J.D. Prose – 8/5/12

This page was last updated on August 6, 2012.

In politics, irony isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be; J.D. Prose; Beaver County Times; August 5, 2012.

According to his Twitter page, Mr. Prose is a self-described “Surly progressive.” As you read this opinion column and his Twitter “tweets,” keep in mind Mr. Prose wears at least one other hat for the BCT. 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.

Mr. Prose previously wrote on this topic in “Shell cracks gas, Gov. cracks the bank, we crack wise.” I don’t support special treatment, though I understand why some people think it’s necessary.

Mr. Prose wrote, “Well, the political highlight around here this week was GOP Gov. Tom Corbett’s visit to the would-be Shell Oil Co. cracker plant site to thank supporters of his $1.65 BILLION tax credit give-away and let everyone know that the state and county still really, really want Shell’s business.” Mr. Prose also capitalized “billion” later in the piece and in his previous opinion piece.

What Mr. Prose didn’t mention is he uttered not a peep when President Obama threw many more BILLIONS of our tax dollars at Chrysler, GM, Solyndra, and so on. GM alone received “$50 billion in TARP bailout funds, a special exemption waiving payment of $45.4 billion in taxes on future profits, an exemption for all product liability on cars sold before the bailout, $360 million in stimulus funds, and the $7,500 tax credit for those who buy the Chevy Volt.” Of that, President Bush directed about $13 BILLION of our paychecks, pension checks, etc. to this improper use of tax dollars.