Colorado congressional candidate and sitting State Rep. Richard Holtorf ® received a tough grilling this week at the hands of local 9News anchor Kyle Clark over his apparent hypocrisy when it comes to abortion rights.
Holtorf made headlines back in January when he defended paying for his girlfriend’s abortion, despite being an adamant pro-life lawmaker and abortion critic. “Anti-abortion GOP lawmaker praises the impact of the abortion he paid for,” read the headline of a local report by Clark from the beginning of the year.
To his credit, Holtorf sat down with Clark to discuss the issue.
“And I have. And I’m a pro-life person. I think you should try to choose life every time. But there are exceptions. And there are times when you need abortion. Abortion is a medical procedure,” declared Holtorf.
“Is one of the exceptions when Richard Holtorf is the father?” Clark demanded.
I’m a pro-life person … there are times when you need an abortion.
That’s pro-choice my man.
It’s surprising how often “pro-life” people turn out to be pro-choice when pressed a little on the realities of people’s lives. They seem to maintain the pro-life stance only through a refusal to think about difficult situations - which makes no sense since the whole debate is precisely about difficult situations.
And they commonly just don’t seem to understand what pro-choice means. They think it means being someone who just loves abortions and thinks they’re great and unproblematic and everyone should get one. They don’t realize there are no such people, because they’ve never actually asked and listened, or given it any thought.
Cognitive dissonance is fucking wild.
*edit I definitely am not using that term correctly. Double think? Someone help me out here.
Holtorf: That’s just a story. What’s more important is the policy.
The policy is the whole fucking problem! His hypocrisy is an issue because, even with a complete lack of any ability to empathize with different people in different circumstances (which I assume as a default from right-wingers), he ought to understand this situation because it did happen to him. Yet he just doesn’t care. Christ, what an asshole.
I mean, I’d rather he have no kids, so I agree that him being the father should be an exception.
This quote pissed me off. I’m fucking pro choice AF and this to me just says this interview wasn’t anything but to make him feel and look stupid and strengthen identity politics. It is gross. A real thoughtful response would have GRASPED onto that admittance that it is a medical procedure and point out how the law has hindered necessary medical treatment for fear of courts deeming it “illegal” because now politicians with power and monetary motivations get to decide what is medically necessary and not anyone with education in medicine or science even.
Grab those “liberal” threads they tried to deny is reality and pull it to the forefront don’t just butt heads with stupid fucking onelines that could make a headline.
I want to agree with you, but… We have decades of that just not working.
Anyone able to be persuaded by what you’re describing would have been persuaded by the obvious hypocrisy of the answer itself.
Mockery is a rhetorical device that can be persuasive, and we don’t always need to be nice to people when their open hypocrisy is destroying lives.
That’s pointless. You could get them to admit that pro-choice is the only fair and rational position, but then they’d just go and vote for more restrictions on abortion because that’s what gets them re-elected.
You have to play hardball with the modern Republican party. Embarass them and energize Democrats to replace them. There’s no reasoning with them.
I’m not talking reasoning with him. My point is that this is identity politics journalism and not even the core point. There is so much hypocrisy in the anti-choice crowd and making one look like an idiot isn’t going to change their minds.
Abortion access is also not a thing all democrats care about, or something all Republicans care about either for that matter. Which is wild as this actually impacts the entire country, especially every person able to conceive. It is crucial we continue to discuss and drive the point home that it is a medical procedure that denying or restricting access costs lives. Don’t give them that inch that sometimes it’s different and is murder, it’s not Schroeder’s cat on if it’s a fetus or a baby. A journalist can call him out on his hypocrisy while shutting down his rhetoric as well.
But this is just look at this pro-life hypocrite guys. Can you believe it we found another one! Add it to the pile. This isn’t teaching anyone, the public, anything. I thought that was the point of journalism and the free press.
I take great offense at the it’s pointless rhetoric. It is never pointless, you don’t have to convince him or change his mind but you CAN and should strive to change the minds of people listening. We don’t form our opinions in a vacuum.
Embarassing someone like this is how you convince anyone listening who hasn’t made up their minds. They’re the politically uninformed. They vote based on vibes, and “oooh Republican got owned” is a vibe.
Don’t get me wrong, I detest these people and frequently ridicule them. But if well reasoned holistic arguments could convince them, they’d already be convinced.
Even more importantly, Democrats who already know where they stand but need more “energy” to convince them to get off their asses and vote will resonate with this. They need someone fiery. Dark Brandon is very successful with them.
Thank you for the discussion and self reflection your responses caused! I do mean this genuinely.
I think maybe I’m not expressing clearly that I’m not mad he ridiculed and embarrassed him. I guess I just wanted an “and then”; don’t just burn them, bury and desecrate the body. Show depth of just how awful and hypocritical they are. But maybe that was clear and people still disagree! Idk so just throwing out that clarification one more time to quell the anxiety beast.
In hindsight I was definitely looking at this emotionally and reacting as such. I did not read the article as a transcript of an interview in mind, which I really should have. I do still believe he let him get away with a lot though.
Paying for an abortion then immediately saying that the abortion wasn’t your choice isn’t just hypocrisy, it is a nice little blanket that he can wrap around himself that people might not take beyond face value of the words. But dude voted with his dollar. Call him out on THAT.
They get away with SO MUCH and I’m sick of seeing only one Itty bitty detailed being called out in the press AND social media.
Sorry this isn’t at you just another passionate tangent. Totally see your point, I’m also never gonna be able to believe it is pointless to talk about because I started as someone who didn’t even know which is conservative and liberal. Like the words had no context. But reading thoughtful posts and discussions did teach/show me a lot to think about. Stuff like this where we aren’t on the same page but at least are on the same chapter in the same book.
Someone is ALWAYS listening.
However I think I WAS wrong with misplaced judgement and this wasn’t the type of media where my criticism would have made a difference and maybe not even be as helpful as is. I don’t wanna double down, when I watched and read the article the next day it was a lot harder to hold onto my initial take and I shouldn’t be trying to. So yeah definitely eating my hat a little. And thank you again!
I can get behind an “and then”. Thanks for discussing in good faith, it’s a rare thing nowadays.
he got his girlfriend an abortion while limiting the rights of his constituents.
done deal. nuff said. if you don’t get the obvious hypocrisy that’s on you mate.
Sound bytes are more valuable to the journalists employer than all that full story nonsense. Why don’t they realize true revolution and change would generate far more income and viewership than this bullshit ?
“Why do you seek to deny [the right to an abortion] to other women?” Clark pressed.
“Let me, let me — I don’t, I don’t,” Holtorf replied.
“You have voted to restrict abortion access,” Clark shot back.
“And I have. And I’m a pro-life person. I think you should try to choose life every time. But there are exceptions. And there are times when you need abortion. Abortion is a medical procedure,” declared Holtorf.
There are exceptions, like when it’s inconvenient for the rich and powerful. Other people should (be compelled by law to) choose life every time.
So, pro choice then. Come on “pro-life” people if you make exceptions you are pro choice. Abortion should be legal and accessible to women who need it, birth control too.
Yo, but how are we supposed to subjugate women?
I cannot upvote you on principle but I will commend your satire.
You’re projecting logical thinking. Stop.
The Republicans need wedge issues for culture wars. It’s a numbers game and that’s all they care about.
Projecting logic and critical thinking on a party that’s moving towards fascism is a fool’s errand.
Because like most republicans, he’s a hypocrite.
All*
Nah, you always find the strange ones that actually practice what they preach. They’re rare but they do exist.
Well, they used to be rare. They’ve all been ousted, retired or lost their primaries by now. There are NO principaled GOP politicians at this point.
John McCain died in 2018.
Name one
Joe Manchin
Joe Manchin double crossed Republicans who thought he was in their pocket. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/27/manchin-schumer-senate-deal-energy-taxes-00048325
For those who weren’t paying attention at the time, Biden had a massive proposed spending bill called Build Back Better, which was going to be the cornerstone of his plan for recovering from the pandemic. Republicans oppossed it, of course. There were 50 Democratic Senators and 50 Republicans, meaning that spending bills could not get past the filibuster (which requires a 60-vote supermajority).
The bill was split into two parts. One was the Infrastructure and Jobs Act, and the other was the (cynically named) Inflation Reduction Act. The IRA contained some of the sweeping provisions regarding climate change, health care, etc which Republicans were dead set against. The infrastructure act they were okay with on principle, but they didn’t want to give the Dems a win. The IRA, due to the type of spending involved, could be passed with just 50 votes under a loophole known as reconciliation.
In late 2021, Manchin and Sinema were making noises about the IRA. Democrats started saying very publicly that they should refuse to pass the smaller but more popular infrastructure act until/unless the bigger IRA was passed. It was starting to look like another broken promise from Democrat administrations: a big, ambitious bill (Build Back Better) gets watered down and stripped of all its best parts and a good but wimpy version of it (infrastructure act) is all that’s allowed to pass by Republicans.
Democrats backed down, Republicans passed the infrastructure bill, it looked like business as normal. Manchin publicly pulled support for the IRA and by early 2022 it was dead.
It briefly revived in June of 2022. Republicans had no power to block it, but they threatened to block the CHIPS act unless Democrats backed down again. Once again, Manchin, seemingly a loyal Republican plant, pulled his support and the bill died.
Congress passed the CHIPS act, and hours later on the same day, Schumer and Manchin revealed that Manchin had actually reached out to secretly continue negotiations, and they had a deal, and now there was nothing left for the Republicans to block out of spite, they were gonna pass it. And they did pass it, 51 to 50 with Kamala being the tie breaker.
It was stunning, everyone had written off Manchin as a R in D’s clothing, but honestly without him it’s very unlikely that we would have gotten all three of those bills passed. Even if we’d passed the IRA, Republicans would have killed one of the other bills out of spite.
Is he a republican?
Yarp
Yea, thatsthejoke.gif
Probably could have used a /s once upon a time
Because the unspoken right wing philosophy is “I get to tell you what to do; you didn’t get to tell me what to do.”
More journalists like this please
I noticed this is not a Sinclair owned Network. I imagine that’s the only reason they were able to ask this question.
For those unfamiliar with Sinclair, here is just one of their shitty tactics:
“This is extremely dangerous to our democracy.”
And then they did it AGAIN last week.
Sinclair leaps in to attack Biden’s mental fitness while Trump has spluttering incoherent speeches.
There are no Sinclair networks in Colorado.
Just want to say that Kyle Clark has been running a clinic on how to question conservatives.
Could you like me to more about this? I did a quick search and didn’t find relevant pages. Thought I’d ask if you have a direct link handy.
He was a moderator of a Republican debate the other day and ran it fantastically. Jimmy Kimmel picked it up because it was soooo good. Just look up Jimmy Kimmel Kyle Clark.
Side note, as a Coloradoan, I just want to say that Kyle Clark is a state treasure.
He isn’t literally running a clinic (umm that I’m aware of). It’s a figure of speech.
Kyle Clark is the anchor for 9News here in the Denver metro area / Colorado
Oh, dang. Wishful thinking on my part, I suppose.
To his credit, Holtorf sat down with Clark to discuss the issue.
Why credit him for that? Trying to defend something so outrageous and hypocritic is no what I would think grands credit. Apologising and changing his opinion on abortion could though
Because usually these people choose to scamper away screaming incoherent obscenities and slurs. Progress is progress.
Yeah, there’s a gap between “basic integrity and human decency” and, far below it, “average Republican behavior.” He went in between.
The Only Moral Abortion Is My Abortion.
reuse as needed.
The Atlantic article is paywalled.
Here’s a link to the author’s blog post: https://joycearthur.com/abortion/the-only-moral-abortion-is-my-abortion/
Thanks, I’ll edit that into my comment
paywalled
Here’s a link to the author’s blog post: https://joycearthur.com/abortion/the-only-moral-abortion-is-my-abortion/
I apologize
It’s a great headline though
Damn, Kyle Clark, again? Why can’t every journalist be like this? I mean, seriously.
Now this is what “I just wanna grill” should refer to.
Kyle Clark for debate moderator 2024. No bullshit allowed.
this guy comoderated the republican primary in Colorado as well and he was incredible. didn’t take bullshit and put everyone (including and especially boebert) in their place. what a hero.
That website brought my laptop to a crawl.
