J.D. Prose – 5/14/11

This page was last updated on May 15, 2011.

Three men enter, two men leave; J.D. Prose; Beaver County Times; May 14, 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.

Below is a detailed critique of portions of this column.

In the “SEEN & HEARD” portion of his column, Mr. Prose wrote, “In the Politics Makes Strange Bedfellows Department, ultra-conservative Monaca resident/former Aliquippa resident and mayoral candidate John Mukanos has endorsed Quiptown mayoral candidate Dwan Walker in his bid to oust Mayor Anthony Battalini in the Democratic primary. Mukanos, who is white, has been compared to Alabama segregationist George Wallace by some in Aliquippa, probably because (and we can attest to this) he had a portrait of Wallace hanging in his old house in Plan 12. Go figure. So, what’s a white right-winger doing supporting a black Democrat in his former hometown? A shared dislike for Battalini. ‘I do not like him,’ Mukanos said. Not exactly ‘We Shall Overcome,’ but it’ll have to do for now.”

Mr. Prose doesn’t tell us his definition of “ultra-conservative,” though based on previous Prose columns it probably refers to anyone to the right of William Ayers, Adolf Hitler, Mao, Karl Marx, Stalin, et cetera. I don’t know enough about Mr. Mukanos to offer my opinion of his position on the conservative to communism spectrum.

This piece is yet another example of the left’s obsession with skin color and other things that shouldn’t matter. Until this column, I didn’t know Mr. Walker is black. Mr. Prose displays his bias by writing “what’s a white right-winger doing supporting a black Democrat” instead of “what’s a right-winger doing supporting a Democrat?” In Mr. Prose’s world, skin color matters; in my world it doesn’t.

Mr. Prose has been peddling the racism smear BS (here and here) at least 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. In another column, Mr. Prose wrote, “We want our country back!’ goes the [tea partiers’] rallying cry, which really means, ‘We want a white president!’” For more about Mr. Prose’s revisionist view of the left, right, and race, please read “Democrats” and “Republicans.” Note Mr. Prose failed to remind us “Alabama segregationist George Wallace” was a Democrat, not an “ultra-conservative.”