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July 22, 2009 10:24 PM UTC

Stupid Senate Pet Tricks, Ritter-In-DC Edition

  • 11 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

Continuing today’s theme–much less than meets the eye, as the Denver Post reports:

A Republican activist who heckled Democratic Senate candidate Tom Strickland during his 2002 run helped highlight the questions that made Gov. Bill Ritter squirm at a hearing this week in Washington.

Matt Dempsey, 30, is the communications director for Republicans on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which Ritter testified before on Tuesday.

In 2002, Dempsey worked for U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard’s re-election campaign, often hollering out anti-Strickland slogans through a bullhorn at various political events…

Ritter, a Democrat, expected to tout Colorado’s energy successes to the committee, but instead ended up in a “partisan whipsaw,” with Republican committee members over green jobs and a climate bill, according to The Denver Post.

Ritter was still answering questions from the committee when Dempsey issued a press release crowing, “Colorado governor refuses to endorse” the Democratic climate-change bill, complete with a YouTube video of the hearing.

Dempsey also released an exchange between Ritter and U.S. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., over the bill, known as Waxman-Markey, after its Democratic sponsors.

Critics say the bill is a tax increase, and in Colorado it would cripple oil shale development and increase costs for farmers.

With that in mind, Inhofe asked of Ritter, “Are you here supporting Waxman-Markey today?”

“I support a national energy policy that’s married to a national climate policy that gets at these goals that we have for greenhouse gas reductions,” the governor said. “And I believe that if you do that, that there will some vehicle that may not look exactly like Waxman-Markey, particularly after the Senate finishes its work.

“But I very much support climate legislation that is joined with a national energy policy to get us to the greenhouse gas emission reduction goals that are set for 2050.”

We have to admit we were also impressed with the speed Sen. Jim Inhofe’s office had this video packaged and distributed through a wide viral network–all the way down to our own community talking-point beacons. Clearly they’re getting better at this. The problem is that, as the Post’s Lynn Bartels correctly points out, what these guys are claiming Ritter said…isn’t what he said at all. In fact, reading what Ritter actually said makes what the Republicans claim he said look, well, spun beyond recognition.

And that, folks, is the part they’re not any better at. Kudos to the Post for reporting on the political spin here, even if they did fall for it in the first place.

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11 thoughts on “Stupid Senate Pet Tricks, Ritter-In-DC Edition”

  1. and opportunistic — witness the phony mewlings of concern troll “walk progressively” — but for the Senate’s resident knuckle-dragger to issue a lecture about oil shale and Colorado farmers in the same breath is extremely stupid.

    Oil shale would destroy rural agriculture economies because of the insane amounts of water required to process oil shale.  

    1. The power plants that would have to be built and the rail lines to fuel them.

      So this troglodyte thinks it’s logical to burn coal in order to power the extraction of sludge from shale that can’t be refined into gasoline because it lacks the basic volatile hydrocarbons needed to gasoline but instead would be refined into diesel or kerosene to power what–Diesel power plants?

      1. don’t you know that oil shale is our only hope to salvage a broken economy? And don’t call it sludge. Round here we call it Diet Oil; real oil flavor, half the real-world applications.

      2. …sludge from shale that can’t be refined into gasoline…

        Oil from tar sands can be refined into gasoline – that’s what Suncor does. Is the keragen extracted from oil shale significantly different?

        1. Oil sands contain primarily bitumen, not kerogen. Bitumen is soluble in organic solvents, kerogen is not.

          Sort of how lard is insoluble in water but once cooked with lye becomes soap and is then soluble in water.

      3. Troglodyte is a great word.

        Descriptive.

        Now has Governor Ritter gotten around to answering the Troggy’s question? The video is hilarious.  

      4. Inofe makes Palin look sophisticated. But then nobody goes to Oklahoma for the scenery, where the drilling rigs actually improve the landscape.

  2. Could someone please explain to that red-neck knuckle dragger that agriculture isn’t interested in having its water resources bought up and consumed for a 19th Century fuel source?  We didn’t quit using whale oil because we ran out of whales, and we won’t stop using fossil fuels because we ran out of known oil reserves. Our future prosperity will be linked to natural gas and green electrons.

    Your average Coloradoan isn’t interested in melting mountains; Last year’s Senate Bill 91 identified 27 GIGAWATTS of developable sun, wind, biomass and solar resources in this state.  We can keep our water producing food and providing recreation/tourism opportunies all while producing a long-term, environmentally benign energy resource that puts dollars back into our local economies across the entire state.  Great work Governor and kudos for your leadership on this issue.

  3. I personally have been spun to bare thread by Inhofe’s staff, then watched as first Drudge then other right-wing blogs picked it up from Inhofe’s EPW page verbatim.  When you roll with pigs…..    

    1. Even though he lost in court.  He wanted to get Allard elected.  He never took his eye off the ball.

      Sometimes you have to “take one for the team.”  Even nutcases get lucky now and then.

      Can anyone say, “Senator Strickland?”  No? I guess not.

      I might not agree with Dempsey, but I respect his sacrifice.  Sometimes, that’s what it takes to get your candidate elected.  There should be more Dems like that, and  fewer like Harry Reid.

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