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November 18, 2010 08:47 PM UTC

First as Tragedy, Then as Farce: McInnis Speaks

  • 40 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

Folks, we are obliged to note for the record that scandalized GOP ex-gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis has resurfaced in the pages of today’s Denver newspaper.

Now, we’ll start with the obvious irony of McInnis

1. Choosing to come out of hiding to the Denver paper, the same newspaper he erroneously blames for his self-destruction, and

2. Apparently only allowing himself to be interviewed by business columnist Penny Parker, entirely bypassing the paper’s newsroom.

Both of those details positively ring with the kind of self-inflicted misery McInnis experienced on the campaign trail up through his primary defeat in August. McInnis blames the Denver newspaper for the plagiarism scandal that sank his candidacy, asserting that they hammered on the case “day after day” without merit, but that’s poppycock. The Denver paper didn’t discover this plagiarism, they were tipped off–as were other media outlets who were all simultaneously moving on the story when it broke on the Denver paper’s blog. What’s more, the most damage done to McInnis over the story was not even done by the Denver newspaper, but by 7NEWS investigator John Ferrugia’s interviews with McInnis’ research assistant Rolly Fischer.

What this means is that McInnis, just as he blamed friendly radio hosts Dan Caplis and Craig Silverman for his on-air meltdown over charitable donations, or the Denver paper for making an issue of his refusal to release his tax returns, continues to point fingers outward instead of contemplating how he puts himself in these politically disastrous situations over and over. Seriously–when the Denver paper devoted nearly a week of glowing front-page coverage to “McInnis Unity” and the “Platform for Prosperity,” with Mike Rosen and Vince Carroll tripping over each other in a rush to slather McInnis in sycophantic praise…was that a paper out to get him? It’s not like we have an interest in defending the Denver newspaper or anything–this is just totally absurd historical revision. We were all there, too.

As an epilogue, McInnis promises Parker that he’s going to “clear his name” in the coming weeks. We’ll be very interested in seeing that, since we’ve been over the original materials thoroughly as our readers know, and we don’t know of any way to explain what happened in a way that might un-destroy McInnis’ political career. As we exposed in our original posting the night the story broke, the plagiarism that occurred here was both far too extensive to be accidental, and littered with minor changes to the prose that prove it was a deliberate act.

We really don’t understand why McInnis is bringing this story up AGAIN when it was long since dead, unless it is some sort of attempt to get back his old job at Hogan Lovells (about which managing partner Cole Finegan tellingly refused to comment). McInnis will never be taken seriously again as a candidate for higher office in Colorado, and not just because of this scandal. As we wrote before, McInnis’ political career is history because of five little words: He lost to Dan Maes.

But for the sake of argument, let’s say that McInnis is able to cajole Rolly Fischer on 7NEWS again to take the fall for everything–this is the best-case scenario for McInnis we can envision. This would still mean that McInnis submitted plagiarized writing that he falsely claimed was his own–the Hasan Foundation has repeatedly noted this as a principal deception, beyond the simple fact that the work product itself was fraudulent. The bottom line is that there’s no rehabilitation possible here, because exonerating McInnis on one piece of the scandal implicates him in the other.

Certainly the press will be glad to cover, especially on slow days, McInnis’ insistence that there is more to this story. But that only hurts McInnis.

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40 thoughts on “First as Tragedy, Then as Farce: McInnis Speaks”

  1. You mean the former society reporter, now business reporter, now political reporter??

    Her incisive reporting did reveal that she met with Scooter “in the comfortably appointed lounge at the soaring Larimer Place condominium building…”

    Also, this compelling nugget that on the day of the August 10 primary Scooter was at his daughter’s wedding escorting “her down a scenic path in Estes Park…”

    This is the kind of hard hitting interviewing we’ve come to expect here at Pols from David “Neville” Thielen.

    1. But that was really, really strange. Why was his daughter getting married on a Tuesday? Who gets married on a Tuesday? And had she always planned on getting married on the day of the Primary?

      But that’s why McInnis wanted Penny Parker to do the interview — no concerns that he’ll get any serious follow-up questions.

          1. citing an error by its reporter, ran a correction this morning that said the wedding was May 22, the day of the state primary (I think that was the date).  

  2. it seems he’s going to do it at the expense of Rolly Fisher.

    In the Denver P.O.S. puff piece, McInnis is still blaming Fisher for not “footnoting” other people’s work.

    You put your name on it, Scooter.  You got paid for it.

    The responsibility is solely yours.

    2. That McInnis’ idea of a good excuse is to chalk up the entire episode to that darned, forgetful old man, Rolly Fischer, failing to include footnotes. Huh?

      This hardly makes it sound any better for McInnis.  It just makes it sound as if he was supposed to get all the money and Fischer was supposed to do the whole thing, not just research, with McInnis not wasting any of his valuable (300K worth) time even going over it before he put his name to it.  Footnotes?  Why should McInnis be expected to know, as he submitted it under his signature with no credit whatsoever going to Fischer, whether or not it had or ought to have footnotes?

      The second thing that jumped out at me was the mutual support between the two biggest Colorado GOP losers of 2010, McInnis and Wadhams. I guess they’ll always have each other.  That and the attempt to say the whole mustache thing was not the result of  paid consultation but a lost bet. Priceless. Wonder how often, in his youth, the dog ate his homework?  

    4. He got paid $300,000 for “Musings”.  That’s what was really galling (or, gauling) to me.  The Hasan Foundation was funneling money to one of their favorites so he can spend his time politicking.  

      1. And I mean this kindly – the Hasans appear to have been used more than once by their favorite political party — Gingrich, McInnis, how Ali was treated at the state Repub Assembly, etc.  2.0 where are you?

    1. except in the court of public opinion!

      How about “took $300,000 for plagiarized material until proven otherwise, and either of the potential explanations prove the other”?  

      1. Put your tin foil hat down, Ellie, and re-read the post. If McInnis can prove that Fischer is responsible for the writings, then McInnis is admitting that he didn’t do his own work, even though he told the Hasan family that the work was his.

        There’s no way around it. Either McInnis is guilty (not legally, but literally) of plagiarism for lifting someone else’s work, or he’s guilty of fraud for submitting Fischer’s work as his own. Once he pulled Fischer into it, he backed himself into this corner.  

  5. When trying to crawl out of the blast crater of self-destruction, a couple of things might help on the path to political rehabilitation:

    1. Someone, somewhere, anyone who will act as surrogate and go on record saying Scooter got a raw deal.

    2. Some acknowledgment of self-awareness–i.e., holding oneself at least partially accountable.

    3. Self-deprecation.  

  8. we are, after all, a leftist web site as no2reason likes to remind us, I think in this case the Mcinnis history played first as farce, the second time as mere bathos.

  9. Jeez, you would think he would understand that it would be better for him to have fallen out of the limelight before he starts running his suck again…  Idiot

      1. If Salzman knew who tipped the Post and 7News about the plagiarism, he would have posted it. Didn’t he have a post a while ago about no one wanting to take credit for it?

        General consensus has been that it was Dem opposition research team going through McInnis papers at Fort Lewis who uncovered it, but that hasn’t been confirmed.

  12. McInnis, more than any prominent politician on Colorado, was so perfectly attuned to what tea partiers call “Washington” as shorthand for everything that’s wrong with American politics, that he really doesn’t think that he did anything wrong.  Take 300 grand from a non profit funded by a major Republican contributor and do nothing for it? What’s the matter with that?  Give his wife a no-show job working for a non-existent re-election campaign?  Fine. It may sound bad, but it’s all ok-because he’s Scott McInnis and you’re not, so you don’t understand.

    Quiblle as much as you like over legal niceties, but remember this: those pesky laws are for the little people, not Scott.

    1. pretty much on target there, H-dog.

      A poster child for the species.

      But…If someone as consistently nice as Ellie can be so completely devoted to him, he must have some love in him somewhere.

      He has made it quite clear, I must add, that he has no love for your humble servant.  

  13. when asked by one of the other justices why he wasn’t listening to the attorney who was arguing one side of the case, he replied this lawyer was finished ten minutes ago, he just doesn’t know it.

    The same applies to Mr. McInnis.  His political career ended in August 2010, he just doesn’t know it yet.

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