Prager Refuses to Apologize for his Nonsensical Rant

Publicity monger and opinion spewer Dennis Prager has no credentials and no apparent knowledge of religion or politics. Yet that does not stop him from proclaiming himself the guardian of all American values - which he says are based on the Bible.

He ranted and raved without an iota of substance about a new congressman who plans to take a ceremonial oath of office on the Koran instead of on the Bible (12/4/2006). Prager claimed that this act would undermine our culture.

His arguments were empty, yet he persisted in his bullying right-wing fashion to attack a democratically elected official (who defeated an Orthodox Jew in Minnesota's fifth district) and predict that the act of swearing on the Koran by this black muslim would destroy America.

Now Dennis is playing the wounded bully in his rejoinder, "Responding To The Many Critics About Which Book For Oath" in the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin (12/11/2006).

It seems that poor Dennis feels that has been unjustly attacked for his innocent column:

...there was widespread coverage on left-wing blogs, which, with no exception I could find, distorted what I said, charging my column and me with, for example, racism... when race plays no role at all in this issue or in my column. For the record, because I deem this a significant statement about most of the Left, I found virtually no left-wing blog that was not filled with obscenity-laced descriptions of me. Aside from the immaturity and loathing of higher civilization that such public use of curse words reveal, the fury and hate render the leftist charge that it is the Right that is hate-filled one of the most obvious expressions of psychological projection I have seen in my lifetime.

... those on the Left who have trained themselves to avoid thought by merely choosing from a list of epithets - "racist," "bigoted," "homophobic," "Islamophobic," "sexist," "xenophobic," "fascist"...

Just for the record, we are on the Left and we used none of the epithets listed above to question Prager's viewpoint. We argued on the basis of substance that he was wrong to declare that Jews should swear on the christian Bible which includes the New Testament. So I said in a previous blog entry, "There is no way on G-d's green earth that I'd swear on a New Testament. Dennis, you have lost your mind!"

"For the record" I think he has lost contact with rhetorical decency. Just one example -- since it really bothers me to enter into argument with these right-wing bullies. When Prager makes the assertion that on the same "slippery slope" one would find the Koran and Mein Kampf -- that is an ugly and disgusting utterance. But sensitive Dennis does not see it that way:

All those who write that I "compared" the Koran to "Mein Kampf" are lying - deliberately lying to defame me rather than respond to my arguments. I simply offered a slippery slope argument that if we let everyone choose their own text at swearings-in, what will happen one day should a racist decide to use "Mein Kampf"? A slippery slope argument is not an equivalence argument.

Prager again proclaims how his opponents have wounded him unjustly. But he is dishonest as he pretends that it is socially and culturally acceptable in America in the 21st century to say that the holy book of Islam is on the same spectrum, the same continuum, the same slope as Hitler's book.

In his "rejoinder" Prager goes on to rebut his critics and to apologize for NOTHING. And then to follow the right-wing script to the letter, Prager ends his essay with a rousing chorus of God Bless America invoking George Washington and the unity of our country.

But neither I nor tens of millions of other Americans will watch in silence as the Bible is replaced with another religious text for the first time since George Washington brought a Bible to his swearing-in. It is not I, but Keith Ellison, who has engaged in disuniting the country. He can still help reunite it by simply bringing both books to his ceremonial swearing-in. Had he originally announced that he would do that, I would have written a different column - filled with praise of him. And there would be a lot less cursing and anger in America.

Indeed Mr. Prager that does have the personal choice of whether or not to provoke and spew cursing and anger. But in the role of right-wing bully -- he has no option but to press ahead with his ugly divisive agenda.