The thing about blogging is you can go back at any time and examine a whole body of a person's work with no effort. To some extent this is a function of internet archiving in general and not just blogging, meaning that newspaper columnists and other pundits are also easily held accountable for their prior statements. Of course, many newspapers drop articles behind the archive wall after a couple of weeks, which removes them from casual scrutiny. Those of us with access to Lexis-Nexis and other costly archives are still able to have some fun, it's true.

With that accountability comes a sense of responsibility -- you don't want to be the one who goes off half-cocked two days before you have to take it all back because it was totally wrong. It's important that what you say be defensible over the long term, or eventually you're discredited like any other bum with a sandwich board.

Examples of where I've screwed the pooch in this manner include a vociferous defense of Dan Rather's infamous "fake but accurate" memos in 2004. I stand by the "accurate" part of the statement, but the "fake" was a bit of a black eye. Fortunately, I wasn't the only one who bought the idea of a National Guard office possessing the very slickest typewriter possibly available at the time. It's not just enough to suck it up and drive on in this situation: you have to actually learn the lesson and be more careful next time.

With that in mind, I would like to assert something that I think is gonna hold up to scrutiny.

To be fair, I'll let 5280's Jason Bane begin:

Bob Beauprez: On the Road to Craterville

After a terrible couple of weeks for Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Beauprez, culminating with the news yesterday of his assinine statement that "70 percent of African-American women have abortions," it's time to start wondering if Beauprez's campaign is starting to crater...

Beauprez campaign staffers are now being overheard talking about how Holtzman really damaged Beauprez's campaign. They may be correct, but it sounds a lot like a rationale for something. When your supporters are drafting up an explanation for your loss two months before the election even happens, you're on the road to craterville.

There's not any one misstep or PR gaffe you can peg as the reason why a general consensus is building that the 2006 gubernatorial race in Colorado is already over on Labor Day. It's a stream of bad decisions and horrible statements -- that is to say completely self-inflicted wounds -- that have brought us to this point. And it's not just opportunistic lefties who think so. Our colleagues at To the Right:

Is It Over?

One of the most worrying things we see is when we compare crosstabs in Ritter v. Beauprez to 2004 exit polling in Coors v. Salazar...

From a letter sent from Janet Rowland to Beauprez supporters:

Some of you don't know me and may be wondering how it was that I was selected as Bob's running mate. I have to admit I've asked myself that same question.

So have we, Janet, so have we...

It's simple, really, like seeing right through Beauprez's weak-minded apology for his absurd claim about the abortion rate among African-American women. Just like Janet Rowland can insist the words that came out of her mouth comparing domestic partnership to marrying a sheep should be forgotten because "she's sorry," but you know now it's how she really feels.

Bob Beauprez talks renewable energy while he votes dozens of NREL employees onto the chopping block. He tells you how important it is to not "cut and run" in Iraq, but then you learn he "wanted to get on with his life" when his draft number came up during the Vietnam War. He talks about being "guided by principle" in his political career, when he spent his tenure as Congressman matching votes with Tom DeLay.

The collapse of Bob Beauprez's political career -- which I am now pretty confident is inevitable -- is just one part of a much broader meltdown in American conservative politics. They're coming off the tracks as a whole, being an assemblage of a thousand imploding Bob Beauprezs. They are out of touch with the majority of Americans, and their years of arrogant power leave them unable to see what everyone else can.