This page was last updated on March 30, 2013.
Gutless Congress lets NRA win another one; J.D. Prose; Beaver County Times; March 23, 2013.
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 critique of portions of this column.
“After all the tears and grief and mourning and promises of meaningful action after the Newtown, Conn., school massacre, Congress has decided that banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines to try to prevent future slaughters just isn’t that important.”
[RWC] You know you’re in for a treat when the name-calling starts in the title. It’s difficult not to be snarky when critiquing columns like this, so I apologize in advance.
“Assault weapon” is a political creation whose definition varies with the person and the firearm the person wants to ban. In other words, “assault weapon” means whatever the user wants it to mean and covers whatever weapons the user wants it to cover. As in his previous gun-control rants, Mr. Prose doesn’t give readers his definitions of “assault weapon” and “high-capacity magazine.” Many people count semi-automatic firearms as “assault weapons.” For those of you who don’t know, a semi-automatic weapon fires one shot per trigger-pull, just like a revolver. In a recent New York State gun-control law, a “high-capacity magazine” is defined as any that holds more than seven bullets. These are now illegal in NY, even for law enforcement officers. Note: Seven-round magazines are not available for most firearms. One of the alleged “solutions” to this problem is to legalize larger magazines but make it illegal to load them with more than seven rounds. You can’t make up stuff like this.
“It’s not as important as the insane National Rifle Association’s lobbying and donations or the attacks from gun nuts about freedom dying or the courage and determination it would take to ram a ban through a Teapublican faction so cold-hearted that it doesn’t care how many Americans die. Sleep well tonight.”
[RWC] Sure. Mr. Prose forgot to mention Republicans also don’t care about clean air and water.
“Teapublicans are bad enough, but the blame here lies squarely on the slumped shoulders of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and other Democrats, including President Barack Obama, who simply lack the guts to fight for what’s right instead of making nuanced political calculations.”
[RWC] Racism alert! Mr. Prose – white guy – just wrote President Obama “simply lack[s] the guts to fight for what’s right instead of making nuanced political calculations.”
“Filmmaker Michael Moore was right last week when he told CNN’s Piers Morgan that the Republicans are enviable when it comes to their commitment to policies and ideas no matter how crazy or dangerous. They won’t back down. Forced vaginal probes? Of course! Iraq has WMDs? Sue us!”
[RWC] Mr. Prose cites “Filmmaker Michael Moore?” Never mind, it makes sense. As for this rant about Republicans, didn’t Mr. Prose just tell readers “the blame here lies squarely on the slumped shoulders of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and other Democrats, including President Barack Obama, who simply lack the guts to fight for what’s right instead of making nuanced political calculations?”
Mr. Prose forgot to mention EVERYONE thought Iraq had WMD. When Congress passed the Iraq War Resolution (IWR), Democrats (plus an independent who caucused with Democrats) were the majority party (51-49) in the Senate and the vote was 77-23 for the IWR.
“Background checks are great, but it’s time to put an assault weapons ban to a vote and then let the gutless cowards who vote against it explain to every Sandy Hook Elementary School victim’s family why it’s so terrible. And, your warped view of ‘freedom’ is not an acceptable excuse.”
[RWC] What is the “warped view of ‘freedom?’”
“Columnist Mike Lupica of the New York Daily News beat us to the punch on this, so we’ll let him have the next-to-last word.
“‘If Sandy Hook Elementary doesn’t make every member of Congress take a stand against assault weapons in this country, then what does?’ Lupica said. ‘How many small coffins do we need the next time?’
“If 20 isn’t enough, we don’t want to know the answer.”
[RWC] Mr. Prose would be on more solid ground about “small coffins” if he didn’t support an ideology that believes killing unborn babies is OK.
You can find critiques of other Prose gun-control rants here, here, and here.
“DOA
“An ‘autopsy’ of the Republican Party by a GOP task force, according to the Wall Street Journal, found that the party is seen by former GOPers as ‘scary,’ ‘narrow-minded’ ‘out of touch’ and ‘the party of ‘stuffy old men.’ That’s pretty harsh, even by our standards so ...”
[RWC] The “post-mortem” is here. Why did Mr. Prose rely on a WSJ story instead of reading the report himself?
The Democrat party supports killing unborn babies and “former GOPers” see the GOP as “scary?” President Obama launched his political career in the home of domestic terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn and “former GOPers” see the GOP as “scary?”
As for “narrow-minded,” consider this comment by Juan Williams, a left-leaning journalist: “I always thought it was the Archie Bunkers of the world, the right-wingers of world, who were more resistant and more closed-minded about hearing the other side. In fact, what I have learned is, in a very painful way — and I can open this shirt and show you the scars and the knife wounds — is that it is big media institutions who are identifiably more liberal to left-leaning who will shut you down, stab you and kill you, fire you, if they perceive that you are not telling the story in the way that they want it told.” (During a February 2013 interview with The Daily Caller)
As for “out of touch,” the report didn’t provide details. That said, language like this tends to mean changing core principles to something like Democrat-lite.
“Stuffy old men” like Governor Bobby Jindal (R-LA), Gov. Nikki Haley (R-SC), U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Condoleezza Rice, former U.S. Rep. candidate Mia Love (R-UT - She lost by 0.31% to the Democrat candidate, a white male 15 years older.), Gov. Susana Martinez (R-NM), Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ), former governor and VP candidate Sarah Palin (R-AK), and so on?
“Wait. What? Gov. Tom Corbett just stopped by to discuss forced ultrasounds for women seeking abortions? ‘I don’t know how you make anybody watch, OK? Because you just have to close your eyes.’ l Um, we don’t think that’s going to help the... Wow. Ann Coulter’s here to talk about Sept. 11 widows?”
[RWC] As I’ve written before, though I agree with the stated goal (making sure a woman seeking an abortion sees the unborn child is not just some pre-cancerous colon polyp), I’m not in favor of government forcing a medical procedure on someone even in this circumstance.
“‘These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by griefparrazies. I have never seen people enjoying their husband’s death so much.’l Uh. That might be the most despicable thing we’ve ever ... No way.”
[RWC] Does Mr. Prose really want to get into a quote contest? Did Mr. Prose forget VP Joe Biden (D) is one of his guys?
You probably won’t be surprised to learn Mr. Prose misled his readers. Mr. Prose deliberately gave the impression Miss Coulter was talking about all “Sept. 11 widows.” While I’m not a fan of flame-throwing, Miss Coulter’s remark was about four 9/11 widows in particular, the so-called Jersey Girls. Miss Coulter also said, “I feel sorry for all the widows of 9/11 … [but] I do not believe that sanctifies their political message or deserves special sanctions. … They have attacked Bush, they have attacked Condoleezza Rice, they’re cutting campaign commercials for Kerry. But we can’t respond because their husbands died. … I think it’s one of the ugliest things the left has done to political dialogue in this country, this idea that you need some sort of personal authenticity in order to make a political point. I mean, can I not talk to you about the Irish potato famine because I don’t understand it? Can you not talk to me about women? No, how about let’s just debate and cut the personal authenticity?”
Consider this comment by Julianne Malveaux (November 4, 1994, on PBS To the Contrary), a lefty pundit, about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas: “I hope his wife feeds him lots of eggs and butter and he dies early like many black men do, of heart disease. … He is an absolutely reprehensible person.” Apparently hoping a person “dies early like many black men do” isn’t “despicable.”
Since Mr. Prose appears to support abortion as a birth-control technique, I’m relatively sure he knows nothing about “the most despicable thing.”
“Climate-change specialist U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann? You’re here, too? ‘There isn’t even one study that can be produced that shows that carbon dioxide is a harmful gas.’ l Oh, man. Where do we start to ...”
[RWC] Sexist alert! Using leftist rules, Mr. Prose is not allowed to criticize Mrs. Bachmann and Miss Coulter unless he is or has been a woman. When will Mr. Prose stop his war on women?
Does Mr. Prose really want to get into defending the religion of manmade global warming? Remember, Al Gore (manmade global warming’s evangelist-in-chief) sold out to oil-producer Qatar.
“Wait. What’s that smell? You’re kidding. Rush Limbaugh?!? (Sigh) Don’t bother, Rush. We don’t have that much space.”
[RWC] Come on Mr. Prose, take Mr. Limbaugh to school! You can do it, can’t you? Don’t hide behind “We don’t have that much space.” Go for it!
“lActual quotes.
“KRANCER FREE
“State Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Michael Krancer will be leaving his position in a few weeks. Besides his head-in-the-sand approach to drilling issues, Krancer will be best known for his appearance last month at an appropriations committee hearing in which he balked at simply saying that climate change is real.”
[RWC] Mrs. Bachmann is not a “Climate-change specialist” but Mr. Prose apparently believes he is.
Surprise, Mr. Prose misled his readers again. According to StateImpact Pennsylvania, “Rep. Greg Vitali (D- Delaware County) pointedly asked Krancer whether or not he agreed with this statement from a National Academy of Sciences report: Climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for–and in many cases is already affecting–a broad range of human and natural systems.” Mr. Krancer answered, “It is a compound statement. I’d have to study it and look at it myself.” Mr. Krancer was correct. As anyone whose first language is American English can see, the question was not about “simply saying that climate change is real.” The question also asked for judgment about the causes, risks, and effects.
The story continued, “Later on in the hearing, Rep. Matt Bradford (D- Montgomery County) brought it up again. ‘Climate change. Is it real?’ ‘Representative, I couldn’t be more clear,’ Krancer replied, ‘the lowering of greenhouse gases and carbon emissions is a good thing.’”
“Later, Krancer tried to salvage his clownish reputation by telling StateImpact Pennsylvania that he agreed the earth is warming and that humans contribute to the problem.”
[RWC] Mr. Prose writes of someone else’s “clownish reputation?” I’ve written about Mr. Prose’s glass house before.
This paragraph is an example. As noted above, the comment Mr. Krancer made was during the hearing, not afterward to StateImpact Pennsylvania.
“But, he fumbled again by adding that there’s ‘no uniformity’ among scientists about ‘how much the warming is occurring’ and ‘no agreement’ on how much humans are responsible for. Um, wrong and wrong.”
[RWC] Quoting Mr. Prose, “Um, wrong and wrong.” If you want to read what Mr. Krancer really said and the context, I suggest you read the StateImpact Pennsylvania story “DEP Secretary Michael Krancer Clarifies Views on Climate Change.” This story appears to be the entire data source for this section of the Prose column. Mr. Prose seems to have a pretty good thing going; instead of doing his own reporting, he takes the work of others – in this case the WSJ (for DOA) and StateImpact Pennsylvania – and turns it into a column, and even then he got it wrong. Who knew that was journalism?
Phil Jones is a former head of the East Anglia University Climate Research Unit. During a February 2010 BBC Q&A, Mr. Jones conceded there has been no statistically significant warming since 1995. Mr. Jones also conceded, though a trend, there was statistically insignificant cooling since 2002. In a BBC interview, Mr. Jones said “two periods in recent times had experienced similar warming [to current alleged warming]. And he agreed that the debate had not been settled over whether the Medieval Warm Period was warmer than the current period.” Mr. Jones then said his data was insufficiently organized and the data sources were insufficiently documented. What a difference Climategate and the uncovering of bogus claims have made.
Finally, perhaps Mr. Prose should read “Twenty-year hiatus in rising temperatures has climate scientists puzzled.”
“Krancer’s now going back to some cushy law firm gig where he can assure his clients that thunder happens when the angels go bowling.”
© 2004-2013 Robert W. Cox, all rights reserved.