On his show Jan. 2, Dennis said the movie "was almost a classic."
"If we can not make this movie a financial success, the message to Hollywood is to keep putting out junk… Maybe people hear the word ‘Afghanistan’ and they don’t want to go… It’s not about Afghanistan now… It’s about an Afghan family moving to America. It’s the best depiction in film of the Taliban… You’ll understand what the Taliban were like.
"It’s great film."
"There are great films that don’t have great values. I liked Eastern Promises. It doesn’t have great values."
"The Kite Runner has an important message for humanity. I promise you will thank me. It’s based on a best-selling novel."
"I don’t think I’ve ever misled you on a movie."
"Atonement is a good film. You should see Juno and Kite Runner."
"You have to be so careful navigating the internet.
"Speaking of the internet, we should speak to someone from Wikipedia.
"Wikipedia is a blessing and a curse. There’s a lot of good information on Wikipedia. But any jerk can edit Wikipedia."
"There is something on Wikipedia that I know better than anything else. It’s called Dennis Prager. There’s a large piece on Dennis Prager on Wikipedia. Somebody out of nowhere put in my parents name and got them completely wrong. And that’s in there."
I don’t follow Prager’s Wikipedia entry every day, but I know that for years the Wikipedia entry on Prager has had his parents names correct — Max and Hilda (check Prager’s dad’s website maxprager.com for verification).
I’m not sure that Dennis Prager is the best source for information on Dennis Prager. We don’t know ourselves.
I’ve written on hundreds of public figures in my life and Dennis is among the most sensitive to how he’s portrayed.
Journalists prefer to deal with people who have more detachment about themselves and their coverage.
Dennis often complains on the air about his Wikipedia entry. He’s said he’s gone in there to correct his entry.
Dennis: "This is what happens in Wikipedia. Somebody with an axe to grind can change any entry…and then anyone can quote it and that will go out as truth to the world."
"Somebody has an axe to grind on my entry. Somebody said that Dennis Prager said in a 1996 broadcast… It’s unbelievable. One line about circumcision. Do people go into Wikipedia to find out my views on circumcision?
"The internet is a great blessing and a great curse. There is no such thing as a blessing without a curse."
I could find no reference to a 1996 broadcast or anything about circumcision in Prager’s current Wikipedia entry (later I found it in the discussion section).
Dennis: "I’ve been very careful. I’ve not been caught… I always ask the source…"
"The blog ThinkProgress quotes me saying something I’ve never said."
"The print media can be more responsible… The New York Times, the LA Times…check for accuracy more than internet sites… That’s one reason I love Little Green Footballs. They always give you the source."
Mark Levine writes Oct. 19, 2003 for the OC Weekly:
Recently, I was called a liar on national radio.
This is never a pleasant experience, but it’s even worse when the evidence used against you is the World Wide Web’s most popular search engine, Google.
I was being interviewed by conservative radio talk-show host Dennis Prager when he claimed that Palestinians have never staged a large protest against terrorism. I responded that in fact I had witnessed several demonstrations, that a particularly large one in 1996 received widespread media coverage.
"Since I can’t find it on Google, you’re obviously lying," Mr. Prager informed me—and his listeners—as we returned from a commercial.
As a professor of modern Middle Eastern history and Islamic studies at UC Irvine, I use Google dozens of times per day. But I was stunned by Prager’s remark, more specifically by the idea that a minute-long Internet search would provide sufficient evidence to pass judgment on a historical claim, let alone a person’s moral (and professional) character. But in today’s postmodern, depthless and confrontational culture, speed and stridency have become more valuable than accuracy and deliberation. Those who search for historical and moral complexity are too often shouted down and dismissed as liars or as supporters of the enemy—Saddam Hussein or American imperialism or both.
As our interview continued, Prager’s accusation, bolstered by his Google search, began to worry me. Could my memory have fabricated events in order to support a desired but inaccurate rendition of history? How could I know for sure without the benefit of another commercial break to out-Google him?
One thing was certain: listeners reached the conclusion Prager intended, as a caller expressed disgust at my "looseness with the truth."
Later, as my head cleared, I began to realize just how dangerous our on-air exchange was for the future of history—as a scholarly discipline and a public trust. To begin with, the Google standard of history assumes that if something hasn’t made it onto the web, it never happened. This is clearly nonsense, as there are innumerable contemporary events that never become Googleable "facts" because the people involved have neither the access to official "recorders of history" (such as reporters, activists or scholars) nor the technology to put it on the web themselves. Or the information could be on the web, but in Arabic, French, Japanese or a hundred other languages Prager might not have the software to decipher. Indeed, at the beginning of the show, Prager claimed, based on another web search, that I have never written anything critical of Palestinian violence. But, as I then informed him, I had in fact written an article in Le Monde after the outbreak of the Intifada in September 2000. Perhaps if he’d used google.fr, he would have found it.
Prager is shocked that Bill Kristol will be a columnist for the New York Times. "I think they’re embarrassed that they have [only] one who is on the right, David Brooks."
UK patients to medicate themselves. Isn’t socialized medicine wonderful?
David Brooks says Romney can’t win. I’ve been disenchanted with Brooks. Sometime last year he went all squishy, but his analysis here needs to be seriously considered.
Think you know how the Iowa caucuses work. Think again. John Fund of Wall Street Journal explains or tries to.
Passengers sue after being stuck in plane for eight hours. If people want out, they should be let out after a certain amount of time. This is ridiculous.
NYT says they don’t recognize America: Civil liberties destroyed, torture and murder condoned, kangaroo courts — you name the outrage GW has committed it. You didn’t know we were living in a fascist state? Have you eyes that cannot see? Ears that cannot hear?
Dennis talks to Brad Miner, a former literary editor of National Review. His latest book is Smear Tactics: The Liberal Campaign to Defame America.
Snow in Daytona Beach. Must man-made be global warming. What else could it be?
Mark Bowden defends waterboarding. Bowden is the author of Black Hawk Down and has a very clear understanding of who we are fighting. In reaction to the criticism to this piece, Bowden wrote a new one this weekend.
