Not a bad show tonight: Maher started off by saying that Romney lost the election with his reaction to the Libya killings. Pushback to that by Republican John Feehrey was rather rote and lame. Brit Economist editor Zanny Minton Beddoes (great name!) seemed to agree that Romney was running out of time.
John Legend was the first solo guest, and while he was good on voter suppression resistance, he was not so good on the Chicago strike. Claiming that he was not "taking sides" but was for the "kids," he repeated the tired line that the schools suck and we have to fire teachers to make them better. Maher (whose sister is a teacher) pushed back, but very mildly.
The panel was Feerhey, Zanny Minton Beddoes (I love that name!) and Chris Hayes. Hayes made some good points, and Maher, to his credit, brought up the Bush I 9/11 negligence revealed in the Eichenwald article.
Bob Costas was not bad, showing support for the NFL support for gay marriage, and had some good lines about how his first interview question now for everyone is his first question for Jerry Sandusky in his famous interview: "Are you attracted to young boys?"
But here's what pissed me off. There was a brief discuss of the debt and "entitlements" and no one challenged the idea, expressed by Zanny Minto Beddoes (did I mention I love that name?), that "we really have to do something to 'reform entitlements' because of the debt.
"Entitlements" are generically used as a big, bad expense eating up our future, but no one every talks about the human costs of "reforming entitlements." No one mentions whether elderly poverty may increase or burdens on families for caring for their elderly parents will increase. No one mentions whether cutting "entitlements" for children will endanger them.
No one ever mentions the Progressive Budget, which somehow balances the budget without cutting any entitlements. That is somehow verboten to discuss -- that there may just be a way to control the debt not on the backs of the elderly, poor, disabled and children. Not even Maher -- who loves to use a plate with chicken and potatoes to show how much of the budget is taken up by entitlements.
Finally, Maher's last new rule was pretty good -- a riff on how Money is really the God of the US. He mentioned the nutty "taking God off coins" line from Romney, but I think that's rich for a lot more material.