September 18, 2023 12:33 PM UTC

Boebert Loses Speaking Engagements While Un-Apologizing

• 6 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

On Friday evening, Colorado’s perpetually embattled GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert issued an apology for getting caught vaping inside Denver’s Buell Theater after days of denials, along with other unspecified ways in which Boebert said she “fell short” of her values a week ago resulting in Boebert and her companion being kicked out of the performance of the new Beetlejuice musical. Security camera footage released Thursday via 9NEWS not only proved Boebert was lying about vaping, but also revealed the full shocking extent of Boebert’s behavior both during the performance and while being escorted out–none of which was directly addressed in Boebert’s apology.

As The Hill reports via Denver’s FOX 31, yesterday Boebert appeared on the right-wing pseudonews channel One America News, where she not only didn’t restate her apology but appeared to in large part take it back:

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) pushed back on media accounts of her being kicked out of a Denver theater production of “Beetlejuice” last week over bad behavior, saying that some accounts were exaggerated and untrue. [Pols emphasis]

“I was a little too eccentric. I’m very known for having an animated personality, maybe overtly animated personality. I was laughing, I was singing, having a fantastic time,” Boebert said in an OAN interview Sunday. “Was told to kinda settle it down a little bit, which I did, but then my next flip up was taking a picture.”

Boebert told OAN that she is “on the edge of a lot of things,” which is a statement we’ll let readers analyze for themselves. More importantly, when it comes to Boebert’s threats to staff and general hostility while being escorted out of the theater, Boebert is back to full denial after trying to garner sympathy all weekend for her supposed contrition:

Boebert vehemently denied those claims.

“There’s reports saying I was arguing, threatening to call the Denver mayor — I don’t know why I would ever call the Denver mayor, I think he would have tried to lock me up,” she said Sunday.

While we agree it’s ridiculous to expect Denver’s Democratic mayor to retaliate on Boebert’s behalf against Denver Center for the Performing Arts employees doing their jobs, we also have no reason to doubt those employees’ truthfulness–especially compared to Boebert, who got caught red-handed lying and was forced to make a strained apology that absolutely no one believes (or for that matter, believes she even herself wrote). The video of Boebert’s inappropriate behavior of all kinds, from vaping to flash photography to what could be argued was criminal public indecency, is damning beyond the scope of anything Boebert apologized for–and that’s before she reverted to denial.

Unfortunately for Boebert, it appears that other conservatives are making their own judgments. Last week as the #BeetleBert story was developing, the Texas Youth Summit announced Boebert as a late addition to their roster of speakers. In the last 24 hours, as MTN reports, Boebert got scrubbed:

The Texas Youth Summit has scrubbed spunky Republican Representative Lauren Boebert from their youth oriented event.

The group, founded by failed Republican House candidate Christian Collins, announced the addition of Boebert after the Colorado congresswoman was kicked out Buell Theatre in Denver for disruptive behavior which including vaping, flash photography, and exchanges of fondling between her and her date.

The latest roster of speakers no longer includes Rep. Boebert:

Though not related to Boebert’s official duties, this scandal has penetrated well beyond the confines of political news audiences, morphing into a pop culture story carried by nonpolitical outlets like TMZ where it’s been the most popular story for two days. The huge reach of this story beyond the political news silo makes it far more damaging to Boebert than the usual Politico scuttlebutt. In many cases it could be the first time casual observers have heard of Boebert, or maybe they dimly recall the parodies they saw on SNL.

Either way, #BeetleBert has a life of its own now. It may not be the way some wanted Lauren Boebert to go down, but it’s a public image catastrophe that Boebert could only have brought upon herself. Boebert is in absolutely no respect the victim here, having compounded an already bad situation by lying until the video came out. The precise method of self-destruction for politicians in a political death spiral is often unpredictable.

But in the end, the moment always comes.