Egg on their faces

After the media attention to the Weiner affairs shrinks, we've got a potentially titilating scandal unfolding in Denver. On Tuesday, June 7 Denver voters elected former Denver City Council President Michael Hancock as their new mayor. One of Mr. Hancock's campaign promises was to clean up the police department. On the Friday before the election the former owner of an escort service (read prostitution business), now serving a six months home detention sentence, called radio talk show host Peter Boyles. He told Mr. Boyles that one of his prostitutes recognized Mr. Hancock as a former client of the escort services. He said the services require patrons to provide a cell phone. He gave the phone number to Mr. Boyles, who called the number live on the air. It was answered by Mr. Hancock in a recording telling the caller to leave a detailed message.

Mr. Hancock issued this denial: "I have never used a "paid service." In a deal with the Denver Post, which has seen the client list of the escort service, Mr. Hancock agreed to provide records which would exonerate him, if the Post would hold off on publishing the story before the election. After the election, he changed his mind about providing all the records he had promised the Post. The Post sent a reporter out to his house with a t.v. reporter, and reported the story of his "reneging" on page one above the fold on this past Saturday, four days after the election.

The publisher of the Post, Dean Singleton, is, or has been, a top ranking official with the Associated Press. Before Hancock changed his mind about his deal with the Post, Singleton referred to Mr. Boyles as a "Carnival Barker." Likewise, columnist MIke Littwin, the Post's hopelessly biased liberal political columnist, referred to Mr. Boyles as a "know-nothing radio host." These fair-minded liberal media people can sure get nasty when they have egg on their faces.

Of course, the fact that all of this came out just days before the election is suspicious. Hancock won handily against a big money candidate, the son of former Governor and Chairman of the National Democratic Party, Roy Romer. And, in America, one is presumed innocent until proven guilty, right?

Apparently there is a list of prominent Denver men who paid for the hookers. Those on the list are being extra attentive to their wives and girlfriends these days, don'tcha think? There seems to be one standard for the johns and hookers who meet on the street, and one for the "high class" escort services and their monied clientele.