In the end, the videos brought to us by Revealing Politics will not be remembered for Gov. John Hickenlooper dropping a WTF on the sheriffs, but rather the destruction the videos did to Hickenlooper’s credibility.  It’s the moment when Hickenlooper’s greatest strength became his biggest weakness.  In his need for everyone to love him, Hickenlooper reveals he will tell any lie to achieve it.

Let’s breakdown some of the biggest ones:

I didn’t find out the sheriffs were trying to talk to me until a week afterwards…10 days afterwards

Um, Governor, you might consider reading your own political rag.  From ColoradoPols:

Bottom line: it’s just laughable–absolutely laughable–to suggest that opponents of the 2013 gun safety bills were not heard. The sheriffs testified at the hearings. Opponents flooded at the capitol by the hundreds. They held rallies outside. They circled the capitol blaring their car horns for hours on end. They flew a banner over the capitol saying “Gov. Hickenlooper, don’t take our guns.” The sheriffs were in front of news cameras on a more or less daily basis. [the Peak’s emphasis]

Do you want to revise that statement?

I didn’t think…this is how bright I am, I didn’t think it was gonna be that controversial.

Is Hickenlooper that out of touch with Colorado?  We know how much he can’t stand us talking about his war on rural Colorado, but we never considered it might be a completely accidental war on his part.  It makes sense though.  A man who has been synonymous with LoDo for over 20 years has probably never given another thought to how people might live outside his Denver bubble.  He probably thought if something works for Denver, it works for the rest of Colorado.  For him, being Governor was the same as being the Mayor of Denver, just with an occasional visit to Aspen or Vail tossed in.

So we were forming legislation without basic facts, which I think is a bad idea in every case…and took almost a month to get all the facts. By that time I pissed you guys off…you know…they already passed legislation…that I said I was gonna sign…

Failed leadership 101: never own up to your mistakes.  Given the chance to say the buck stops here, Hickenlooper instead tosses a unknown, nameless staffer under the bus.  We’re sure when he gets back from Mexico, the Colorado press will most definitely want to know the identity of said staffer.  This also brings up the interesting question of what other legislation has been formed without basic facts.  Does the Left always try to decimate an entire industry without facts?

You know we made the decision without having that discussion and without having that information.

What’s interesting is that Hick’s spokesperson, Eric Brown, told The Denver Post that the Montezuma County sheriff misquoted Hick when he wrote that the Governor admitted his office did not fully research gun legislation before committing to it.  Maybe we’re slow. Can someone else help us interpret this statement?

Brown also said the governor, while admitting he was surprised by the controversy, did not say as the sheriff maintains that “had he known, he would not have endorsed the new gun laws without more research.”

Man, sucks when there is video proving you’re full of it.  But Brown didn’t want to stop there.  He had this to say to KRDO:

“For starters, the governor (and staff) researched plenty about guns before the legislation was signed.”

Brown also commented on KRDO NewsChannel 13’s coverage of the story.

“It’s too bad that your standards for verifying and reporting facts (not just regurgitating what a partisan sheriff posts on Facebook) are so low,” said Brown by email.

While Brown said there was ‘plenty’ of research done before the legislation was signed, Hickenlooper said in the YouTube video that he did not see the “basic facts” until the bills were signed into law.

“We were forming legislation without the basic facts, which I think is a bad idea in every case. It took almost a month to get the facts.  By that time, I had already pissed you guys (sheriffs) off.  I’d, you know, they had passed legislation,” said Hickenlooper.

Eric, you should really stop digging now.

 Let’s stick to the facts. I never talked to Mayor Bloomberg.

Blatant lie!

I apologize. I don’t think we did a good job on any of that stuff.

Is this a blatant lie as well?  The problem for Hickenlooper now is we can’t quite be sure one way or the other.