J.D. Prose – 9/15/12

This page was last updated on September 17, 2012.

No doubt about it now, Mitt Romney has no shame; J.D. Prose; Beaver County Times; September 15, 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.

“If there was ever any doubts about how politically craven Mitt Romney is, they were erased last week when a U.S. consulate in Libya and U.S. embassy in Egypt were attacked.”

[RWC] Giving Mr. Prose the benefit of the doubt, his piece is based on shoddy research.

“With a sinking campaign being blasted by even hardcore Republicans, Romney decided to criticize the Obama administration for a statement issued by an embassy worker in Cairo as protests against a stupid anti-Muslim film mounted. All this while the attack in Libya raged and, ultimately, claimed four American lives.”

[RWC] Note Mr. Prose didn’t identify the “hardcore Republicans.” This is consistent with Mr. Prose’s frequent use of anonymous (imaginary?) sources.

It appears Mr. Prose wants us to believe some low-level “embassy worker” (janitor maybe?) wrote and posted the statement. According to Salon.com (a lefty outlet), “At 12:18 p.m. on Sept. 11, Cairo embassy senior public affairs officer Larry Schwartz posted the following (now well-known) statement [which he had cleared with Deputy Chief of Mission Marc Sievers] on the Cairo Embassy Web site:

“The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims – as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions. Today, the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, Americans are honoring our patriots and those who serve our nation as the fitting response to the enemies of democracy. Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy. We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others.”

At least two U.S. embassies/consulates were attacked and four Americans were murdered on the anniversary of 9/11 and Mr. Prose wants us to believe it’s about “a stupid anti-Muslim film” posted over two months ago?

“All this while the attack in Libya raged?” Not true, see below.

“Of course, that wasn’t ridiculous enough for Mittens. No, he woke up Wednesday and decided to accuse the president of sympathizing with the terrorists. Seriously. Think about that for a second.”

[RWC] Mr. Prose must think Mr. Romney is a late riser. According to The New York Times, “Romney’s comment, apparently referring to the embassy statement, was sent to The New York Times about 10:10 p.m. [on Wednesday, Sept. 12th], originally embargoed until midnight. The embargo was lifted at 10:24 p.m.” The State Department had already mentioned the Cairo statement and the death of at least one person in Benghazi by 10:10 p.m. on Wednesday.

Here’s an excerpt from the Romney statement Mr. Prose chose not to include: “I also believe the administration was wrong to stand by a statement sympathizing with those who had breached our embassy in Egypt, instead of condemning their actions. It’s never too early for the United States government to condemn attacks on Americans and to defend our values. The White House distanced itself last night from the statement, saying it wasn’t cleared by Washington. That reflects the mixed signals they’re sending to the world.”

Though Mr. Prose asserts Mr. Romney “decided to accuse the president of sympathizing with the terrorists,” he did not. The Romney statement specifically mentioned Egypt, not Libya. The terrorists attacked the Benghazi consulate, not the Cairo embassy.

Thank goodness Democrats – including then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) – didn’t attack then-President George W. Bush during our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Oops, they did, over and over and over.

As for asking readers to “Think about that for a second,” perhaps Mr. Prose should follow his own advice.

“In a critical time for America, the man with no foreign policy experience — aside from avoiding the Vietnam draft by hiding in France — immediately used the crisis to try and score political points by basically accusing THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES of treason.”

[RWC] Wow, an Obama supporter actually wants to talk about “foreign policy experience?” Perhaps Mr. Prose counts a little kid living in Indonesia for three to four years as “foreign policy experience.” Seriously, though, very few new presidents have “foreign policy experience.” George H.W. Bush was the latest exception to the rule. Mr. Bush was U.S. Ambassador to the UN for two years, chief of the liaison office to Red China for just over a year, and CIA Director for one year. That’s on top of his foreign policy experience as VP during the Reagan administration. Back to Mr. Obama, who didn’t seem to know last week if Egypt was a U.S. ally or not. During an interview, Mr. Obama said, “I don’t think that we would consider them [Egypt] an ally, but we don’t consider them an enemy.” That same article said, “The United States designated Egypt as one of the six original ‘major non-NATO allies’ in the 1980s. The status is now enjoyed by 15 U.S. ‘allies’ in total, including Israel, Japan, Australia and South Korea.”

As for “avoiding the Vietnam draft by hiding in France,” Wikipedia says Mr. Romney received four student deferments and a 4-D for the missionary work (30 months) he did in France. When those deferments ran out, Mr. Romney’s name went into the 1969 draft lottery and his birth date’s high number meant he was not called up.

Now let’s look at a hero of Mr. Prose, evader-in-chief Bill Clinton. Mr. Clinton evaded (an illegal act) the Vietnam draft by deceiving an Army colonel into admitting him to the ROTC program. Mr. Clinton then ran back to school in England and actively protested the U.S. government. To make it even better – and after he was 100% sure he could no longer be drafted, Mr. Clinton wrote a letter to the aforementioned colonel describing how Mr. Clinton duped him.

With his accusation Mr. Romney accused “THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES of treason,” once again Mr. Prose claimed Mr. Romney said something he did not. Does using UPPERCASE turn something false into something true?

“Really, my Republican friends, this is the man you want in the White House? The best you can do is a bumbling, warmongering chicken hawk, whose guiding principles are making rich people richer and getting himself elected?”

[RWC] Blah, blah, blah.

“Oh, sorry. We momentarily forgot about the GOP primary field. Wow. Mittens is the best you could do. Gulp!”

[RWC] More blah, blah, blah.