KDVR's Eli Stokols landed a big get in VP nominee Paul Ryan yesterday. While we were glad to see a legitimate local political reporter get the interview, we were disappointed that Stokols appeared to have let a Democratic operative draft his interview questions. That, or Stokols was auditioning for a guest slot on the Rachel Maddow Show. 

Virtually every question Stokols asked was preceded by a statement you'd be more likely to see in a DNC press release than an objective interview. It's not that we mind tough questioning, it's that Stokols tried to pre-frame all of Ryan's answers with left wing analysis. That, and we have yet to see Obama or Biden get a SINGLE tough network interview on Colorado TV this whole cycle.

Take for example the question that Colorado Pols is blathering on about — when Stokols tried to equate the trillion dollar failed stimulus program to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan regarding the national debt. 

First of all, sending our troops to attack Al Qaeda after 9/11 is nowhere close to compatible with giving away thousands of free refrigerators through the stimulus program. Secondly, the stimulus spent nearly a trillion dollars over the course of a year while the country was already mired in over $10 trillion in debt, whereas the war spending occurred over many years when the country was in far better fiscal shape. 

Thirdly, it seems rather interesting that Stokols would try to pin the blame on Paul Ryan for the war spending without mentioning the fact that VP Joe Biden voted for the resolution. Oh, and Biden was the CHAIRMAN of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when the war spending resolution was passed. 

It seemed to us that Stokols was trying to catch Ryan in a gotcha question that would garner some national attention. Ryan, to his credit, handled the lines of inquiry calmly, competently and provided detailed defenses to all of his answers. 

Stokols is better than that. But national attention certainly can go to any politico's head.

If you recall, back in February Stokols wrote a blistering open letter to the Romney campaign for the curtailed press access to Romney that was picked up by Politico. Obama's near complete lack of press conferences or interviews in Colorado outside the fake one he gave CBS4's Karen Leigh earlier this year haven't seemed to warrant a similar letter from Stokols.

What gives, Eli?

The Romney campaign gives you great access and you conduct an interview more worthy of Keith Olbermann than Adam Schrager. And yet your lips and laptop remain virtually silent when it comes to the cold shoulder the Obama campaign has given you?