During his October 27 broadcast, 630 KHOW-AM radio host Peter Boyles responded to a Colorado Media Matters petition urging Boyles to apologize for repeated false and misleading statements he and his guests have made about illegal immigration -- by making more misleading statements. As he has in the past, Boyles said Colorado Media Matters “want[s] me to apologize for what ... other people said.” In fact, while the petition notes inaccurate, misleading, and dubious claims made by Boyles's guests, it also states that "Colorado Media Matters has identified numerous instances since June in which 630 KHOW-AM radio host Peter Boyles gave listeners inaccurate or misleading information regarding illegal immigration" and calls on him to apologize “for his specious claims.”

Boyles said he has not granted Colorado Media Matters' requests to appear on his show because “if you have everybody on that's going to pound on you, then you're going spend your whole time having people pound on you.”

Boyles then misleadingly defended U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo's (R-Littleton) participation in a controversial September 9 fundraiser in a South Carolina museum room displaying Confederate flags. Defending Tancredo during his October 27 show, Boyles said, “He ends up in this room that is a, it's a relics room. It has battle flags and memorabilia of the Confederacy.” But, according to a September 18 Denver Post column by Jim Spencer, “Tancredo's people conceded that the [Confederate] flags had been moved in from an adjacent room by people attending the event.”

Boyles made his misleading claims to a caller who asked if he was “going to respond” to Colorado Media Matters' petition. Boyles said that in response to the petition, he “had three people on” that have been mentioned in Colorado Media Matters items. Boyles then said that “if you read their piece [petition], they say it isn't -- they want me to apologize for what people, other people said.”

Similarly, an October 20 Denver Post column about the Boyles petition by Dick Kreck quoted Boyles as saying, “Here's the deal. They want me to apologize for what other people say on the show. They're not accusing me, they're accusing other people.” Referring to Boyles, Kreck wrote, “It's fine to lay it off on his guests, but does he press them about their statistics, or where they got their information?” In the column, Boyles responded to Kreck's question by stating, “I ask that question all the time. This kind of stuff is perfect with me. They play four or five cuts from the show of people saying things. They stamp them 'false,' but they don't say what's true. It's clearly pro-illegal immigration.”

While it is true that Boyles has allowed false, misleading, and dubious claims made by “other people” on his show, Boyles repeatedly has made false, misleading, and dubious claims of his own, as Colorado Media Matters has documented.

Indeed, Colorado Media Matters urged Boyles to apologize not only for allowing his guests to make false, misleading, and dubious claims, but also for making numerous false, misleading and dubious claims himself. While the petition does note that “Boyles allows guests to promote misinformation as truth” and that he “neglects to challenge guests on incorrect statistics and other misleading assertions,” the petition also states: "Colorado Media Matters has identified numerous instances since June in which Boyles gave listeners inaccurate or misleading information regarding illegal immigration." The petition urges Boyles to apologize “for his specious claims.”

For example:

• Colorado Media Matters noted that on September 19, Boyles falsely claimed that "[o]ver two-thirds of all the births in L.A. County are to illegal-alien Mexican[s]" receiving state Medicaid benefits.

• Colorado Media Matters noted that while discussing the dubious statistic that illegal immigrants kill 25 Americans each day, Boyles falsely claimed on September 27 that the figure was reported by the “GOA,” referring to the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

• Colorado Media Matters noted that on the September 19 show, Boyles distorted polling results on illegal immigration to criticize a September 19 column by Rocky Mountain News columnist Mike Littwin.

• Colorado Media Matters noted that while discussing legislation to combat illegal immigration that was passed during July's special session of the Colorado legislature, Boyles falsely claimed on October 2 that “there was nothing in that [legislation] about fining the private sector.”

During the same conversation, Boyles issued his misleading defense of Tancredo's speech. As Colorado Media Matters has noted, Tancredo attended a September 9 fundraiser in Columbia, South Carolina, for the conservative Americans Have Had Enough Coalition. Describing the fundraiser, the Rocky Mountain News reported September 13 that “Tancredo gave his standard immigration stump speech” and that "[t]here were Confederate flags in the room, and he [Tancredo] joined audience members in singing the Southern anthem Dixie."

On his October 27 show, Boyles said that Tancredo delivered his speech in a “relics room” that normally contains “battle flags and memorabilia of the Confederacy”:

He [Tancredo] goes to a museum that is tax-supported -- these people rented. Actually, he thought that he was going to an outdoor barbecue. He ends up in this room that is a, it's a relics room. It has battle flags and memorabilia of the Confederacy.

A September 13 Denver Post article did report that Tancredo's speech “was held in the museum's Confederate relic room” which “holds flags, portraits and other items.” But Spencer's September 18 Post column subsequently reported that “Tancredo's people conceded that the flags had been moved in from an adjacent room by people attending the event.” According to Spencer:

First, Tancredo's spokesman said the flags were part of a museum display. After a museum spokesman said the room was empty before the speech, Tancredo's people conceded that the flags had been moved in from an adjacent room by people attending the event.

Richard Hines booked the room at the request of Roan Garcia-Quintana, executive director of Americans Have Had Enough Coalition, which sponsored Tancredo's speech and whose board includes one of Tancredo's ex-Congressional staffers. Hines, whose wife is also a coalition board member, had his lawyer e-mail me a warning not to “injure the good reputation of Mr. Hines.”

During the October 27 discussion, Boyles noted that Colorado Media Matters apologized for misidentifying one of his guests, Center for Immigration Studies fellow Michael Cutler, in an item posted on the Colorado Media Matters' website on October 24.

From the October 27 broadcast of 630 KHOW-AM's The Peter Boyles Show:

CALLER: What I wanted to ask you was, I know you've been having some beef with Colorado Media Matters and stuff, and I wanted to know if they have that petition that's on there.

BOYLES: Uh huh.

CALLER: And I was just wondering if you were going to respond to that petition at all.

BOYLES: We did it three times. We've had three people on that have, that, if you read their piece, they say it isn't -- they want me to apologize for what people, other people said. We've had the people on. They have said what they said. They have backed their play. In fact, yesterday one of the people that they attributed a conversation to was on the show, and he said it wasn't even me. And I got an off-air phone call from them saying they apologized for, for naming somebody on their website, misnaming somebody.

CALLER: And that's Media Matters, you're saying?

BOYLES: Uh huh. Uh huh.

CALLER: And have you, have you offered to have them come on the show?

BOYLES: Um, naw. I, I -- you know, I don't know why. It is what it is. I mean, it's, it's - if you have everybody on that's going to pound on you, then you're going spend your whole time having people pound on you. But we responded to them in -- with three different people that they critiqued, and I don't know.

CALLER: Well one thing on that website there, they had the Tancredo issue. And about Tancredo being at that Dixie, singing “Dixie” or whatever.

BOYLES: Yeah.

CALLER: And that website there, I went to the link there, and the website showed clearly that the group, I can't think of the name right now, the group that was involved there, they did have Tancredo right on their website as a guest of them.

BOYLES: Well, they have, they have actually denied that. The deal is, I can put a website up and say you're my guest. But Tancredo went there not invited by those people, and this is how this is done. Tancredo goes to there as -- he doesn't even actually even know where he's going to go. He knows he's going to go give a speech and he's on a book thing. He goes to -- hang on, [Caller] -- he goes to a museum that's --

CALLER: I just said OK. I'm sorry.

BOYLES: He goes to a museum that is tax-supported -- these people rented. Actually, he thought that he was going to an outdoor barbecue. He ends up in this room that is a, it's a relics room. It has battle flags and memorabilia of the Confederacy. There are, there are re-enactors there, there are also Democrats are there who are also speechifying. Tancredo talks and he's signing books. And I've spoken to too many people that were in the room. He's at a table signing books after he speaks. When he is getting ready to leave, these re-enactors sing “Dixie.” He apparently sings “Dixie” going out the door.

CALLER: OK.

BOYLES: Now. Do whatever you want to do with it. I don't see it as this, you know, and the people that, that claim -- people can claim anything and everything. I've talked to four different people privately. Now, they are friends of Tancredo's so you can say, wow, they're going to lie to you. But I don't believe them to be liars, and they said that's what they did. Tancredo was on a tour and one of the stops -- and actually, he left that place to go to another, another speech.

CALLER: The Dems were there, Pete?

BOYLES: Yeah, there were Democrats there.

CALLER: Which -- do you know any names on that?

BOYLES: Yeah, it was the lieutenant governor of South Carolina was there who's a Dem [sic]*, and somebody running from office that was a Democrat were there.

* The Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina is André Bauer, a Republican.