Today is his final pep talk to House Democrats, President Obama singled out Rep. Betsy Markey (D., Colo.) for praise:

I had a wonderful conversation with Betsy Markey. I don’t know if Betsy is around here… Betsy is in a tough district. The biggest newspaper is somewhat conservative, as Betsy described. They weren’t real happy with health care reform. They were opposed to it. Betsy, despite the pressure, announced that she was in favor of this bill. And lo and behold, the next day that same newspaper runs an editorial saying, you know what, we’ve considered this, we’ve looked at the legislation, and we actually are pleased that Congresswoman Markey is supporting the legislation.

In my homepage piece today I wrote about how The Denver Post gave Markey (and by extension Pelosi) a big assist by reporting the CBO’s estimates as gospel truth, instead of as the rigged numbers they actually are. I had no idea that the Fort Collins Coloradoan — “somewhat conservative” in Obama’s telling — did an even worse job. The editorial Obama referenced reads:

With a $940 billion price tag over the first 10 years, the legislation reduces the federal deficit by $130 billion from 2010 to 2019, according to the CBO. In the following 10 years, the federal deficit will be reduced by $1.2 trillion.

As I and many others have noted, the $940 billion counts ten years of revenue to pay for six years of spending and does not include the doc fix. And the $1.2 trillion in the second ten years did not come from the CBO — the Democrats made it up. It is a rough extrapolation based on an estimate that, according to the CBO itself, is barely better than a blind guess. The Blue Dogs have gotten major cover from their local media, which — due to laziness, gullibility, ideology or all three — have promoted Obamacare as a deficit-reducer. Let’s hope their constituents are not fooled.