Resolved: Dennis Prager = moron

[Updated 10:53pm 11/30/2006] Haven't written anything in a spell (partially because there hasn't been much to write about, and partially because I've been trying to hunt down a Nintendo Wii ), so I'm making up for lost time with this tidbit...

As a piece of post-election trivia, Representative-elect Keith Ellison, the first Muslim to be elected to Congress, will be sworn into office on a copy of the Koran. Hey, whatever floats your boat, guy.

Predictably enough, the radical right-wing nutjobs are all agog at this development, taking it as a sign that Mr. Ellison is going full-tilt with his agenda to subvert the United States in support of radical Islamic nutjobs. However, since most of these loonies tend to be private citizens with as much visibility as your typical anonymous random internet blogger (*ahem*), it was easy to ignore them as the loony rantings of your typical anonymous random internet blogger.

Enter Dennis Praeger, conservative talk-show host, commentator, and public loony:

Keith Ellison, D-Minn., the first Muslim elected to the United States Congress, has announced that he will not take his oath of office on the Bible, but on the bible of Islam, the Koran.

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

For some reason, I'm now imagining a scene from the next Hollywood Die Hard-style action movie, where the sweat-drenched hero must rush the podium and prevent the Representative-elect from even touching the Koran because the moment he does so, 500-gazillion-megaton bombs will detonate all across America and undermine American civilization!

*Ahem* Sorry, where was I? Oh, yeah, Dennis Prager the loonie. Blab blab blab, America is all about the Bible (wrong!), he should keep his religion in his private life (don't tell that to George W. Bush), even Jews get sworn in on a Bible (which Testament?)... it's all rather predictably stupid, actually, and he finally meanders to the bottom of the page with this penultimate nugget of nutjobedness:

...these naive people do not appreciate that America will not change the attitude of a single American-hating Muslim by allowing Ellison to substitute the Koran for the Bible. In fact, the opposite is more likely: Ellison's doing so will embolden Islamic extremists and make new ones, as Islamists, rightly or wrongly, see the first sign of the realization of their greatest goal -- the Islamicization of America.

Uh... what? Is Mr. Prager suggesting that Ellison's choice of office-swearing material is going to be a rallying point for Iraqi insurgents and Islamic terrorists to wreak even more havoc than they're already wreaking? Or will the sight of Keith Ellison, one hand on the Koran, be an inspiration for other Muslim-Americans to run for office and become government officials? Or what?

(I've spent ten minutes here already trying to dope out just what the frack Dennis Prager is all alarmed about, and I still can't make heads or tails of it. Perhaps I'm not sufficiently drunk to see things from Prager's stupid point-of-view...)

Anyway, Prager finally finishes his session of mental diarrhea with one last burst of extra-stupid stupididity:

When all elected officials take their oaths of office with their hands on the very same book, they all affirm that some unifying value system underlies American civilization. If Keith Ellison is allowed to change that, he will be doing more damage to the unity of America and to the value system that has formed this country than the terrorists of 9-11.

(Geez, another action movie flashback?)

From where I'm sitting, Dennis, the greatest "damage to the unity of America and to the value system that has formed this country" since the 9-11 terrorist attacks have been the rampant power grabs, unprecedented breaches of civil liberties, partisan non-governance, and blatant croneyism that's been brought on by your like-minded compatriots on the political right. I can't imagine how Keith Ellison putting his hand on a Koran can even begin to approach that level of damage...

And lest we forget, Article VI of the Constitution clearly states:

Dennis Prager, why do you hate America?

[Updated 10:53pm 11/30/2006] Think Progress notes an awfully inconvenient fact for Mr. Prager: the House of Representatives' swearing-in ceremony doesn't use any religious book at all. Members may use a book for photo-ops, but the official ceremony requires only an upright hand.

Does that make Dennis Prager a double-douchebag dumbass? Why, yes, I think it does...