Dennis Prager - An Odd Kind of Ethics

Let’s face it, I don’t write very well. My grammar and spelling are not the best and I do a lousy job of editing. Sometimes when I review my old posts and see just how poorly I have been communicating I get really depressed. When I am feeling down about my blog I just turn on the internet and read something by Talk Radio’s self proclaimed right wing scion of ethics and virtue, Dennis Prager. Dennis is loved by conservatives especially religious ones. For the most part, Prager’s ranting is no different than detritus spewed out by most talk radio hosts. Dennis hates Democrats and Liberals and wants you to hate them too. What makes Dennis so special is that he is an expert in religious ethics. That’s his shtick. Dennis talks ethics from a religious perspective. Let’s see what Dennis has to say.

Here is what Dennis says about Republican support for Saddam Hussein in the 1980’s:
Saddam was always a bad guy. We supported him when he fought Iran because at that time he was fighting a greater menace, Iran. Unlike most liberals, Republicans understand that sometimes you support a bad guy when fighting a worse evil -- just as America did when we supported the horrific Stalin against the more horrific Hitler.

Wow, hot stuff. So giving Saddam the means to manufacture and deploy weapons of mass destruction was OK. It was also OK for us to not raise any concerns over Saddam’s habit of exterminating thousands of people with said weapons. Some people would see Prager’s position as one lacking integrity. Still others would have you believe that Dennis has the ethical backbone of a banana slug and the moral depth and clarity of mud puddle. Crazy you say? Crazy like a fox I say! But wait, let’s see what Dennis had to say about coverage of the Nick Berg murder in Iraq:

On the day The New York Times reported the savage murder of Berg -- in the most subdued fashion of any major paper in America (just one column on the front page, with a photo, the smallest of three front-page photos, at the bottom of the column) -- its lead editorial was yet another in a series denouncing the Bush administration for prison abuses in Iraq.

Clearly the New York Times (Liberal scum!) doesn’t know how to portray (exploit?) evil. Imagine, page one with a small photo, what a bunch of slackers. You may remember that video of Nick Berg having his head cut off was placed on the internet. Dennis Prager, placed this video front and center on his web site. Dennis said he did this to point out the moral depravity of our enemies. I guess Dennis thinks that his listeners have difficulty distinguishing good from evil, so much difficulty that they cannot make the distinction unless they watch the video of Mr. Berg's execution over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

Dennis promoted this video even though Mr. Berg’s father begged people, ethical people like Dennis we presume, not to show his son’s murder. Some people would say that Dennis placed the video on his site when he learned that Nick Berg’s murder video was the number one search topic on Google. People like to get mad and Dennis likes making people mad, that’s how he makes his money. Other people are sick and like to look at and listen to sick things. In all cases, Dennis Prager comes through for his fans. How’s that for ethics?