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September 07, 2018 01:40 PM UTC

Media Matters Unearths Brauchler's Ugly Talk Radio Past

  • 5 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols
Arapahoe County DA George Brauchler (R).

A decade ago, national media accountability organization Media Matters For America operated a short-lived state affiliate test project known as Colorado Media Matters. Though only in operation for a few years, CMM documented a tremendous volume of right-wing nuttery on local talk radio–enough to provide a window into a fringe culture that many Americans are unaware of.

After Arapahoe County DA George Brauchler announced his plans for higher office, first for governor and then stepping down to the attorney general’s race, Colorado Media Matters’ monitoring of local talk radio once again proved its worth, with a hard-hitting report out today on the national Media Matters homepage recapping CMM write-ups on Brauchler’s radio appearances while in relative obscurity back in 2007.

And it’s bad stuff, folks. Very, very bad stuff:

District Attorney George Brauchler, who announced his campaign for attorney general in November 2017 after withdrawing from the state’s gubernatorial race, was a frequent guest host on 630 KHOW-AM’s The Caplis & Silverman Show over a decade ago. Brauchler has repeatedly promised to be an attorney general “for all of Colorado,” but he made repeated discriminatory comments in his appearances on the show.

While guest hosting in 2007, Brauchler defended right-wing radio host Ann Coulter’s use of the slur “faggot” to refer to former U.S. Sen. John Edwards (D-NC). According to Brauchler, Coulter was simply “trying to be funny.” Later in the program, Brauchler likened a request from Elizabeth Edwards that Coulter halt personal attacks against her husband to the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. He also launched a sexist attack against then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, proclaiming that Clinton has “got some big ol’ legs.” But don’t worry — Brauchler clarified that he didn’t “mean to disrespect.”

On another 2007 edition of the show, Brauchler asked guest Jason Knight, an openly gay former naval petty officer, if being a gay person in the Navy is like “putting a kid in a candy shop.” Later in the show, Brauchler attempted to downplay the comments by saying that he was “insinuat[ing]” that “the Navy are the light-in-the-loafers service.” Weeks later, Brauchler again demonstrated his homophobia by defending the U.S. military’s former policy of barring openly gay, lesbian, and bisexual people from service. Brauchler maintained that the policy was acceptable because the military “discriminate[s] against people coming into the military based on height, weight, eyes, a whole list of medical things.” He also claimed that because the military does not accommodate service members’ religious needs (which, in fact, it did and does), it does not have to accept their sexual orientation: “The military asks everybody that’s a part of it to make a sacrifice.”

Again, what we have here is not new information–all of it was documented by Colorado Media Matters’ Bill Menezes 11 years ago, and the reports slipped out of view in Media Matters’ archive pages over time. But of course it’s relevant once again today, now that Brauchler is seeking a promotion to be the state’s chief law enforcement officer. In fact there was never a chance in hell that this material would remain in the dustbin of history while Brauchler ran for statewide office, and if he thought it would he’s even more politically naïve than we could have anticipated.

Brauchler has never been made to answer for any of these comments, but with ugly transcripts now gracing the homepage of a national liberal media site, he’s going to have to. And for at least some of this, it’ll need to take the form of a heartfelt apology–or else Brauchler has a serious problem heading into the general election.

Comments

5 thoughts on “Media Matters Unearths Brauchler’s Ugly Talk Radio Past

  1. Broccoli's homophobia is kind of old news. No doubt he would not show the courage that Taller Coffman showed in pursuing the Masterpiece Cake case and in attending Pride-fest in 2017.

    But aside from his nasty crack about gays in the military 11 years ago, Broccoli has had all sorts of more recent professional screw-ups (James Holmes, the Shirtless Sheriff … to name but two). 

    1. I was looking around for some context on this, seeking generic info on George Brauchler.

      Curiously, I found Ballotpedia had only very basic info on his candidacy this year, with no back story or photo. Wikipedia apparently has no article on him, but a mention in the entry for Parker, CO and as a "withdrawn" person for Governor.  Seems like a candidate for office might want to boost on-line presence, but whatever.

      Bräuchler is mentioned in Wikipedia in an article on Aspidistra, "a genus of flowering plants," specifically Aspidistra renatae Bräuchler – Vietnam (central).  Fun facts — focused on the most common varietal, Aspidistra elatior

      [it] is common worldwide as a foliage house plant that is very tolerant of neglect. It and other species can also be grown in shade outside, where they are generally hardy to −5 °C (23 °F).

      The article goes on to say "it was central to George Orwell's novel Keep the Aspidistra Flying, as a symbol of the need of the middle class to maintain respectability—according to Gordon Comstock, the novel's protagonist." 

      So perhaps George ought not to be linked to Broccoli, but to the more specifically named plant. 

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