Peasel Prattle: Flint, Fear and Flux Capacity (Updated)

From the What a CROCK Files

This starts the first of my series of reviews of the “Letters to the Editor” (of the Flint Journal) by one Richard Peasel, former co-worker and co-car-pooler, who is also a rabid right-winger.

This particular letter, published October 1, is SO chock full of lies, distortions, and misrepresentations, I just don’t know where to begin! So I’ll take it step by step.  Peasel uses a rhetorical device which would be described by Bryan White as "concrete examples" which is nothing more than a nice bullet list of lies, distortions and misrepresentations.

Has columnist Andrew Heller borrowed the president’s teleprompters to parrot the president’s speech inaccuracies, or does Andy have a shorter memory than the average American (Sept. 10 column regarding people with short memories voting Republican)?

I could not find the Andrew Heller column to which Rich refers, and assume it means people have short memories with regard to George W. Bush’s record the last eight years before Obama was elected. Like all those things that started with Bush that contributed to the deficits: Bush’s tax cuts, his Iraq/Afghanistan wars, his Medicare Part D, his financial crisis, his bailouts…..or did Rich forget? Because they’re definitely not Obama speech inaccuracies, they’re….FACTS. The financial impact of Bush’s activities is enumerated later in this piece.

Peasel Prattle: A Primer

From the What a CROCK Files

My voice in politics got its start back in 1994 when I was in a car pool with a guy named Rich Peasel who seems to have one retirement hobby of writing letters to the Editor at the Flint Journal, which get published, on average, of about once a month. His letters evoke controversy because he is unabashedly very right wing on every talking point conservatives espouse. His writings are so to extremely the right they are almost silly, so I can understand why they are published (often the Flint Journal will publish letters in response to his). He thinks he is a writer; however, he’s admitted to me he’s tried to parlay it to the Detroit Free Press and USA Today, but he hasn’t gotten too far. About the only thing I take exception to is the way he behaves (because, to put it mildly, he’s a tad hypocritical in his actions, which is my biggest complaint about most of the right wing fanatics I have come in contact with in my life.)

He was pretty well versed in his politics back in 1994, and he looked forward to doing the touché on me almost every day. However, with the advent of the internet and its “fricking Google it,” commentary, social networks and blogs, it has leveled the playing field for me a great deal. I did not have a quick wit and the “Jeopardy” type answering ability for person to person verbal exchanges back then, but today I can fairly quickly cite references and write cogent rational responses to right wing rants, such as those he exposed me to back then.