I just finished watching Bill Maher on Hardball. Maher is a brilliant guy and an effective political satirist. He could only survive as a leftist because those on the Right never make fun of their own. We progressives can laugh at Carter, Clinton, Gore and Kerry. In fact, we consider it our fundamental right to be able to make fun of them and that's good.
But I must admit that I was getting a little irritated with Maher tonight. He was spending a lot of time making fun of "Frankenstein" Kerry and urging him to move to the left. It earned him laughs from Matthews, but he sounded more like the old Naderite who helped elect Bush in 2000 than a vociferous opponent of four more years of Bush.
Then came his close. He wants Kerry to play to the base, "not to try to grab some of the other guy's base. If I hear one more time," Maher said, "about people of faith for Kerry, I can't stand it." (quote is a rough approximation based on memory)
Well, Bill, if there are no "people of faith" for Kerry, he won't get 25%. Maher frequently expresses his disdain for the Christian Right as do I, but like many secular progressives, he has a hard time differentiating religious fundamentalists from religious progressives and an even harder time discerning indispensable allies. He might even be surprised at how mixed the reception might be to his cut among his HBO audience. Some "people of faith" happen to watch his show on a regular basis.
I guess Bill thinks that we "people of faith" in South Carolina should drop our plans to run full-page ads in the state's major papers proclaiming that, "It's not a sin to vote for a Democrat." Maybe Maher and some of those like-minded people I've encountered in the blogosphere think Christians -- all Christians -- really belong in the Republican camp. Well, they're wrong. We're not going to succumb to their slights and their narrow-mindedness. We're progressives and our progressivism, as hard as it is for them to understand, is grounded in our faith.
I've heard Maher serve as an excellent example for how all of us should recognize the variety of points of view within the Muslim community and always strive to show respect for Islam. He's no Christopher Hitchens. I only wish he, and some other secular progressives, would recognize the same is true for the Christian community, and that many of us are fighting hard for the same things that he is.