Pro was a jerk, especially toward the end.
Far from being the "one of the best writers" on these boards, whatever eloquence Pro may have had was buried in infantile insults, namecalling and endless copy-and-paste re-postings of his opinion. Someone else here compared trying to reason with Pro with trying to reason with a crazy homeless guy who just shouts and rants in his own little world. It got to the point that no one would even engage Pro because it was such a waste of time.
Pro was always a cocky overconfident jerk, but he especially went off the deep end that last year and a half or so, where he appointed himself the RKMB's official shit-stirrer.
And hypocritically, Pro could dish it out, but he couldn't take it. He had absolutely no boundaries or civility when it came to personal attacks, say on G-man's wife, or my girlfriend. But he broke into 10,000 pieces if Rex, G-man, Joe Mama or whoever even implied anything about his wife. The ultimate time being when he responded to rex by starting multiple "Rex is a pussy" topics on the subject on virtually every forum.
Oddly, there was a period where I reached out to Pro in PM's and gave him something of a friendly salute (2006? 2007?), basically saying that while we disagree a lot, I didn't hate him and (in a period where he still engaged in lucid debate, if somewhat spirited and insult-laden) I often enjoyed sparring with him and exploring both sides of the issues we discuss here. Oddly, while he responded in friendly manner to the PM, I noticed a sharp uptick in his uncivility and very personal insults toward me in the month or two after, and it never stopped until he left the boards.
I likewise had similar PM exchanges with Whomod a few years prior, who likewise became even more uncivil after, until he super-nova'd and left the boards.
If there is a liberal I would put in the "best writers" category, it would have been Magicjay, who started out angry and obnoxious too, but still had intelligent insights, and soon developed a softer style mixed with a lot of playful humor, and often well-sourced opinions. I exchanged friendly PM's frequently with Magicjay, and he invited me to look at his personal blog, which I did for a year or so.
Say what you will about M E M, but he too at least offers sources for his liberal counter-perspective (sometimes even not Media Matters! Just kidding, while he does cite MM a lot, he also cites Politico, New York Times, Washington Post and other mainstream sources, though less frequently.)
And I've said it before, while we all have our spirited moments, M E M has remarkable civility most of the time, I daresay more so than myself.
I also miss RKMB liberals like Chant, Penwing, Theory9, Darknight613, Captain Sweden, Jason Perkins, Beardguy, First Amongst Daves, Bastard and others. Most of whom, despite our divergent views, I rarely if ever clashed with.
In contrast, Pro was the problem, not the solution.
