The unpopular Tax Freeze foisted on the public by Bill Ritter was found to be unconstitutional today. The Denver Post's John Ingold wanted to impress Greg Moore with his brand of lying when he reported on the supposed Republican reaction to the court's findings:
Word of the decision that the freeze was unconstitutional quickly spread to GOP lawmakers via text message. They soon began exchanging high fives and handshakes in the Capitol hallways and at the Republican gathering in Broomfield.
I was at the Broomfield meeting when the announcement was made. There was applause. Most people there believe the freeze to be a violation of the state constitution. There were no high fives and likely were no handshakes.
The reaction was more subdued than one might expect because of the timing of the news. It came about a minute before the assembly was adjourned. Care to bet that the Denver Post had no reporters in Broomfield and didn't know that? Since the legislature has been out of session for nearly a month, there probably weren't that many Republicans at the Capitol late on a Friday afternoon.
If there were high fives anywhere this afternoon, it was more likely at the Denver Post whose leftys passed off another Big Blue Lie Machine lie.
Edited to add: The Denver Post has rewritten the offending paragraph in the article to read:
Word of the decision that the freeze was unconstitutional quickly spread to GOP lawmakers at the assemblies via text message. They soon began exchanging high-fives and handshakes in hallways at the Republican gathering.
No longer are they claiming that the high fives were at the Capitol or even in Broomfield. They are now reported to have occurred at some generic Republican assemblies somewhere.
Edited to add: John Ingold sent me an email this afternoon. I had criticized his article in comments left on the Denver Post. I have edited those comments thusly:
EDITED AGAIN TO ADD: In a private email this afternoon, John Ingold provided me with the names of the legislators doing the high fives. His description of the event is entirely believable. It could easily have occurred outside my view since it involved individuals who would not have been at my 5CD assembly. Kudos to Mr. Ingold for providing additional information. It is obvious to me that he cares about his reputation for journalistic integrity, and I can and do respect that.
This blog specializes in criticism, but the criticism must be fair. This criticism assumed that the Denver Post in general and John Ingold in particular was intentionally making up events when the problem was bad editing. It is still hard to respect the Denver Post because this happens too often. It is easy, however, to respect John Ingold.
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