On July 27th, controversy arose during an interview with Bill Maher on Wolf Blizter’s show, The Situation Room, in which he had this to say about the American people in relation to voting for Sara Palin for President in 2012:
Wolf: (Of Sara Palin) Do you think she has a future nationally as a presidential candidate?
Maher: I don’t know about a presidential candidate, but I would never put anything past this stupid country.
Wolf: So, people are already complaining that you’re calling the United States a stupid country. I’m giving you a chance to clarify.
Maher: I don’t need to clarify. It is.
The following video below is a July 30th clip from The O’Reilly Factor. Bill O’Reilly, along with his panel, dissect Bill Maher’s statement he made during his interview with Wolf.
As an avid viewer of Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO, I have heard Maher several times call the American people stupid on his show. Many times his audience, mostly filled with liberals, laughs hysterically at him. I think Bill O’Reilly greatly misconstrues what Maher means though when he calls, "America stupid". O’Reilly sees Maher as a left-wing elitist, who is single-minded and critical of people who don’t share his opinions or beliefs. This could not be farther from the truth. Yes, Maher is blunt and extremely opinionated, but that’s his personality and how he attracts his fan base. However, to call him an elitist is such a load of crap. O’Reilly really must think that Maher and President Obama sit down every Sunday afternoon for brunch and brag about how good life is while sipping on their mimosas. I’m sure if O’Reilly actually watched Maher’s show or knew anything about him, he could see that Maher doesn’t play favorites. He has bashed the President on many things, ranging from the war in Afghanistan to overzealous spending and even health care. He won’t agree with someone just because he likes them.
As someone who watches his show, has seen him do numerous interviews/debates, read one of his books and enjoyed his documentary, Religulous; I think I can interpret what Maher meant, better than O’Reilly. "The whole is equal to the sum of its parts." Maher believes some parts of the whole are filled with stupid people, which renders the entire whole as stupid, despite there being intellectual parts to it as well. Maher thinks you’re stupid if take the bible as the word of God, if you think smoking dope is just as bad as smoking crack, and if you try to justify the war in Iraq or Bush's presidency. The list goes on a little more, but it really isn’t as long as one would think.
Maher also believes that some Americans are so blinded by ignorance, that it makes America as a whole look stupid. Ignorance is defined as, "uneducated and lacking in knowledge." Maher would say American ignorance is to choose to to be uneducated to something, but still try to form an opinion despite not having any factually evidence to support it. Maher would say that Sara Palin supporters are ignorant because all they see is this gun toting, baby making, layman term speaking woman that they wouldn't mind going hunting with or having a beer with. The intellectual Republicans that support Sara Palin are naive and only do so because the base of their party (Palin supporters) looks up to her. To go against the base, is political suicide.
O'Reilly's argument against Maher is tied to the fact that Maher does not like Sara Palin and O'Reilly, being the right-wing extremist he is, supports her in full. His fictitious remark that because she has a 54% approval rating in Alaska, she is therefore a good (or rather was a good) governor is absurd. I don't know about you, but I'm going to judge Sara Palin's performance as a governor on the sole basis of her quitting rather than a poll asking a thousand Alaskans what they thought of her.
So, to conclude, Maher doesn't believe every single American besides himself is stupid. He believes ignorant and naive Americans are proliferating this image of America's stupidity to the entire world. It started with Bush and his backers. Now it is continuing on with Palin and her supporters. Is there no end in sight?