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September 29, 2014 11:52 AM UTC

Beauprez's Post Profile: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

  • 22 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols
Bob Beauprez.
Bob Beauprez.

The Denver Post's Joey Bunch published a long-awaited profile of two-time GOP gubernatorial nominee Bob Beauprez in yesterday's Sunday edition, along with a similar profile of incumbent Gov. John Hickenlooper. We've heard varying opinions about Bunch's story–many Democrats are upset with what they consider to be major omissions, while others are happy to see the overall frame expressed in the story of Beauprez damaged by his long record of far-right statements. In a few respects, Bunch does contribute to this important latter theme:

Beauprez isn't trying to evolve.

In the six months since he joined the race for governor, Democrats have rolled out a list of his past statements they say are inconsistent or too extreme, including his statement that he sympathized with 11 Colorado counties that tried unsuccessfully to secede last year.

Also, in 2006, he apologized for saying African-American women get abortions at an "appalling" rate, which was not supported by facts.

A devout Catholic, he opposes abortion except when a woman's life is endangered, but not in cases of rape and incest. Yet he opposes personhood — defining an unborn child as a human with legal rights, which would effectively ban abortions — as bad policy.

"To believe that a victim of rape or incest should be forced to have her rapist's baby proves that Congressman Beauprez is a dangerous extremist, who, as governor, would be a threat to the freedoms of Colorado's women," said Jennifer Koch, executive director of the Colorado Democratic Party.

Last year, on the conservative website TownHall.com, Beauprez compared abortion to the shootings in Sandy Hook and Aurora…

Readers do get the sense that Beauprez is a strident conservative from this story, and that's valuable to Democrats looking to frame him as out of touch with Colorado's more moderate electorate. There's also new information in this story: Beauprez was reportedly paid over $100,000 by right wing funders at the John Hancock Committee for the States to "organize" the Tea Party after 2009. That's an interesting detail which explains a lot about Beauprez's energetic organizing at that time on behalf of the "grassroots" Tea Party–he was on the clock.

With that said, this story left out most of the worst items in Beauprez's record: and in a piece exceeding 2,400 words in length, that's just inexplicable to us. It's well known that Beauprez is far to the right on abortion, and that he endorsed efforts by northeastern Colorado counties to secede from the rest of the state. Bunch covered those. As for so many others:

His opponents are trying hard to resurrect 8-year-old talking points to scare off unaffiliated voters, only to see Beauprez effectively tie his race against incumbent John Hickenlooper.

Presumably, this is meant to refer to all the things Bunch left out? Our readers know that statement is factually not accurate, since most of the crazy things Democrats have been using against Beauprez are much newer than his last run for governor eight years ago. Beauprez questioned President Barack Obama's citizenship in June of 2010. Beauprez claimed that Obama is pushing America toward "civil war" was in 2012, as were Beauprez's comments about about Americans buying up guns to "protect themseselves from the government." Beauprez's claim that Muslim Sharia law is "creeping in" to Colorado was only this past March. The fact is, and Joey Bunch is misleading his audience to suggest otherwise, most of Beauprez's craziest quotes came quite recently. To characterize these very recent and relevant statements from Beauprez as "8-year-old talking points" is simply ridiculous.

September 11th, 2001.
September 11th, 2001.

We assume Bunch will revisit some of these items in future stories–because there's no question that the Post's coverage of Beauprez up to now has been awful, and remains seriously deficient even after this story. Giving that benefit of the doubt, there's just one other thing we'd like to note for the permanent record.

Beauprez says he forged his political mettle in the flames of 9/11, asked God for advice, entered the race for Congress six months later, and stood with his friend President George W. Bush and all things Republican during his four years in Washington…

"And it all began," he said, referring to the role he has played in state and federal Republican politics and the calling 9/11 gave him to run for public office. "I remember the days after that, literally praying, 'I'm supposed to do something. Show me the way.' "

…If Beauprez manages to unseat Hickenlooper, he will have completed a journey worthy of Colorado history — from an American tragedy to a remarkable political comeback. [Pols emphasis]

Readers, we leave it to you to decide the appropriateness of Beauprez's draping himself in the mantle of the worst terrorist attack in American history to suit his personal political ambition–and Bunch willingly enabling it. Our readers have the benefit of knowing some things that Joey Bunch's readers yesterday did not: like Beauprez's questioning of President Obama's citizenship, claiming America's first black President is pushing America toward "civil war," and nonsensically warning of "creeping Sharia law" here in Colorado.

Bottom line? If you know about all of that, the 9/11 grandstanding is…well, it takes on a different meaning.

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22 thoughts on “Beauprez’s Post Profile: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly”

  1. Joey Bunch — the Plunkett is strong in this one.

    The Post is unmistakably a water-carrier for the CO GOTP, and only its (inevitable) demise can change that. They are determined to shill for all crap GOTP candidates for as long as they remain in business and under current "leadership."

    'Liberal media' my ass.

    1. The Denver Post has lost just about all credibility. This story does not help them at all. The omissions are too great to be explained by space constraints. I believe this story got Plunketted. That or Joey Bunch is a shit journalist, and we'll probably never know which is which.

        1. As Joe Biden once diagramed each and every sentence uttered by Rudy Giuliani:  noun + verb + 9/11

           

          Of course, they ignore the fact that in Aug 2001, when the FBI tried to brief the Shrub on the al Queda folks taking flying lessons but only being interested in how to steer the plane, not take offs or landing, Bush was too busy clearing brush on his farm in Crawfish.

  2. It would be gross to drape himself in 9/11 without the blatant Islamophobia Beauprez throws around constantly.

    With Beauprez's Islamophobia, it's totally disgusting.

    1. Of course, Bob only vents his Islamophobia when he isn't ranting about Mexico Time, anchor babies, and Third World diseases being introduced to CO by illegal immigrants. Or am I confusing my xenophobic GOP former Congressmen in CD 6 and CD 7.

  3. "..literally praying, 'I'm supposed to do something.  Show me the way."

    I'm pretty sure that was God telling you to stumble out of your gated community and feed and hungry and the poor. Instead, you and Dubya take off on a war of vengeance that left over 500,000 Iraqi civilians dead, nearly-bankrupted our treasury and left a wake of despair for those left behind:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/20/iraq-war-anniversary-birth-defects-cancer_n_2917701.html

    "Pro-life", indeed.

    (The real) Jesus. weeps.

    2. Ah, the GOP….Standing on the corpses of people they constantly refer to as "not real Americans" ('cause the real ones are in the Red States, dontcha know),  selling 9/11 memorial plates, coins, and ridiculous crap, wiping away crocodile tears, and sending other people to die, based on lies.    

      History will remember you, as shameless, amoral opportunists. 

    3. I have no greater amount of respect than for those who actually served.  The rich, old white guys who are still wearing their high school letter jackets, pounding their chests over their decision to plunder our human and financial treasures by invading the wrong country, based on a foundation of lies while advancing the idea that God told them to do it?  For them, not so much.   Actually, none at all.

      I'm embarrassed that this hubris by Bob is somehow tied to our common faith, Catholicism.

    4. And I'm sorry that conservatives think 9/11 is worth constantly exploiting for political gain. Sorry, but not surprised. Never again. Never forget. Never exploit.

    6. Using 9/11 as an excuse to run for political office and draping it in patriotic colors is something to be angry about.  I can also see that Bob's patriotism wasn't deep enough to a) serve his nation in uniform when he was a younger man, and b) rubbed off enough on his offspring to get them to do so when this nation called again for a sacrifice.

      That you actually thanked Bob for this "service" is a slap in the face of the 2.5 million veterans who, over the last 13 years, sacrificed so much for this nation.

       

      1. To the GOP, "service" means caring about a cause, like slapping yellow ribbons or "Never Forget" bumper stickers on your car. 

        Other people actually have to go and fight those battles, and then, when they're sent home in a flag-draped box, the same caring people get to wipe away a patriotic tear, because they care so much.   

        That's the kind of "service" that Moddy and the GOP salute. 

  5. Pro-fetus, pro-oligarch, pro-war, pro-killing, pro-pretending to revere the Bible.

    Anti-child, anti-veteran, anti-farmer, anti-minority, anti-middle class, anti-clean energy, anti-fairness, anti-woman, anti-environment, anti-wilderness, anti-democracy, anti-actually conducting themselves based upon the teachings of Jesus the Christ.

    "I like your Christ. Your Christians, not so much." — Mahatma Gandhi

    1. Actually I found the duel articles yo be better than I expected with Plunkett in the driver's seat but, yeah. They left out all of BWB's more off the wall tin hat theories and statements. I wouldn't call it  overly complimentary to him, though and the Hick side was pretty positive.  They weren't as hard on him as lots of progressives are.  Guess, to Republicans, if you have to be stuck with Dem, he's  pretty OK.  In other words, the same reason many grass roots Dems are less than pleased. But mostly not displeased enough to hand it to BWB.

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