J.D. Prose – 9/8/12

This page was last updated on September 10, 2012.

Fact checking a lie-free Democratic convention is easy; J.D. Prose; Beaver County Times; September 8, 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.

“We seem to have struck a nerve with our column last week on Lyin’ Paul Ryan’s slew of fibs at the Republican National Convention, so we only thought it fair to fact-check the Democrats the same way.

“As a committed political journalist, we watched every single second of the convention ... and couldn’t find a single dubious statement, leading us to the conclusion that Democratic politicians are perfectly honest. Fact check!

“Hahahahaha. Heads are exploding across Lunatic Fringeland right now. Actually, we just caught former President Bill Clinton and President Barack Obama’s AWESOME speeches ... and that was only because the wife forced us to stop watching ESPN.

“Unlike Democrats, who welcomed back Clinton with open arms, Republicans spent a week not mentioning Dubya’s name and pretending Sarah Palin never existed. Or was it pretending Dubya never existed and not mentioning Palin’s name?”

[RWC] It probably had nothing to do with the 24/7 demonizing of George Bush (13 years) and Sarah Palin (four years). In Mrs. Palin’s case, as with the Tea Party, she’s also a little too conservative for current GOP leadership. Heck, in three out of eight years the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Bush-bashers (Messrs. Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, and Barack Obama).

In 2008, Mr. Obama told us “We are the ones we have been waiting for” and declared in the future his nomination would be recognized as “the moment the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.” A mere four years later, Mr. Obama had to bring in a 12-years-out-of-office politician to draw attention away from the fact Mr. Obama and his supporters had no accomplishments to brag about. During parts of Mr. Clinton’s speech, it sounded like he was endorsing himself, not Mr. Obama.

It’s slightly off-topic, but didn’t it seem odd for the party that claims there’s a “war on women” to hold guys like Mr. Clinton and Edward Kennedy (The DNC featured a Kennedy tribute.) in high esteem?

“Palin’s addicted to the ‘lamestream’ media she supposedly despises, but she was MIA in Tampa. Maybe because her gravy train gig on Fox News is screeching to a halt.

“Theweek.com wrote that Fox is cutting back on Palin’s role because her star is dimming, she doesn’t pull high enough ratings and Fox chief Roger Ailes simply doesn’t like her. Ouch.

“That’s the trifecta for cutting mavericky, unaccomplished, clueless former Alaskan politicians loose. It couldn’t happen to a nicer hockey mom.”

[RWC] Yet Mrs. Palin remains more qualified than Messrs. Obama and Biden.

CHINA SYNDROME

“It’s always cool when politicians make our job easy, especially on Fridays in a week when we’ve had two days off. Column-writing is a cruel, cruel mistress, dear readers.

“GOP 12th Congressional District candidate Keith Rothfus called us — unprompted — Friday to respond to a new TV ad by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.”

[RWC] Why anyone regardless of ideology would consent to an interview by Mr. Prose, let alone initiate contact with him, is beyond me.

“In the ad, various ‘regular people’ scrunch up their faces and ask questions (‘What’s next with this guy?’) about Rothfus, who is portrayed as a corporate shill who loves shipping jobs to China because he signed a no-tax pledge and once worked for a Pittsburgh law firm with a ‘strategic alliance’ with a Chinese firm.”

[RWC] You have to chuckle when lefties feign outrage about doing business with their ideological brethren in Red China. Make no mistake; lefties are upset about the “no-tax pledge,” not “a Pittsburgh law firm with a ‘strategic alliance’ with a [Red] Chinese firm.” After all, Obama Motors (aka GM) has had a joint venture with the Red China auto manufacturer SAIC to produce GM vehicles in Red China since the late 1990s.

Did you note Mr. Prose failed to describe the “[Red] Chinese firm?” According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “The law firm of Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mellott has formed a strategic alliance with Beijing No. 6 Law Office of the People’s Republic of China. The two firms will refer clients to each other and exchange visits and legal materials.” Yep, I’m sure the alliance sent a bunch of lawyer jobs to Red China. <g>

“From the sound of it, the accusations about his law firm days seemed to have angered Rothfus the most and pushed him to call. Keith said he joined the firm right out of law school and left after three years in November 1993, three months after the firm’s ‘strategic alliance’ was signed.

“‘I found it breathtaking,’ Rothfus said of the ad. ‘How this is relevant to me supporting outsourcing jobs to China is beyond me.’

“Rothfus said he was basically a newbie lawyer who didn’t exactly dictate policy to the firm’s partners. ‘There’s no there there,’ he said.

“Sounds like that quote should be in a fortune cookie. (We’ll just apologize now to Chinese people everywhere.)”