J.D. Prose – 3/27/10

This page was last updated on March 29, 2010.

Knock 14 times on the ceiling if you’re guilty; J.D. Prose; Beaver County Times; March 27, 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 part-time 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.

In summary, the “teabaggers’ bawl” portion of the column is full of name-calling and drive-by smearing, similar in content to two Times editorials (“A not-so civil war” and “Off the deep end”). SOP for Mr. Prose.

Since the column is simply a mindless rant and I addressed some of the column’s talking points in my aforementioned editorial critiques, I’ll address only the following comment.

“‘We want our country back!’ goes the Teabaggers’ rallying cry, which really means, ‘We want a white president!’ After all, where did their country move to, other than away from segregation?

“Do conservative Democrats and moderate Republicans really want to be associated with that?

“We never thought that in 2010, we’d honestly fear for the president’s safety because of domestic policy, but we do.”

This is more of the racism smear BS (here and here) Mr. Prose has been peddling since President Obama’s election. You may recall all “concerns” about Mr. Obama’s skin color came from the left - not the right - during the 2008 Democrat primary. For more about Mr. Prose’s revisionist view of the left, right, and race, please read “Democrats” and “Republicans.”

As for Mr. Prose’s alleged “honest fear for the president’s safety,” history tells us Mr. Prose should keep an eye on his fellow travelers. Leftists assassinated JFK and RFK and twice attempted to assassinate President Ford. I don’t recall Mr. Prose being concerned when people wrote books and plays describing then-President Bush’s hoped-for assassination.

Finally, what we saw from the Times op-ed staff this weekend is indicative of the left’s strategy, ratchet up the character assassination attacks and hope they stick.