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47 percent of readers won’t like this column; J.D. Prose; Beaver County Times; September 22, 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 admit that, even though it’s taken out of context, the following is taken from a secret recording of us speaking to the Liberal Media Elite Association:”
[RWC] Before or after you read Mr. Prose’s fantasy, please read the transcript of Mr. Romney’s comments as published by Mother Jones.
“‘Lots of readers take issue with our political opinions and haven’t appreciated our recent bashing of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Unfortunately, there are 47 percent of the people who won’t agree with us no matter what.”
[RWC] I’m confused. I thought Mitt Romney represented the 1%. C’mon, guys; get your story straight! <g>
“There are 47 percent who are with Romney, who are dependent upon Rush Limbaugh, who believe that they are persecuted, who believe that government has no responsibility to care for anyone, who believe that nobody is entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That those are entitlements, and government should never help people obtain them.”
[RWC] In case you missed it, Mr. Prose is arguing in favor of the government confiscating the fruits (paychecks, pension checks, etc.) of one family’s labor and giving them to another. Today’s average family eventually turns over nearly 33% of its income to all levels of government. This is near the all time high of 34% in 2000 and 25% higher than the peak (26.1% in 1943) during World War II. Consider the effect on your liberty when the government confiscates 33% of your family’s income. Regardless of how you got there, are you truly free when you are dependent on the government for your “health care, … food, … housing, … you-name-it?” When you pay no income taxes, do you care about income tax rate cuts? As long as you pay no income taxes, do you care if the rates for actual income taxpayers go up?
“These are people who have gotten tax cuts from the president’s policies. So Romney’s message of low taxes appeals to them because they ignore reality and hate Obama so much.
“Romney will be out there talking about tax cuts for the rich. We mean, that’s what they sell every four years. And so our job is not to worry about those people who buy into his charade. We’ll never convince them they should show concern for fellow Americans and care for social and economic justice.”
[RWC] Did Mr. Prose forget Mr. Obama came clean on the “tax cuts for the rich” BS in 2010? Mr. Obama said, “Make no mistake: Allowing taxes to go up on all Americans would have raised taxes by $3,000 for a typical American family. And that could cost our economy well over a million jobs.” If the “Bush tax cuts” had been only for “the rich,” how could letting the RATE cuts expire “have raised taxes by $3,000 for a typical American family?”
If you’re not up to date regarding leftyspeak, “social and economic justice” has nothing to do with justice, just as “choice” has nothing to do with choice. This terminology really refers to communism, Marxism, et cetera.
Should people in need get help? Of course, but from private charities funded by voluntary contributions, not by confiscated earnings.
“What we have to do is convince the 5 to 10 percent in the center, that are independents, that are thoughtful, that look at voting one way or the other depending upon, in some cases, emotion, whether they like Romney or not, what he looks like.
“Nobody’s taping this, right?’”
[RWC] Unlike Mr. Prose in his fantasy, the release of his comments didn’t bother Mr. Romney. Indeed, “Mitt Romney stuck by his earlier position on his controversial remarks about 47 percent of the US population being dependent on government.” That’s because Mr. Romney wasn’t saying one thing in public and something else in private. When you tell the truth, you don’t have to worry about reconciling lies.
“JOSH.0
“We spent a lovely few hours in Rochester Thursday at the Republican Committee of Beaver County rally featuring Josh ‘No. 3 Son’ Romney, who was light on policy and heavy on the rhetoric.”
[RWC] If true, it sounds like a Prose column.
“Some of the rhetoric got really deep when Romney claimed his dad has siphoned the energy from President Barack Obama’s rallies. Really, Josh? Yeah, plunging poll numbers and Republicans ripping your dad’s campaign apart are just pumping the excitement up, up, up!”
[RWC] Mr. Prose appears to be cherry-picking poll results.
“And, Josh, we guess you weren’t at Carnegie Mellon University in July when several thousands waited hours in unbearable heat and a searing sun to hear Obama speak. Can anyone imagine the same thing happening for Mittens? Hellooooo? Anybody?”
[RWC] While “several thousands waited hours in unbearable heat and a searing sun to hear Obama speak,” didn’t Mr. Obama take an unplanned detour to buy sweets in Beaver? Mr. Prose is right, I can’t imagine Mr. Romney doing the same thing.
Even if Mr. Prose is correct about CMU, he apparently forgot about the Democrat convention where they switched venues for Mr. Obama’s nomination acceptance speech from Bank of America Stadium (cap. 73,778) to Time Warner Cable Arena (cap. 20,200 or less depending on configuration) exactly two months after the CMU appearance. The excuse of bad weather would have been more believable if the National Weather Service didn’t report the skies were clear for September 6, 2012. In fairness, the 9/5 forecast of rain for the evening of 9/6 was between 20% and 30%, though with minimal precipitation.
“Josh also claimed Obama ‘is not focused on getting America back to work.’ Again, really? The president of the United States isn’t focused on jobs and the economy? Sigh. This is the kind of ridiculous stuff that just makes us shake our head. We call it the Fox News Effect.”
[RWC] Given Mr. Obama’s poor results, does Mr. Prose really want to go down the unemployment road? According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), unemployment hasn’t been below 8% since January 2009 and this figure excludes people who have given up looking for work. The unemployment rate for 2012 has been bouncing between 8.1% and 8.3%. Since Mr. Obama took office, private-sector employment has increased by only 415,000 using August 2012 BLS data. This employment level is 4.2 million less than the peak of 115,647,000 in January 2008.
The last I checked, the BLS compiles unemployment data, not Fox News.
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