "Republican resentment" after so many conservatives met their destruction by weighing in on this issue. The fact is, what people like Todd Akin, failed Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock, defeated 2010 Colorado U.S. Senate candidate Ken Buck all said about this issue betray a viewpoint far more offensive to most women than Rep. Salazar's head-desk clumsy defense of today's campus security systems. The equivalency Republicans are eagerly trying to make here is not just hypocritical, but invites a fresh look of the horrible things they actually have said. At best, there is a stark point of diminishing returns.

One more thing: as we have pointed out several times and again today, this latest debate over gun safety legislation has resulted in some of the most brazenly false information, directly from legislators and disseminated through willing nonjournalist accomplices, that we have seen in our over eight years writing about Colorado politics. It's good to see that the level of factlessness in the attacks on Salazar finally have provoked the media to step up and correct the record.

There's plenty more where that came from, folks.

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14 thoughts on “Joe Salazar Reaps The Two Minutes Hate”

  1. Gleeful as the right may be today, months from now everyone will still immediately connect the name "Akin" with the assertion that there exists a magical pregnancy protection only available to those women who don't enjoy it while being raped, while the name Salazar won't bring to mind anything but a former cabinet member, and that only to those few who have any idea who our major post cabinet secretaries are in the first place.Still, It's been a while but I have to agree with Elliot that by now, every pol with more brains than a piece of toast should know that no matter what point you are trying to make don't use rape in any way shape or form in your example.  At least not unless you are only talking about how all rape is a horrific crime. Period . Full stop. Shut up. Move on.

    And yes it does say something that, in spite of all the fuss it always kicks up, it even occurred to Salazar to use mistaken fear of being stalked by a rapist as an example. I mean he could just as easily have used an example of a guy mistakenly thinking he was being followed by a would be mugger and nobody would have found that reprehensible.  He did present for consideration the difficulty in determining whether someone shooting a gun was an attacker or someone trying to stop the attacker. And you can bet that if police arrive on a scene where a mass shooting is taking place and they see someone with a gun, they will try to take that person out. If it turns out that person was actually trying to stop the mass shooting, that particular fact probably won't come to light until after said person has been killed. A very good case for the likelihood that free for all shoot outs in schools, theaters and malls between amateur good guys and bad guys probably will raise, rather than lower, the death toll of innocents can easily be made without so much as saying the word "rape". So WTF?  Why do pols keep putting their foot in it?

    So all pols should listen to Elliot's advice. Never so much as utter the word rape, except to condemn it without qualification.

    And I note things look different, the spell check that appeared once for me yesterday (only when I replied to someone's comment, not when posting a comment that only responded to the diary) is gone and navigation here is still painfully slow.

    Hope there are no awful spelling or editing errors because I don't have time to do deal with it. I  pretty much just have enough time to hit send wait, log off, wait, and get out of here.

    1. Agreed, Bluecat. And Salazar did screw up. Being tired late on a friday night's no excuse, he stepped in it. It was a really dumb thing to say. No excuses.

      But it's not more than a 24 hour story in reality. Yes, the republicans are milking every drop they can, but it's over. Next week, the story will be 4 gun legislation bills passing the Colorado Senate, on the Governor's desk.

      However, there's a story, IMO, in the story. And it's the courage of Lynn Bartels in penning her story.

      The republican propaganda machine is now fully back on its' heels. Nationally, locally, in the media, at the water cooler, on the street, at the gym. And the red base, judging by what's on the hate blog colopeak, and the lonny righty posters here, are panicked!

      The overwhelming stinging public rebuke  of the NRA's callous reaction to Newtown, resulting, partially, for example, in the 4 Bills passing in the Colorado House last week, passing of Civil Unions in the Colorado Legislature, the refusal of the President to fold on Sequestration, the bad news the President delivered the oilboys while golfing last weekend when he demanded Union labor IF he allows the pipeline, and the jump the Democrats got on these punch drunk republicans on Comprehensive Immigration has left the RNC, RCCC, the local red party, and even the right wing radio outlets staggering, retreating, scrambling, and reinventing what they can't reinvent.

      The direct results as we see them plainly will be visible in the next 72 hours. Lynn Bartels is going to get hit. Hard. Ryan Call will lead, blogs will turn to "stories", boyles, brown, caldera, and those nitwits on 710 will go after her. She'll be savaged. She knew it when she delivered her story. She'll handle it. She's a pro.

      At this point, agop, nock, and PUtad sound more like the repubican mainstream than outliers, and that's telling! They've lost perspective, they've gone down the rabbit hole.

      We're winning.

    1. Good Christ. I was not high when I wrote that. Trying again…

      Righties are attracted to the things that burn them most. They have no choice, like moths to the flame of their own ignorance.

      Promise. Wasn't high!

  4. It looks like outsiders were so gobsmacked at the stupidity of Colorado Democrats they got a couple of minor details wrong. That does not excuse Salazar telling women to blow a whistle instead of defend themselves.

    You've already lost the court of public opinion. Hands off Colorado's guns!

      1. It's hard to argue against reasonable gun control measures. That's why everything gets turned into a variation of "They're taking away our guns!". It's much easier to come up with good arguments opposed to drastic things that aren't being proposed than to reasonable things that are.  But all recent polls show it's just not working like it used to on the Amereican public.

        By the way, why aren't we hearing any complaints about how our freedom is being trampled because we can't get through airport security with guns? Or that we can't buy fully automated weapons?  Or take fully automated weapons with us to, say, the Superbowl? The supposed purists seem more selective than pure in their outrage than pure .

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