February 20, 2013 08:22 AM UTC

Joe Salazar Reaps The Two Minutes Hate

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• 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.
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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:

Which quickly evolved into:

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.