Satire Highlights Pro-Udall Media Bias, Mark Udall in Boulder Liberal Denial

Earlier this week we took advantage of Rocky Mountain News reporter Lynn Bartels' airbrush of "Boulder liberal" from a quote about Mark Udall to remind readers why the "Boulder liberal" tag indeed accurately describes Udall. We closed with this admonition:

Lynn Bartels' explanation for omitting both "Boulder" and "liberal" from Wadhams' quote to describe Democratic candidate Mark Udall has ignored some pertinent facts. The editorializing should be left to others.

The case since has been made more thoroughly - and tongue-in-cheek to boot - by "Andrew Ripemoff" on Face The State:

Ah yes, the old "I didn’t have the space to explain to readers" excuse. Fortunately, she somehow found the space on May 30th, defending Udall in the Rocky: "Republicans have inaccurately pegged Udall as a Boulder liberal, although he’s never lived within the city limits."

To be fair to Ms. Bartels, all of this is technically true. Just like it’s true that Udall lives in Boulder County, and has a Boulder mailing address. He’s also been officially recognized as "Mark Udall, D-Boulder" by the Office of the Clerk of the 107th Congress of the United States House of Representatives.

The important thing is that hopefully other journalists will jump on this trend of censoring quotes from political types. For example, when someone like former President Bill Clinton says, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman," a clever reporter could delete words, turning it in to: "I did have sexual relations with that woman." Then, when questioned about selective editing, the reporter could simply state that she didn’t have enough space to "explain to readers" the situation.

But Bartels didn't stop there. She took the extra step of explaining to readers in a May 26th Rocky report that Mark Udall is really a favorite son of Eldorado Springs.

So we’ll play along. Sure. Mark Udall is NOT a liberal, and has never lived anywhere close to Boulder. In fact, he’s never even HEARD of Boulder. Truth be known, he’s a far right-wing conservative from Craig who routinely drives over deer with his SUV on his way to pick up royalty checks from the gas rigs he owns.

Sometimes, nothing makes a point quite so effectively as satire. Clearly, the reporter referenced here isn't the only one in the tank for Udall.

But rather than dwelling on the obvious issue of liberal media bias, a bigger question still lingers: Why is Mark Udall running away from who he is?