MAHER: BEYOND POLITICALLY INCORRECT
Holy Christ! It’s a good thing that conservative bloggers have another target this weekend. Otherwise, Bill Maher would probably be given whatever the blog equivalent would be of a bath in boiling oil followed by a good, solid racking:
As the discussion moved to the attempted assassination of Vice President Cheney last week, Maher asked his panel why it was necessary for the Huffington Post to remove comments by readers concerning their disappointment that the attempt failed. As the conversation ensued, Maher said one of the most disgraceful and irresponsible things uttered on a major television program since Bush was elected.
In a nutshell, the host said the world would be a safer place if the assassination attempt succeeded. And, he even had the nerve to reiterate it. Here’s the deplorable sequence of events for those that have the stomach for it.
What follows is a verbatim transcript of Maher, Barney Frank, Joe Scarborough, and John Ridley discussing the issue. Please note the reaction of the audience:
Maher: What about the people who got onto the Huffington Post – and these weren’t even the bloggers, these were just the comments section – who said they, they expressed regret that the attack on Dick Cheney failed.
Joe Scarborough: Right
Maher: Now…
John Ridley: More than regret.
Maher: Well, what did they say?
Ridley: They said “We wish he would die.†I mean, it was (?) hate language.
Barney Frank: They said the bomb was wasted. (laughter and applause)
Maher: That’s a funny joke. But, seriously, if this isn’t China, shouldn’t you be able to say that? Why did Arianna Huffington, my girlfriend, I love her, but why did she take that off right away?
A “FUNNY JOKE” THAT THE BOMB WAS WASTED?
Maher’s “sense of humor” leaves much to be desired. Perhaps Bill could come up with a couple of other knee slappers about assassination. How funny would it be if a stage light dropped right on his head in the middle of one of his shows? That would be hysterical. Think about it. The physical comedy potential of watching a 200 pound light drop 30 feet and land smack on his noggin is incredible. The look on his face alone might get him an Emmy. He’d be right up there with Buster Keaton, the Three Stooges, and Chevy Chase. Maybe he could even manage to slip on a banana peel at the same time.
Now that would deserve “laughter and applause.”
And why is the fall back position of liberals like Maher that the poor sots who were cheering on the jihadi trying to kill Cheney were the real victims - victims of censorship? That’s loony as Barney Frank patiently tries to explain:
Ridley: It’s one thing to say you hate Dick Cheney, which applies to his politics. It’s another thing to say, “I’m sorry he didn’t die in an explosion.” And I think, you know…
Maher: But you should be able to say it. And by the way…
Frank: Excuse me, Bill, but can I ask you a question? Do you decide what the topics are for this show?
Maher: Yeah, I decide the topics, they don’t go there.
Frank: But you exercise control over the show the way that she does over her blog.
Maher doesn’t get it. He also apparently doesn’t get what it is to be a decent human being.
Maher: But I have zero doubt that if Dick Cheney was not in power, people wouldn’t be dying needlessly tomorrow. (applause)
Scarborough: If someone on this panel said that they wished that Dick Cheney had been blown up, and you didn’t say…
Frank: I think he did.
Scarborough: Okay. Did you say…
Maher: No, no. I quoted that.
Frank: You don’t believe that?
Maher: I’m just saying if he did die, other people, more people would live. That’s a fact.
First of all, no it is not a “fact” that more people would live if Dick Cheney died in that blast. Where on earth did that come from? What evidence is there that this would be so? Zero. Zilch. Zip. Nada.
It’s stupid. It’s beyond hatred and into obsessive, paranoid loathing to posit such a silly, puerile notion. In fact, if one were to give the idea a few seconds thought, my guess would be that the very next day, a helluva lot more people would die - almost all of them jihadis as we would almost certainly have told Musharraf to go to hell and bombed the crap out of the protected Taliban camps in the tribal areas of the northern provinces of Pakistan. So not only is Maher a miserable excuse for a human being, he’s an ignoramus to boot.
And what about that audience, eh? You go guys.
I did like Barney Frank and Joe Scarborough’s reaction - like they couldn’t believe what they were hearing. At least that shows them to be reasonably human. Why they didn’t get up and leave the lickspittle all by himself is beyond me. But reading Maher’s nonsense, it’s a chore just to keep my jaw from hitting the floor.
As for reaction from the left? Um…their attention is occupied elsewhere so we can’t be too hard on them. But somehow, I don’t think we’ll get Lambchop to write a 3,000 word screed condemning Maher’s “hate speech.” After all, calling someone a pejorative regarding their sexual orientation is so much juicier than the same old boring assassination fantasies about the national leaders of the United States of America.
UPDATE
Now this is a funny assassination fantasy:
Of course, by that same logic, were Maher to expire while eating a small mound of coke off the navel of some seventeen-year-old wannabe pop star, more people would probably watch HBO. And that’s just A FACT!
Exit question one: will Cheney embarrass himself by trying to turn this into a fundraising gimmick? Exit question two: given the left’s (appropriate) outrage at Coulter’s attempt to question Edwards’s masculinity, should we expect their snickering about the size of her adam’s apple to stop anytime soon?
Cheney warns against quick Iraq exit
A quick withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq could allow victorious Muslim extremists to fan out into
Trackback by Unpartisan.com Political News and Blog Aggregator — 3/3/2007 @ 4:18 pm
What Maher said about Bush a week ago on Leno is much worse than Coulter’s throw-away line about Edwards.
See here.
Comment by walt — 3/3/2007 @ 6:07 pm
See here.
Comment by walt — 3/3/2007 @ 6:23 pm
Let’s bomb the crap out of the protected Taliban camps in the tribal areas of the northern provinces of Pakistan anyway. If anybody complains we can give them Cheney. I’d rather have Cheney die for my country than have my country die for Cheney.
Comment by markg8 — 3/3/2007 @ 7:55 pm
[...] Right Wing Nut House » MAHER: BEYOND POLITICALLY INCORRECT [...]
Pingback by Right Voices » Blog Archive » Bill Maher Sorry Cheney Wasn’t Assassinated..Will The Left Denounce Him And Not Go On His Program? — 3/3/2007 @ 9:11 pm
DC: “If you support the war on terror, then it only makes sense to support it where the terrorists are fighting us”
Translation: “Shouldn’t we fight the enemy on the ground, and under conditions, of his choosing?”
It is this kind of incompetence that is getting our soldiers killed. Don’t even get me started on his (and Rumsfelds’) plan to pacify Iraq by filling the streets with 300,000 unemployed men armed with AK-47s (and who were quickly offered $10,000+ per attack on Americans by jihadis funded by his Saudi friends).
Too many of our soldiers have died because of his complete incompetence.
Comment by r4d20 — 3/3/2007 @ 11:43 pm
liberals like Maher
Huh, last I heard Maher was a Libertarian, but you want to use what he said to gin up outrage and score political points. Contrast this with the fact that Ann Coulter said what she said as an invited speaker at CPAC, to cheers from the audience.You complain:
I am sick to death of this woman leading people to believe that she speaks for conservatives. She doesn’t speak for me.
Then in your very next post you pretend Maher and whoever posted comments on a blog are represtative of liberals. Pathetic hypocrisy.
Comment by antiphone — 3/4/2007 @ 9:13 am
Hypocrite?
Where in that post do I say, hint, or infer that “whoever posted comments on a blog are represtative of liberals.”
I would suggest you get your eyes checked. Or perhaps a remedial reading course is in order. It is obvious your cognitive abilities don’t quite measure up, do they? Maybe you can ask some local 8 year old to help you read. Because judging by your comment, you haven’t reached that level of reading comprehension yet.
Comment by Rick Moran — 3/4/2007 @ 9:33 am
And why is the fall back position of liberals like Maher that the poor sots who were cheering on the jihadi trying to kill Cheney were the real victims – victims of censorship?
Hmm, it’s splitting hairs but no, I see you didn’t actually include the blog commenters. But the phrase “liberals like Maherâ€, clearly does attempt to portray one (Libertarian) opinion as representative of liberals.
Do you deny it?
Comment by antiphone — 3/4/2007 @ 9:53 am
It is obvious your cognitive abilities don’t quite measure up, do they? Maybe you can ask some local 8 year old to help you read. Because judging by your comment, you haven’t reached that level of reading comprehension yet.
Oh, and do actually think this kind of writing makes you sound intelligent?
Comment by antiphone — 3/4/2007 @ 10:02 am
As for reaction from the left?
Why should there be a reaction specifically from the left? What happened to the logic of Ann Coulter is a “controversy slut†who’s provocations should be ignored:
Why in God’s name the left falls for it and why the right then feels the need to respond is absolutely nuts!
Why should “the left†have to respond to Maher who’s on the right side of the political spectrum (Libertarian) and makes a living saying “politically incorrect†things, not to mention the fact that he has no role whatsoever in left leaning politics?
Comment by antiphone — 3/4/2007 @ 11:14 am
Antiphone,
“Hmm, it’s splitting hairs but no, I see you didn’t actually include the blog commenters. But the phrase “liberals like Maherâ€, clearly does attempt to portray one (Libertarian) opinion as representative of liberals.”
Actually, I believe the phrase “liberals like Maher” identifies an as yet unnamed subset of liberals. After all, there are many stripes of liberals and he clearly is not referring to “liberals UNlike Maher”.
Comment by h2o273kk9 — 3/4/2007 @ 12:03 pm
“Huh, last I heard Maher was a Libertarian”
Maher has said he is a “left-wing libertarian”, when there is no such thing. Libertarianism is, by definition, a right wing philosophy. In fact, it’s farther right than “normal” conservativism.
Comment by Shawn — 3/4/2007 @ 1:58 pm
“Oh, and do actually think this kind of writing makes you sound intelligent?”
Do you think being ignorant of political philosophy makes you sound intelligent?
Comment by Shawn — 3/4/2007 @ 1:59 pm
Maher is a self proclaimed Libertarian who endorsed Bob Dole in 96. You may not think he’s a proper Libertarian but that’s a different issue. To claim he’s a liberal demonstrates a childish simplification of terminology that categorizes everyone who disagrees with the Bush administration as “liberalâ€. It’s the political philosophy of Animal Farm.
Comment by antiphone — 3/4/2007 @ 10:04 pm
antiphone said
” To claim he’s a liberal demonstrates a childish simplification of terminology that categorizes everyone who disagrees with the Bush administration as “liberalâ€. ”
I see no evidence he is broad brushing everyone who disagrees with the Bush administration as “liberalâ€.
Where are you reading this? He was talking about Maher and those like Maher. How do you leap to the conclusion that he includes the rest. It appears that you may be the one guilty of sweeping statements.
Comment by h2o273kk9 — 3/5/2007 @ 7:49 am
Antiphone–I disagree with the Bush administration (stupid and incompetent–why go in to Iraq if not as a precursor to invading Iran and Syria? Hello!!!). I hardly think these good folks would classify me as a liberal, however. Methinks the lady doth protest too much…..
Comment by Basa Ulaanbatar — 3/6/2007 @ 10:27 am
Maher is on the “right side” politically like you’re on the “straight side” of sex, Mr. Antiphone.
Comment by Basa Ulaanbatar — 3/6/2007 @ 10:29 am