Dennis Prager: A Lying Liar Telling Lies About Yr Wonkette

That Anne Frank kid just keeps causing trouble!

When we got back to work after the New Year, we enjoyed making fun of Dennis Prager, the rightwing culture warrior who thinks free school breakfasts for poor kids "weaken the parent-child bond," and whose fake "university" peddles dumb distortions of civil rights history. This time out, we took a look at Prager's thoughts on Anne Frank, whom he respects as the face of those who were murdered by the Nazis. But he rejects her dictum, "In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart," because as a conservative, he knows humans are in fact basically bad, and need to be kept in line by wise leaders with good morals. Here again is his dumb video, the salient feature of which is his saying -- without much elaboration -- that he rejects Frank's view of human nature:

Dennis Prager responds to Anne Frank quote about people being good in their hearts with "I don't get my wisdom from… https: //t.co/nHMPYrhqy2

— Jason Campbell (@Jason Campbell) 1577755355.0 

Her diary is very famous, and it gives a face to the horror of the Holocaust. I know she wrote that, and my answer is, it doesn't matter that she wrote it. I don't get my wisdom from teenagers.

Well! Turns out that a completely different publication, a little mommyblog called "Newsweek," said some things about Prager's take on Anne Frank that werevery wrong!    Newsweek ran a piece headlined "Conservative Radio Host Ridicules Anne Frank: 'I Don't Get My Wisdom From Teenagers.'" In his column at Ben Shapiro's Internet Tendency, Prager insisted the Newsweek piece stood as "one of the most glaring examples of a lie in my lifetime."

Dennis Prager is 71 years old. Gotta wonder if anyone's ever told him about "I have here in my hand a list of two hundred and five people that were known to the secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party" or "The initial attack on the destroyer Maddox , on August 2, was repeated today by a number of hostile vessels attacking two US destroyers with torpedoes." Or even that Americans really could say "Merry Christmas" before Donald Trump was elected.

Fine, he said "one of." So maybe Newsweek's hed comes just after those.

Prager's point is that he wasn't ridiculing Anne Frank, because she's an important historical figure and he said as much. He simply doesn't think anything she said about human nature is worth considering, because after all, she didn't have a proper moral grounding.

He wasn't ridiculing Anne Frank. He's completely dismissing her because she was raised a "secular Jew" and that's much better. You see, she was raised by secular Jews, she never learned right from wrong, and that's certainly not her fault. As an orthodox Jewish man and prominent moral scold, Prager takes the Holocaust seriously, especially because it proves people are not basically "good at heart."

Now, we should add that, in comments not caught in the video above, Prager added, 

And, by the way, to be very serious for a moment, I would be very curious — I've thought about this a lot — if I were to be able to visit Anne Frank while in a concentration camp, would she have still believed that? We don't know.

We suppose if we had the chance to "visit Anne Frank while in a concentration camp," we might use our time machine to smuggle her and her family out, but that's beside the point.

In any case, Prager noted in his most recent column, Newsweek changed the headline and got rid of another bit Prager complained was false, and he thanked the editor -- although he also seems rather disappointed the author wasn't "disciplined" for one of the most egregious lies in Prager's lifetime. Worse he said, the lies continued, right here at Wonkette!

Second, and more important, the original lie about me has taken on a life of its own. It was conveyed on numerous left-wing sites.

Wonkette, under the sarcastic headline "Dennis Prager Will Not Be Bullied by Anne Frank," wrote a deceit-filled article about my comments about Anne Frank.

Thank goodness he at least noted the hed was sarcastic. Funny thing, though: Prager calls the article "deceitful," but never bothers pointing out what I got wrong in characterizing his dour view of human nature. He continues:

At this writing, the column is followed by 654 reader comments — virtually every one of them repeating the lie started by Newsweek and continued by Wonkette.

There has not been a word on Wonkette about Newsweek's correction.

Now I'm not even sure whether he's complaining about my article, or about the comments, which I should also point out I did not write. But he's being deceitful himself in suggesting that I continued anything at all from Newsweek . I proposed and wrote my piece after seeing the video on Twitter. It is based solely on Prager's own words, in that video, and in another article and a video in which he "proves" humans are not inherently good.

So why the hell would we say anything about Newsweek's correction? We didn't use a word of the Newsweek piece. Full disclosure: I saw it while writing my piece, but didn't use it precisely because it missed the reason Prager dismisses Anne Frank as a teenager with no moral grounding. (Keep in mind, it also felt like he was taking a dig at Greta Thunberg, because pfft, what do teenagers know?)

Anyway, Mr. Prager, here's your apology: I'm sorry you deceitfully suggested I was merely aping Newsweek . And I'm sorry several of your Daily Wire readers showed up in the comments to accuse me of mindlessly copying Newsweek . I'm also sorry you appear to have missed that I actually see why you disagree with the idea that people are good. And oh MAN am I sorry you haven't learned how to link to the articles you mischaracterize -- not that your pet trolls seem to have read my piece anyway.

And I am particularly sorry you have misled so many people about history. You really need to work on correcting your lies about the civil rights movement and the Southern Strategy. 

Have a blessed day.

And now it is your OPEN THREAD.

[ Newsweek / Daily Wire ]

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