As the Rep. Laura Bradford (R-Collbran) scandal has consumed the Capitol press corps for the last few weeks, it's worth noting the tone and tenor of the coverage, and how it's been fundamentally different from coverage of political scandal on the other side of the aisle.
Representative Bradford may or may not have been driving drunk. It seems like a case of bad judgment on her part to us, for sure. But she didn't hurt anyone and asked to be treated like anyone else. An ethics investigation was called by Speaker McNulty within days and the issue will receive a fair hearing into what occurred. Seems like everything has followed a proper protocol and is being handled appropriately.
Compare that to coverage of Senator Suzanne Williams (D-Aurora) and her killing of a pregnant woman in a car crash in Texas last year. The Texas State Troopers recommended that she be charged with "criminally negligent homicide, tampering with physical evidence and injury to a child."
And the press corps barely batted an eye.
Even when haunting 911 tapes were uncovered by Complete Colorado, where you could hear the children of the now-deceased driver calling out for their mother, the press corps virtually ignored the story.
The only "punishment" Senator Williams saw was not becoming chair of the Transportation Committee, because that would be, you know, too close for comfort.
There was no drip, drip of Capitol intrigue over whether an ethics investigation would be called for lying to the police and tampering with crime scene evidence. No, nothing to see here. Move along.
Compare that to the Bradford scandal, which has seen nearly hourly updates from a press corps hungry for scandal, yet was oddly sated last year when a lawmaker was almost charged with homicide.
Or take a bubbling national story that was percolating right as the Bradford story came to light.
Boulder Congressman Jared Polis was accused by an investigative reporter of insider trading. While The Denver Post posted some back-and-forth between the reporter and the Congressman, no major media outlet in Colorado assigned their own reporters to dig into the very serious allegations.
The readers of the Post were quite intrigued. The Op-Eds by investigative reporter Peter Schweizer and Congressman Polis caused an avalanche of letters to the editor.
But news editors at TV stations and newspapers apparently were less interested in the story than their readers.
How in the world serious allegations of insider trading don't merit further investigation and reporting by the mainstream media just baffles our mind.
What Jared Polis is accused of doing would be blatantly illegal in the real world outside of Congress. It is sad that the news media has abdicated their responsibility to investigate alleged corruption among a powerful and wealthy Congressman who bought his seat for a cool $6 million.
To make the situation even more newsworthy, the activity by Polis and other Members of Congress prompted a change in federal law that Polis signed onto only two days after 60 Minutes aired the allegations against him.
That to us is…news.
Just in case the press blinked and missed the story, the President called out insider trading in Congress in his State of the Union.
With only limited activity covering Polis and largely ignoring the outrageous Suzanne Williams scandal, the press has still saw fit to cover every inch of intrigue and innuendo surrounding Bradford.
Shame on them for such a blatantly obvious double standard.
if I didn’t point out Peak’s own double standard when it came to handling this.
Peak was AWOL for this scandal’s entire first week, and only deigned to post anything when Bradford was threatening to bolt the GOP and hand the House over to the Democrats. Peak posted two diaries, one baselessly speculating that Minority Leader Mark Farrandino was enticing Bradford to leave, and the other speaking about politicians whose careers didn’t go too well after a party switch (even though some of the included examples were of people who did okay, and most of whose career misfortunes were not cause by the party switch). And which completely ignored Democrat-to-Republican Colorado Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell, who did very well for himself.
Both diaries were careful not to attack Bradford, but could be seen overall as destructive (not constructive) criticisms of the representative from Collbran. But neither diary was the least bit substantive.
Neither addressed the issue of legislative immunity, whether or not Bradford invoked it (here Peak is following the party line that she didn’t, while ignoring the whole questionable DPD mess in which an inexperienced beat cop’s word is being taken over a veteran sergeant with decades of service), whether or not such a law is right to exist, whether or not Bradford was too inebriated to drive that night, whether or not she paid for her drinks with lobbyists… All of which I have to conclude Peak ignored because shedding light here gives the GOP no benefit, and apparently that’s all Peak is here for.
Then, another week of silence, until the ethics panel said nope, nothing to see here, and Bradford stopped saying anything about ditching the GOP. Now she’s in everyone’s good graces again.
So out comes the invalid comparison to Suzanne Williams, who actually faced justice and was found that her case didn’t have enough evidence to proceed to a trial. Out comes the requisite LIBRUL MEDIA charge. Missing is any speculation that McNulty offered her any deal to stay with the party. (A baseless speculation on my part, just as Peak’s rumor mongering about Ferrandino was.)
So the Peak double standard is that anything a loyal Republican does will be ignored (unless they show signs of disloyalty, or they can somehow spin a bash of Democrats out of it), while blowing Democratic transgressions out of proportion.
Those of you who read this stuff uncritically and in agreement with Peak ought to be ashamed.
The media is – once again – protecting their own, even as far back as Ted Kennedy killing that woman in a car crash.
The Democrat who killed those two people (the mother and her unborn baby) needs to goo to prison.
The media should be simply ignored – let their ratings continue to plummet, and since money talks, maybe they will listen and change their tune. Doubtful, but worth a shot.
Williams went through the Texas judicial system. She had her day in court. You can’t allege cronyism or corruption played a part because what’s a Colorado legislator to the Texas judicial system?
Williams’ accident was a tragedy and got all the coverage it deserved. Never was it alleged that she used her influence (which was non-existent since it wasn’t Colorado) to get out of trouble.
Peak is just doing what a mouthpiece organization would do – spin and obfuscate the facts. Bradford’s scandal is getting this coverage for a number of reasons. One, it WAS originally alleged that she used legislative immunity to get out of a DUI charge. Two, it turned out that that wasn’t the case – but now everyone knows that there’s a law saying police can’t detain members of the GA when it’s in session. Three, it got ugly fast when Speaker McNulty said let’s put it before an ethics commission, and she alleged it was payback and openly speculated about quitting the GOP and throwing over the House to the Dems.
Sorry, but all this prompts a lot of thought and discussion. Paranoid claims that LIBRUL MEDIA! are stupid. (BTW, Kennedy passed away – you can’t keep beating that dead horse.)