• Town Talk

The Denver Post certainly won over some former Rocky Mountain News readers by landing that newspaper’s conservative editorial page editor and columnist, Vincent Carroll, when the Rocky closed its doors a couple of weeks ago.

Carroll’s style as an editorial writer and columnist frequently is that of the village scold. But to his credit, he generally has managed to avoid relying on misinformation – such as false claims guised as fact – in promoting his points of view regarding public policy, legislation and society in general.

Unfortunately, Carroll does have his moments when he morphs into something akin to a dotty schoolmarm, as his March 7 column showed.

Complaint

In that piece, he enthusiastically attacked a nonprofit group that had the temerity to file a complaint with Colorado’s Independent Ethics Commission over the conduct of Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman while he was Colorado secretary of state. The complaint by Colorado Ethics Watch, a nonpartisan watchdog that has vilified and taken action against both Democrats and Republicans, accused Coffman of ethical violations with regard to his handling of an employee and political ally – GOP consultant Dan Kopelman – found to be operating a partisan side business while working for the state’s elections division during Coffman’s tenure.

The complaint also accused Coffman of an improper conflict of interest in his handling of the certification of Colorado voting machines.

Carroll’s reaction to what a day of testimony before the IEC produced on March 6 was to label Ethics Watch’s complaint a “smear campaign,” a “lurid crusade” and a “noisy travesty.” He complained that Ethics Watch did not call enough witnesses to prove its points, ridiculed its questioning of Coffman and concluded: “How could the ethics commission possibly declare Coffman a liar without any compelling testimony refuting him? Are they prepared to blacken his reputation on a hunch?”

Significant information missing

Unfortunately for Post readers expecting insight into the proceedings from this column, Carroll left out some significant information.

First of all, he never told his readers that even though Ethics Watch called only two witnesses at the March 6 hearing, it previously had submitted 39 pieces of evidence as exhibits for the case. In other words, while Carroll fixated on the courtroom proceedings, he hid from readers the fact that the IEC also would be considering voluminous documentary evidence supporting the Ethics Watch case.

Second, while impugning the organization’s motives in bringing the case, Carroll omitted that the IEC and a U.S. District Court judge had ruled separately that the case warranted a hearing. That’s important: It means that on two separate occasions when Coffman took action to have his case dismissed, two different legal entities – neither associated with Ethics Watch and its “lurid crusade” – determined there was enough evidence for the case to be heard.

Carroll also described Kopelman as simply “a supervisor in the elections division” and an “activist,” without noting his past as a paid campaign consultant to Coffman – a role detailed in several of the evidentiary exhibits Ethics Watch submitted to the IEC.

Perhaps most puzzling about Carroll’s column was that just a couple of years ago, while he was running the Rocky’s editorial pages, that newspaper took the editorial stand of criticizing Coffman’s professional conduct with regard to his handling of Kopelman – which the newspaper labeled the “Second-Job Scandal.”

On May 11, 2007, regarding the disclosure that Kopelman was operating a partisan political business on the side while working in the elections division, Carroll’s editorial page stated:

“Coffman said he didn’t know about Kopelman’s Web site until it was brought to his attention the other day. That’s somewhat surprising, but even more surprising is that he didn’t take special pains to make sure Kopelman quit his voter data business while working in the elections division. The Web site was especially offensive since Kopelman had updated his biographical information to note that he was in fact working for the secretary of state.”

That’s pretty strong stuff; almost as strong as the smokescreen emanating from Carroll’s March 7 column. 

Regardless of how the IEC rules on Ethics Watch’s complaint, it will be interesting to see whether Carroll handles the ruling as the dotty schoolmarm, or as a journalist committed to making an argument based on facts and their context.

Bill Menezes is editorial director of Colorado Media Matters. Colorado Media Matters is a Web-based, not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing and correcting conservative misinformation in the Colorado media. Visit colorado.mediamatters.org.

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