Prager Tries to Fight Back and Fails Miserably

Right-wing radio host Dennis Prager wrote an absolutely paranoid column last week (which I wrote about here) about the fact a new Democratic congressman, Keith Ellison who is Muslim, has decided to swear his oath with the Koran instead of the Bible. That sounds like common sense, doesn't it? Well, not to Prager - who went off the deep end:

He [Ellison] should not be allowed to do so -- not because of any American hostility to the Koran, but because the act undermines American civilization.

And it just got worse from that point...

Now, he's decided to fight back against his critics and starts out with this attack:

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.

Who was it again who told a leftist senator to 'Go fuck yourself' in the hallowed senate chamber? Oh, right. It was that beacon of righteous right-wing idealism Dick Cheney - vice president of lower civilization.

As it happens, the exchange occurred on the same day the Senate passed legislation described as the "Defense of Decency Act" by 99 to 1.

Whoops.

Prager does one pathetic job of trying to explain why he still believes that using the Koran while being sworn in is the end of America as we know it and tries to deflect the bigotry charge rightly levelled against him with this:

"Bigoted": Bigoted against whom? Against non-Christians? I am a non-Christian. Am I bigoted against myself as a Jew? I happen to be one of the most active individuals in American Jewish life and co-author of probably the most widely used English-language introduction to Judaism of the last 30 years.

Ummm...what?

You, Prager, are bigoted against Ellison who is not a Jew. He is a Muslim. Which part of that don't you get, exactly? And since you can't grasp that, you are just wasting your time trying to convince people who see right through your paranoid hysteria - and there are lots of us out here.

Just how much more obvious does it get than this from Prager's original column?

Forgive me, but America should not give a hoot what Keith Ellison's favorite book is. Insofar as a member of Congress taking an oath to serve America and uphold its values is concerned, America is interested in only one book, the Bible. If you are incapable of taking an oath on that book, don't serve in Congress.

And if you are incapable of rationality, stop writing such ridiculously shallow attacks while trying to convince everyone that you are a paragon of virtue or an example of what the founders meant when they defined what it means to be an inclusive American citizen.

Wanker.