J.D. Prose – 3/21/10

This page was last updated on March 21, 2010.

Altmire at center of debate on health care reform; J.D. Prose; Beaver County Times; March 21, 2010.

As you read this opinion column, keep in mind Mr. Prose wears at least one other hat for the Times. In addition to being an entertainer/pundit, Mr. Prose is a reporter covering political stories. Ask yourself this. When a pundit gives his political opinions in one part of the paper, can he be trusted to report politics objectively elsewhere in the paper? After all, would a person whose opinion is 1+1 equals 3 report 1+1 really equals 2? Does he have a “Chinese wall” in his head to keep his opinions from bleeding into his reporting? If it can get worse than that, Mr. Prose has made name-calling and personal attacks a foundation of his columns. If pushed, I’d be willing to bet Mr. Prose would try to excuse his writing by claiming he’s paid to be controversial and stir debate. The problem is, you don’t need to get into name-calling and personal attacks to accomplish those goals.

You can find the archive of my Prose column critiques here.

Once again we have Mr. Prose “reporting” and offering opinion on the same stories.

Mr. Prose wrote, “the process ended with Altmire repeating that his constituents overwhelmingly oppose the bill (the Squeaky Lunatic Fringe Wheel gets the grease).” Taking a leap of faith and assuming Mr. Altmire’s representation was correct, how does Mr. Prose get from “constituents overwhelmingly oppose the bill” to “the Squeaky Lunatic Fringe Wheel gets the grease?” Then again, Mr. Prose doesn’t take rejection well. You may recall that after his candidate [Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL)] lost Beaver County in 2008, Mr. Prose twice (here and here) credited racism. Now we’re not only racists, we’re “the Squeaky Lunatic Fringe.”

In the nitpicking category, Mr. Prose claimed he nicknamed Mr. Altmire “‘Dances with Coyness’ during the 2008 Democratic presidential primary season.” According to his column of April 19, 2008, Mr. Prose was “ready to bestow on [Mr. Altmire] the nickname ‘Dances with Coyness’,” but I found no indication he did.