Dennis Prager uses half of what I said to the L.A. Times and gives the impression that I am one of those awful leftists who are \”either morally confused, immoral or lack courage.\”
Is there an issues that some Hollywood star — director, producer, actor actress — has not publicly commented on? It\’s hard to name one. Producer-director Rob Reiner has devoted years to imposing onerous taxes on poor people who smoke and to putting perhaps half of California\’s cigar and pipe stores out of business. Barbra Streisand has devoted yeoman efforts to promoting leftist causes (sometimes with malice, as in her recent letter to House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt in which she writes that \”industries, run by big Republican donors and insiders, clearly have much to gain if we go to war against Iraq\”). Ed Asner has devoted much of his life to defending leftist tyrannies.
My problem with Dennis Prager, author, radio host,newsletter writer, is simple: I like the man, but I just can\’t readhis writing. In person, I find him open, engaging, serious. In print,he comes across to me as narrow-minded, ponderous and self-involved.I usually settle my conflict by shying away from the publicpersona.
But with his new book, \”Happiness Is a SeriousProblem,\” and its appearance on the best-seller list, I thought Imight try again.
Imagine that it is 1940, and Great Britain is fighting Hitler\’s Nazi Germany almost alone. Imagine, further, that an American who loves both America and England and hates the Nazis works in American intelligence and has access to secret files concerning Germany that, for whatever reason, the United States has not shared with Great Britain. This American gives the secrets to England and is caught.
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