The "Buckpedal" Is Back

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by: Colorado Pols

Rep. Ken Buck (R).

Asked yesterday by the Colorado Sun if he blamed President Donald Trump for the violence committed by Trump’s supporters after Trump directed them to the Capitol during yesterday’s “Wild Protest” riot, Colorado GOP chairman Rep. Ken Buck at that moment was standing by his man:

“I was a prosecutor for 25 years. When people do stupid things, the people that do those things are responsible,” Buck told The Colorado Sun during a brief interview on Wednesday. “The president didn’t order anybody to do this. This is a country that welcomes protest — peaceful protest. I don’t blame the president at all for this.” [Pols emphasis]

But by this morning on KOA radio, Rep. Buck was singing a 180-degree different tune:

Rep. Ken Buck, on KOA Radio, was asked if Trump deserves blame for yesterday.

“I think he’s partly to blame. I think he got the crowd ginned up and I think he’s got the American people ginned up and I think that most of what he has said about the election being stolen is false.”

— Justin Wingerter (@JustinWingerter) January 7, 2021

Obviously Buck was closer to right the second time! The question is, what happened between the first quote and the second quote to invalidate Buck’s quarter century in the prosecuting business that made him initially conclude incitement isn’t, well, ever a thing? If one of these quotes is true, pretty much by definition the other one cannot be. Longtime readers will recall the term “Buckpedal” coined during Buck’s failed 2010 U.S. Senate for these moments, and a decade later it’s still a signature move.

This is why, even when Rep. Buck occasionally lands on the right side of an issue in the midst of generally landing on precisely the wrong side, you really can’t put much stock in what he says. Like when he promised to teach Democrats how to “spell R-E-C-A-L-L,” the man just kind of flaps his jaws for the sake of the flapping.

9 thoughts on “The “Buckpedal” Is Back”

davebarnes says:

January 7, 2021 at 12:38 pm

What changed is his realization that the optics of the storming of the Capitol are really bad.
The G卐P is going to bleed voters over this. At the margins, it will be the difference between winning and losing.

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High Valley Lurker says:

January 7, 2021 at 3:09 pm

My guess is that he actually read the words of the President’s incitement to riot, and then the experienced prosecutor quickly gave a Scooby-Doo “Rurh-Roh” and decide to go fully into back-pedal out of Sedition-Land.

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JohnInDenver says:

January 7, 2021 at 5:39 pm

davebarnes … fine creation of the G卐P

I don't know about Buck reading and spontaneously changing his mind. He may have consulted with some advisors — ones linked to K Street, NAM, and the Koch funding network — and found a need to create a nuance of partial responsibility.

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kwtree says:

January 7, 2021 at 6:30 pm

Buck waffles, Crow tells it straight.

Buck tried to please all sides without saying much in his CPR interview.

Paraphrasing: the President may be partly to blame, but there’s a lot of blame to go around. Left wing media, including public radio, riles up the base, and so share blame for yesterday’s riots.

There was no double standard. The police would have reacted exactly the same if the rampaging hordes had been leftists and/or black. Double standard? Nonsense.

Jason Crow, interviewed on the same questions, made some admirable points:

“Anybody who doesn’t know that (Trump) is capable of this, anybody who doesn’t know that he’s a violent man that has incited violence repeatedly over the last four years and incited it yesterday with very clear language between him and his inner circle, that not just encouraged by asked for this to happen, is kidding themselves,” he reiterated on CPR's Colorado Matters.

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DavidThi808 says:

January 8, 2021 at 8:21 am

I can come up with a lot to complain about with Ken Buck. But I think what happened here is reasonable. His first response, not having seen Trump's speech, was to lay the blame directly on the perpetrators. And he did so even with them being his base too.

And then after learning more, he then said that Trump shares the blame. Which is a reasonable revision.

Would you rather he had no answer until he learned more? Would you rather once he made a statement, that regardless of learning more, he didn't change?

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MichaelBowman says:

January 9, 2021 at 3:26 pm

Ken "kill 'em all and let God sort it out" Buck is begging for unity:

NEWS: A group of US House GOPers who voted to accept Biden’s Electoral College victory are asking Biden to persuade Pelosi to back off impeaching Trump for Capitol riot. @RepKenBuck and others warn in letter it would inflame Trump supporters, damage efforts to unify country.

— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) January 9, 2021

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1. Duke Cox says:
  
  January 9, 2021 at 4:46 pm
  
  Ain't that just how tough love works? 😀
  
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  1. MichaelBowman says:
    
    January 9, 2021 at 6:08 pm
    
    I’d offer to introduce him to my Irish Catholic maternal grandmother who bore 13 children if she was still with us 😂😂😂
    
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  2. MichaelBowman says:
    
    January 9, 2021 at 8:37 pm
    
    Seems like just yesterday that Buckles was doling out his RWNJ tough love…
    
    In March, Congressman Buck held an AR-15 in his office and made a video for supporters daring Joe Biden to “come and take it.”
    Different tone now. https://t.co/A36EEtJwHk pic.twitter.com/hHat8Rdrfw
    
    — Bill Weir (@BillWeirCNN) January 10, 2021
    
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