J.D. Prose – 2/27/11

This page was last updated on March 7, 2011.

Sisk strikes pre-emptively to rally support for ‘Spamadio’; J.D. Prose; Beaver County Times; February 27, 2011.

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? (You may recall NPR claimed it fired Juan Williams for doing exactly what Mr. Prose does.) 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.

Much of what is in this “column” is another exercise in name-calling so forgive me for not highlighting every occurrence.

Below is a detailed critique of a portion of this column.

In the “SEEN & HEARD” portion of his column, Mr. Prose continues his and the Times efforts to portray U.S. Rep. Jason Altmire (D-4) - and other lefties - as non-lefties. Two years ago, Mr. Prose entitled one of his similar attempts “The middle ground” and in 2010 he entitled his attempt “Right-sided.” Last year I opined “if Mr. Prose continues his naming trend, I expect him to entitle next year’s effort ‘Altmire, right-wing extremist’ or ‘Altmire, Ronald Reagan disciple.’ <g>” As a reminder, the Times also tried this in 2010 with then-Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN).

Below is a portion of what Mr. Prose failed to mention in each of his columns on this topic. It’s mostly the same as I wrote last year but with updated info.

Mr. Altmire’s American Conservative Union (ACU) ratings for the last four years were 21% (2010), 20% (2009), 24% (2008), and 28% (2007), for a lifetime rating of 23%. That’s hardly the voting record of a “centrist lawmaker.” Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) hasn’t yet issued its ratings for 2010, so all we have are Mr. Altmire’s Liberal Quotients of 70% (2009), 80% (2008), and 95% (2007).

As a reminder, the National Journal (NJ) grades on the curve and this likely explains the NJ disparity with the ACU and ADA ratings. For those of you not familiar with this concept, here’s what I mean. The ACU and ADA ratings indicate what percent of the time a person voted the organizations’ preferred position on a number of bills. For example, if you voted the organization’s preference 15 out of 20 votes, your rating is 75% and it doesn’t depend on how someone else voted.

The NJ methodology differs completely from the ACU and ADA approach because it rates representatives and senators relative to other representatives and senators. For example, an NJ conservative/liberal rating of 50% means a person is allegedly more conservative/liberal than 50% of the House or Senate. If Congress were heavily conservative or leftist, a strongly conservative or lefty person could still receive an NJ rating of only 50% using the NJ approach. This means in a Congress that leans to the left, an NJ rating can make a lefty appear to be less leftist than his voting record. Using the NJ approach, someone must be in the middle, regardless of how much they lean to the left or right. I believe this is how a person with high ADA and low ACU ratings (like Mr. Altmire) gets NJ ratings that bounce around 50%.

Why would Mr. Prose and the Times try to understate Mr. Altmire’s “leftiness” and risk Mr. Altmire losing a primary and risk losing a Democrat seat? I’m guessing it’s because while Democrats hold a voter registration advantage over Republicans in Mr. Altmire’s district, the Democrats who vote in general elections are not “Pelosi Democrats” and would not look favorably on anyone whom they knew to vote very “liberal,” “progressive,” et cetera. Remember, despite Democrats holding a 2-to-1 voter registration advantage over Republicans, John McCain beat Barack Obama in Beaver County in 2008. Further, in 2002 and 2006, the Republican candidates for governor lost by much smaller margins (52% to 45% in 2002 and 55% to 45% in 2006) in BC than would be expected (67% to 33%) given the Democrat registration advantage. The same was true in 2004 when George W. Bush lost to John Kerry in BC by only 51% to 48%. Finally, in 2010 in Beaver County, Republican candidates took back both the PA governorship (56% to 43%) and one of PA’s U.S. Senate seats (52% to 47%).

Don’t get me wrong; Mr. Altmire voted correctly against cap-and-tax and Obamacare in 2009 and 2010. As I feared, though, this year Mr. Altmire voted against repealing Obamacare. To claim, however, a few “correct” votes in the context of his overall voting record make Mr. Altmire a “centrist” is ridiculous. Last year I wrote, “Though I applaud Mr. Altmire opposing cap-and-tax and the left’s idea of ‘healthcare reform’ so far, I have no illusions his idea of reform in these areas is anything like mine and ultimately I expect him to vote for bills that would be both a huge lurch to the left and unconstitutional. At the end of the day, Mr. Altmire is a lefty and I’m a conservative.” Mr. Altmire’s aforementioned vote against repealing Obamacare (ruled unconstitutional by two different federal courts) tends to support my assessment.