January 07, 2021 12:15 PM UTC

The "Buckpedal" Is Back

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• by: Colorado Pols

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.