In the last few weeks with the "debate" on healthcare, the exposed stupidity of the "birthers" and the inability of republican lawmakers to denounce them for the crazies that they are without being driven out by those same "birthers" who are in the base, one thing has been latched on by right wingers and that has been some of the commentary from Bill Maher.
In his July 31st New Rules, his interview with Wolf Blitzer four days earlier, and his August 7th New Rules have led to accusations of elitism thrown at him, and unlike the results that right wingers always expect and usually get, Maher is unrepentant.
In fact, during the New Rules segment on friday he says:
And if you want to call me an elitist for this, I say thank you. Yes, I want decisions made by an elite group of people who know what they're talking about. That means Obama budget director Peter Orszag, not Sarah Palin.
Maher has actually discussed this point before. On an 2007 New Rules segment he said this:
New rule: Now that liberals have taken back the word liberal, they also have to take back the word "elite." By now you've heard the constant right-wing attacks on the "elite," or as it's otherwise known, "hating." They've had it up to their red necks with the "elite media." The "liberal elite." Who may or may not be part of the "Washington elite." A subset of the "East Coast elite." Which is influenced by "the Hollywood elite." So basically, unless you're a shitkicker from Kansas, you're with the terrorists. If you played a drinking game in which you did a shot every time Rush Limbaugh attacked someone for being "elite" you'd almost be as wasted as Rush Limbaugh.
And added:
I don't get it: In other fields -- outside of government -- elite is a good thing, like an elite fighting force. Tiger Woods is an elite golfer. If I need brain surgery, I'd like an elite doctor. But in politics, elite is bad -- the elite aren't down-to-earth and accessible like you and me and President Shit-for-Brains. But when the anti-elite crowd demonizes the elite, what they're actually doing is embracing incompetence.
His reasoning for the rant then was the discovery that Monica Goodling of the U.S. attorneys controversy was an alumnus of Pat Robertson's tier four Regent University Law School along with 150 others who worked in the Bush Administration.
Maher was as scathing then as he was now and finished the segment by saying:
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., asked at a hearing, "Should we be concerned with the experience level of the people who are making these highly significant decisions?" But in the Bush administration experience doesn't matter. All that matters is loyalty to Bush and Jesus, in that order. And where better to find people dumb enough to believe in George W. Bush than Pat Robertson's law school. The problem here in America isn't that the country is being run by elites. It's that it's being run by a bunch of hayseeds. And by the way, the lawyer Monica Goodling just hired to keep her ass out of jail? Went to a real law school.
Strong words then, and strong words in the last week denounced by people who always go on about personal responsibility and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps who don't like the idea of someone pointing out that they have people in their group who are dumb enough not to know which came first, the Old or the New Testament.
Not that democrats are totally immune. You can't jump on "birthers" if you link up with "truthers". George Bush is not a favourite of mine in any way even with some of the things done by him and his administration for me personally the 9/11 myths are a step too far.
But Maher's point, while brutally done is still pretty much correct in my mind. You want NASA run by a scientist, not an economist and if you are sick you would definitely want to be treated by House M.D rather than Dr. Nick Riviera from The Simpsons.
Poster VivaZapata on Huffington Post said:
The only exception i would take to this extremely funny bit is that it is not elitist to recognize that too many wrongheaded decisions are made by snookering an uninformed american populace. Borat gave us the best exemplification of just how much stupidity is out there because it came from the dummies' own mouths, but maher's statistical analysis is a close second
And sadly, that is correct. When someone can actually stand up and yell "keep your government hands off my Medicare" how on earth can you not want them to be more informed and how can you really get annoyed at the person pointing that out?