Rachel Maddow was on Real Time with Bill Maher last night. In this clip watch her do two things really well: create one of the most entertaining analogies of the week, and do anything, anything, to get her point across.
Anyone that follows my weekly diary—and I mean you, five people!—know that I spend a lot of time and effort looking for political quotes every week. One of the easiest places to mine quotes is Realtime with Bill Maher, and those six months out of the year when it is on make my work a lot easier.
Last night, Steve Moore, Rachel Maddow and David Stockman were the panelists. I highly recommend you watch it or find a friend who has HBO, as there were great points made about healthcare and gun control. Maher also took advantage of Stockman being there to have a long conversation about Ronald Reagan, and this is a topic where Maddow knew her stuff.
One of the highlights was her takedown of Moore on Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), or what we older liberals call Missile Command. Moore, who spent much of the time trying to shout down Maddow with revisionary Republican talking points, found himself on the end of a stinging rebuke from the sharp-witted Maddow, who said the following to the delight of the crowd:
You know what, if you think you can shoot the bullet with the other bullet, you can have an awesome life in Annie Oakley's sideshow, but you should not be in charge of billions of dollars of the defense budget.
Like I said, it makes my job a lot easier. You'll see that one Tuesday when next week's quotes come out.
Anyway, a few minutes later, while trying to make a point about the devastating impact of Reaganomics on the middle class, Moore again attempted to talk over her. With gumption and determination to make her point that I don't think I've ever seen before in a televised back-and-forth without someone resorting to just shouting over the other person, Maddow first humorously raises her hand like she's in class asking for permission to talk, then finally stands up until she is allowed to make her point.
You can hear Bill Maher loudly laughing both times.
Update:
Thanks, for the recs, everyone. I really liked Stockman's comment as well, which got a huge laugh:
China? Are they going to bomb 3000 Walmart stores in the United States and thereby destroy their export machine?
It's funny that as obvious as the truth was in Stockman's point, Moore chimes in with perhaps the most stupid comment of the night: "I want to make sure they don't!"
Update 2:
Gooderservice tells us in the comments that the audio version of Realtime is available for free here. Note that the shows are audio only and are released on Tuesdays (which is also when Quote the Ravin' comes out, btw). Most people know that you can watch Overtime, ten extra minutes of the show that doesn't appear on HBO here.
Update 3:
Looks like HBO pulled my video. I can't complain, it was up for six hours and you guys made this the top rated diary on kos. Mediaite has a clip that starts later (it doesn't include the SDI part), but does include more discussion of Reagan's deficits and includes some talk of gun control. It has iframes, so I don't think I can embed it on this site. You can watch it here.