National Review Tries to Masculate David Prosser

Justice David Prosser

You can tell much about the perceived deficiencies of Republicans by efforts of their hacks to imbue certain politicos with improbable qualities.

With George W. Bush, we were treated to reports of how much he read and how freedom-loving he was. Truth is Bush was incurious, dogmatic and authoritarian.

Among these clumsy branding attempts, the National Review Online (Robert Costa) today has a desperate, comical 2,300-word column which includes the supposed quality of Justice David Prosser. See Wisconsin Fight Goes to Court. And Walker’s big win could ride on a single judicial election.

Here's how Prosser is described in NRO: "Gruff."

The truth is Prosser is a whiny, quarrelsome man who lost his 1996 race as a Republican nominee for congress in the right-leaning Wisconsin 8th district because he was a bad cultural fit for the bigoted milieu of traditional gender roles that predominates in Northeast Wisconsin.

Well, I guess Prosser has to be gruff today, up against those vicious liberals hiding among the palm trees of Madison winters.

Hulking thugs at Capitol

Writes Costa, "As the dust settles in Madison, Wisconsin Republicans face a troubling coda: Gov. Scott Walker’s budget-repair bill is being tripped up in the courts. Union heavies smell blood. And the unruly parade of lefty activists and hulking Teamsters that occupied the state capitol for weeks is back for a bruising final round."

Costa might wish to read some classic Christopher Hitchens before Costa embarrasses himself with his o-f-f descriptions on the nature of David Prosser and the Wisconsin pro-worker movement:

Union Thugs Pretending They Are Cops

In his imperishable Treatise on the Art of Political Lying, published in 1714, Dr. John Arbuthnot laid down a standard for falsifiers and calumniators that has yet to be excelled:

Detractory or defamatory lies should not be quite opposite to the qualities the person is supposed to have. Thus it will not be found according to the sound rules of pseudology to report of a pious and religious prince that he neglects his devotions and would introduce heresy; but you may report of a merciful Prince that he has pardoned a criminal who did not deserve it.