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October 26, 2015 01:28 PM UTC

Floyd Ciruli: The Tweedle-Dum of Colorado Politics

  • 10 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols
Floyd Ciruli.
Floyd Ciruli.

We took note a couple of weeks ago when an often-quoted “independent” Colorado political pundit, former SE2 principal Eric Sondermann, had what can be best described as a sexist meltdown via Twitter during the Democratic presidential debate–deploring Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton’s “cackle” of a laugh, and suggesting that she and opponent Bernie Sanders “adjourn to a room upstairs” after Sanders came to Clinton’s defense.

Despite a wealth of eloquent opinionmakers available to ring for comment at any time in Colorado politics, some who might actually be plausibly considered “independent” for the purposes of fair-minded journalism, there’s a disturbing lazy tendency among local political reporters to rely heavily on two middle-aged white dudes whose opinions tend to be anything but “independent” (or, for that matter, “informed” or “useful”). We’re referring of course to the aforementioned Eric Sondermann and 9NEWS “analyst” Floyd Ciruli, who we affectionately call the “Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum of Colorado politics.”

The latest example of Ciruli’s special brand of “independent” skullduggery occurred on this weekend’s edition of Balance of Power. A show that often features some of the more insightful political reporting to be had on Denver TV, Sunday’s broadcast turned into an upsettingly slanted look at the Jefferson County school board recall. It didn’t help that host Brandon Rittiman and education reporter Nelson Garcia invoked the word “union” in just about every sentence, to the point of using the word as a substitute for actually explaining what they’re talking about. But Ciruli’s over-the-top union bashing dragged the conversation into downright silliness. In Ciruli’s view, neighborhood schools are “union-run schools,” and “fundamentally” the recall election is all about the evil teacher’s union’s desire to stop every good thing happening in education today.

Apparently it doesn’t matter a bit that the union and the school board signed a contract.

Considering the parents and other stakeholders that have no “union” affiliations whatsoever and are the faces of the recall campaign, and the fact that while some by no means all, or even a majority of funding for the recall campaign is from unions, yesterday’s Balance of Power was a bizarre capitulation to one side’s talking points. For all the respect we have for the reporters involved, it was not 9NEWS’ best work.

But for Floyd Ciruli, who may have run the Colorado Democratic Party back when they lost every election but today is a wholesale shill for very much un-democratic interests, it was par for the course.

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10 thoughts on “Floyd Ciruli: The Tweedle-Dum of Colorado Politics”

  1. They might be able to fool people who live nowhere near Jeffco into thinking this is strictly a union bullyng matter but those people aren't voting in this recall election. Jeffco folks, who will be voting, and near neighbors who have occasion to pass through Jeffco can see with ther own eyes the strong numbers of ordinary parents with no union affliations participating in street events like the recent one at Wadsworth and all the yards sporting pro-recall signs. They will remember how high participation in signing on to the recall was, how quickly so many more signatures than were needed materialized.

    If it's really just union bullying then "independent" Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum wouldn't  be trying so hard to sell their "independent" narrative. They'd be secure in the knowledge that the recall will be rejected by a landslide. 

  2. Floyd does a nice job of calling them as he sees them.

    Some people don't like what he says because they do not want to see what he sees.

    Union thugs and their supporters can be ordinary parents.

    Just saw a nice film, Labyrinth of Lies.  The story was about ordinary Germans who were Nazis.  It happened.

    1. Ordinary Republicans lied about WMD's, plundered our treasury to the tune of trillions and have the blood of tens-of-thousands of innocentt global citizens on their hands.  All while making VP Cheney's Haliburton billions and self-describing themselves as 'pro-life'.   It happened.

    4. So ordinary Jeffco parents are just like Germans duped by Nazis. Let's see. Does that make the conservative board members persecuted Jews? And if the parents vote for recall that's just like sending the Jews to the gas chambers? Do you even listen to yourself?

      1. I also find it amusing that he views teachers' union members as scary, intimidating union/brownshirt thugs. AC must spend lots of time hiding under his bed.

        It's not as if teachers' union members have ever busted heads in melees with strike breakers or marched down the street smashing glass, destroying property, breaking into shops and homes to drag people out into the streets, beat them, some of them to death, and steal their stuff. Heck, they're not even allowed to paddle anybody in Jeffco anymore, are they?

        What on earth is thuggish or intimidating about the teacher's union? Now take my grandpa back in the day. He was one of the guys with baseball bats keeping scabs from crossing  the picket line. You want to call him a thug, so be it. If you found him physically scary and intimidating you would just be exercising perfectly reasonable caution. But today's teachers? And in what non-physical way can they bully parents? Guess to AC "thug" means someone who is an activist for a cause you don't agree with and intimidation is advocating for your agenda.

        Funny. He didn't bame the gun rights related recall on thugs or compare the gun nut groups to Nazis. No outrage at all. Oh wait. I forgot. It's only people he sees as “librul” who induce his lately chronic, non-stop manufactured outrage diarrhea. Better get that boy some Imodium. Or pampers. Maybe a valium. And he should really avoid anywhere libruls congregate since that sems to be the trigger. Like here.

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