The scraping of excessively thin skin, in progress

TBogg points out an article by Dennis Prager (how Tom can read crap like Prager is beyond me), in which Prager is terribly upset that some twelve-year-old girl suggested at the Democratic National Convention that Dick Cheney should get a "time out" for his bad language on the floor of the United States Senate.

Interestingly, this is the first I'm even hearing of this girl; but then, I watched far less of this year's convention than any other since I became politically aware. But the fact that Prager can get this upset over an apparent "throwaway" moment at their convention is pretty illustrative, I think.

Two further things strike me from reading Prager. Here's the graf in which Prager really gets hot beneath his collar:

Of course, this girl has accomplished nothing compared to Dick Cheney. She has no wisdom, no humility and no knowledge beyond the leftist platitudes spoon-fed by her parents and schools. She is a mere child, more foolish than most, in that she actually thinks she has earned the right to publicly ridicule the vice president of the United States.

Well, of course she's accomplished nothing compared to a onetime Congressman, Secretary of Defense, White House Chief of Staff, and current Vice President of the United States. Neither have I. Neither has Dennis Prager. This is a sentence of colossal stupidity -- and it's just the lead-off hitter in the stupidest paragraph I have read in quite some time.

Then there's the second sentence. That one's really cute. "She's just spouting off whatever her parents have taught her!" That's quite the revelatory insight there, but I wonder if Prager has ever entertained similar thoughts about this political commentator from the Saved By the Bell set. I bet not. For Prager, the latter's probably a genius, ahead of his time. No spoonfeeding of platitudes for that kid, nosiree, Bob! That boy's got himself a fully-formed, rationally-concluded set of political beliefs!

And then Prager breaks out the big bat: "She thinks she has earned the right to publicly ridicule the Vice President of the United States!" Boy, there's nothing like seeing a nationally-syndicated pundit reduced to pouting-in-print, almost like -- dare I say? -- a twelve-year-old. But in any case, Dennis, obviously she thinks she's earned that right. And do you know why? Because the right to publicly ridicule the Vice President of the United States isn't earned: this girl has that right just by virtue of being an American. I think I read that somewhere in that Constitution thing people are always talking about -- or maybe that piece of paper they read ever July 4. Maybe even both.

Three sentences, each stupider than the next. That's got to be a record unmatched by any piece of writing since the script of the last episode of Three's Company.

EDIT: Link fixed.