Bill Maher did NOT sell out.

Did you hear me? He did NOT turn to the dark side.

You people are incredible. The guy puts a few groups of College Republicans in his audience, is (reasonably) polite to the right-of-center guests, and doesn't give Jason Alexander 90% of the screen time, and you all think he sold out. Baloney.

I watched a rerun of last Friday's show, and I will tell you, it looked like he was challenging the "conservatives" just like he always does. In fact, the "conservatives" found themselves agreeing with Bill. If you thought Bill was agreeing with <i>them</i>, I suggest you try to watch it again.

Gov. Whitman was on plugging her book, which was entitled, "It's My Party Too," and was about how the ridiculous right has hijacked the Republican Party from the more reasonable ones (such as those found in the Northeast) we could probably live with if we had to. Is Bill's recommending this book selling out? I don't think so.

The middle chair was occupied by someone a bit further to the right Rep. Ileana Ross-Lehtinen (R-CA), but her performance was pretty much ineffectual, IMO. Not much to say about her.

Jason Alexander was his usual self, that is, in full George Costanza mode.

Gov. Murkowski (R-AK) was better than Rep. Ross-Lehtinen, but not by much. All he wanted to do on the satellite feed was crow about how Big Oil was finally going to get to drill holes in ANWR and Bill was shooting his arguments in favor of this full of holes.

All in all, it should have been a pretty disappointing show for the College Republicans, kind of like going out of town to see your favorite baseball team lose 3-0. I really don't see what certain of you are all worked up about. I really don't.

becasue of several things--I didn't see it, so if you get a chance, look it up to see what people ar mad about.

No everyone was surprised and grudgingly please with the Republican show; we were expecting worse.

He seemed to be easing on his anti-Iraq war status and buying into how well we are doing in Iraq. That pissed me off a bit.

He was saying if Bush said right off we're going to free the Iraqi people he would've been for it. :grr: We're not the world's police!!!

credit for being some sort of long term visionary? He's one of the poor confused souls who thinks that the elections somehow justified all that's happened to this point. It may not be selling out, but it is being intellectually and morally lazy.

It was clearly sarcasm, or as Al Franken call it, kidding on the square. I am surprised, even shocked, that more DU'ers didn't get it. Granted, Bill Maher is an equal-opportunity offender, and his brand of humor has a little more meat on it than most people's, but if you get George Carlin, Bill Maher should be a piece of cake.

I think Bill's just on a little too late for the majority of us to give him the full attention his act requires.

It's pretty easy to tell when he's being sarcastic/ironic, and it's also pretty clear when he's trying to pay the devil his due. For the last several weeks it's been pretty clear that Bill's one of those who have been overly impressed by the democratic process being employed for the first time in Iraq. While he will readily state that the war itself, and the way in which we got there are questionable the end results, eg. the elections, may trump all. Personally I don't buy it.

You dumbass. When you do, that is called "breaking the law." Some people go to jail for it. Unless their name is "Bush."

:thumbsup:

i have been watching bill maher since his start on talk tv with 'politically incorrect' (1993) and he was definitely NOT being sarcastic. he 'soft-balled' this particular show, imo. particularly since it was all righties. jason alexander only really made one comment and it also favored the admin. can't remember the issue but i distinctly remember being surprised at ja's stand on it.

i'm going to assume that bm is trying to attract more of the rw so that his shows will have the fire we so like. he has been very successful at getting rw-ers on his show. i WILL give him the benefit of the doubt and will not quit watching him. one show does not a bad season . . . or progressive . . . make.

ellen fl

Why did he go on other right-wing shows and say he was for the Iraq war because we're "giving them freedom"? Look at some of the horrific photos and tell me that's freedom! He was VERY serious indeed.

I was not one of those out to lynch Bill for the previous week's show, I actually missed most of it and only caught the panel afterward. That panel pissed me off much more than this weeks conservative panel. I've always known that Bill is more of a libertarian than liberal and have often disagreed with him. It pained me to hear how uniformed they all seemed to be on the Schaivo case and pains me more each week when he tries to give Shrub credit for a perceived uptick in the interest of democracy in the Middle East. Maybe I'm just supremely biased against Shrub and the Republicans, but it strikes me more as dumb luck rather than vision, furthermore I'm appalled any time we adopt an "end justifies the means" mentality.

I did watch the re-run. I will agree that he was "sort of" back to his usual self. I think he may have gotten a message. But I didn't think he let Whitman have more say. I wish she would have said more. Ross-Lehtinen seemed to control most of the show though. She kept butting in and it turned me off some.

Murkowski on the other hand seemed like an utter BUFF-OOOOOOOON!!

And he won't be on this Friday, I guess he has another engagement. Why does this happen with his show so much????

Bill uses this technique better than most, IMO. Ross-Lehtinen talked a lot, but she really didn't have much to say.

was actually more conservative than his conservative show.

If he really wanted to have a conservative show, why pick such a weak conservative for his panel. Christine Whitman isn't exactly Grover Norquist.

Why not shoot the moon and go for the Dark Lord of Mordor himself -- Tom DeLay.

Bill has ALWAYS been a hawk, but is liberal/libertarian in other views. The fact is, he's not afraid to get ALL viewpoints when discussing a topic, and I also feel he dissed the conservatives more than agreed with them...I'm kind of saddened by his Iraq stance, but he IS a hawk...and I agree with much of his philosophy...

His pointing out over & over to Murkowski that we need to get OFF the oil addiction was right on...what other programs do we see these kind of views discussed in the extreme???

I've never been one to just want the liberal viewpoint..the genius of Maher has always been to give you the full spectrum and let the viewer make up their mind...

I don't have cable to watch Bill Maher but I have been enjoying the threads here. Bill Maher is the cattle rustler who's being herded to the tree with a rope round his neck, till a lone voice calls out from the crowd and makes his impassioned plea. The mob pauses...

Maher got swatted for bringing Bill Hicks into the mix, when Bill Hicks had been blackballed long ago. In this unrelenting media mind fuck of supporting the troops (and Bush) no matter what, I think it could be useful to adopt Bill's viewpoint of being "for the War, but against the Troops." if only to point out the bulldozing of public opinion and perception mangement. Maher worships Ann Coulter, correct?
infowar whore. case closed.
what has he had to say about Gannon?

... but it was a backhanded compliment like "only someone really stupid and/or totally divorced from reality would try to bomb Iraq into democracy."

Needless to say 1) the experiment is not yet complete and 2) bringing freedom & democracy to Iraq was reason #10 down the list war justifications.

demostrations, suddenly we start hearing, "democracy on the march," "the Cedar Revolution." Bush is a hero, an idiot-savant. Democracy comes to the Middle East. (Heard anything lately? Organize a Peace March.)

I felt, and still do feel, that this was a fRight wing tactic to discourage people from marching. And I think, in some cases, it worked.

We had fewer on Saturday, the 19th of March, than on Thursday, the 20th of January.

It's not that I don't want democracy in the Middle East; it's that I want my boys home, all of them.

I resent all that took part in the propogandizing of Bush As Savior.

They all have a boss they are accountable to:

We all do to one degree or another.

When was the last time you quit your job because you toed the company line on a policy you thought was wrong or misplaced?

Maher is a libertarian. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. The problem comes with people ascribing goals and motivations to him that just aren't there. He's never claimed to be liberal although he is on some issues. I don't always agree with him and I don't always think he's as informed on subjects as he can be, but he is never anything less than honest and that's all I expect anyone to be. He's a professional devil's advocate more than anything else and to make him out to be anything else is absurd. He makes some very valid points along the way and to dismiss those when he doesn't 100% always say things we agree with is shortsighted.

He was flat, guests were not interesting and who cares about the audience.

.

Real Time With Bill Maher
Start:
April 15, 2005 - 6:00pm
Location:
Los Angeles

It's sure to be interesting.

n/t

He's a Libertarian comedian with serious problems dealing with women.

OK if you find him funny.

http://www.house.gov/ros-lehtinen/

not trying to be difficult :-)

edit: corrected geography of district, then recorrected myself. She is from Miami.

can't stand him

or any other so called "liberal" believe that Bush is either strong on fighting terror or has a "vision for Democracy" in any part of the world, they are too stupid to even speak of or are worse than less outs.

Granted I don't think Maher supports this admin's fucked up foreign policy, but if he does he can go fuck himself.

That's two shows in a row that Maher has sincerely praised Bush (and by extension, Bush's Iraq policy) as "visionary". BUH-BYE!

But he's going to have a 'come to Jesus' momnet when he realises what a fraud the Iraqi elections were and the 'wave of democracy in the ME' meme is total bullshit.

He was a little off the week before, but we can't all be perfect all the time. Real Time is still one of my favorite TV shows and Friday night is not complete without it.

I, glad you posted this. Demanding ideological purity is not such a good idea. IMHO That's what the other side is doing.

even when it dominates about 12 percent of what a guy talks about or atleast how much he stresses it.

That was his "conservative" show right? Meaning it's 1 episode.

Get over it reactionaries. Bill is awesome and he says things that aren't from the unestablished-lefty-orthodoxy that you people want so badly to be our version of Reaganite-dittohead-scripture.

Its about TREASON, fuck.

I won't bother to report your personal attack, you don't need the mental stress cause you've already cracked.

I have watched the latest shows, and he still seems pretty progressive to me. He was ridiculing Bush when he made the Iraq-related comments.