Marijuana advocate Bill Maher of “Real Time with Bill Maher” should consider putting down the blunt and doing more homework since he has a prominent cable show that purports to inform as well as entertain. Unfortunately, he would have to actually be informed to be able to support arguments he makes on his show, which doesn’t always seem to be the case.
For example, conservative media are now alight with Maher’s dismissing the attempted rape allegations against Brett Kavanaugh that surfaced at the end of the week. Maher claims to be a feminist, but the claim comes under question regularly, like when he often interrupts his female guests and does not let them finish their thoughts, or like last week when he chastised writer Michelle Goldberg for interrupting his “New Rules” segment to voice a difference of opinion.
As far as the rape allegations go, Maher apparently failed to hear journalist Jane Mayer recently speaking about the woman behind the allegation—how she had tried before the hearings started to be heard. This was not a last minute, concocted story. Considering that a nominee’s entire history is deemed relevant to his lifetime appointment to the bench, one would assume an accusation of attempted rape would rate at least an investigation into the matter, especially since it appears that Republicans may have known about it and assembled a letter with over 60 signatures of women Kavanaugh knew in high school whom he did not attempt to rape to try to counteract the story in only 24 hours. But Maher felt it made Democrats look bad to want to verify whether the candidate might have tried to commit sexual assault.
Maher showed himself equally ill-prepared during his closing monologue. One of Maher’s favorite hobbyhorses to ride is his adopting the right-wing talking point of the “weak liberals” who don’t fight the way he would like them to. This week, he blathered falsely about how the only people who speak out against the president are Republicans while Democrats are too polite or silent.
Except, as too often happens, he ignored the factual record to make a point to serve red meat to conservative media.
First, as evidence that Republicans are tougher on Trump, he cites quotations from sources saying that the president’s advisers have called him an “idiot” and “moron.” Maher fails to acknowledge that these are not the public statements of people who have to answer to voters but are the private comments of cowardly Trump staffers behind his back.
Next, Maher praises Republican news guests like former GOP strategist Steve Schmidt, former RNC head Michael Steele, Nicholle Wallace, and the like, for their tough stances and strongly worded condemnations. I agree that such figures should be commended for speaking out, but, again, Maher overlooks the fact that they are not politicians running for office. They are talking heads on television under no threat of backlash from voters.
Maher then bemoans the fact that he never hears Dems speak out, at which point, I had to start screaming at the television, because I could think of at least 20 Democratic politicians who have spoken out against the president off the top of my head. As I’ve alluded to earlier, you cannot compare apples and oranges. Politicians engaged in ongoing campaigns do not have the freedom to lash out like non-accountable TV personalities and individuals in whispered private conversations.
Politicians who immediately came to mind were Senators Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Corey Booker, Adam Schiff, Ron Wyden, Sherrod Brown, Bernie Sanders, Chuck Schumer, Richard Blumenthal, Kirsten Gillibrand, Jeff Merkley, Amy Klobuchar, etc. No, they don’t call Trump an idiot, but as legislators who represent voters, they have to be more careful with their words.
Maher had just had on John Kerry, who also spoke out…as has Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and more.
Dem media personalities who speak out regularly and as impolitely as Maher would prefer consist of the likes of Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers, Jimmy Kimmel, Michael Moore, Spike Lee, Samantha Bee, among many others. Maher must have forgotted the kerfuffles last year about all of the anti-Trump messages during entertainment award shows.
It’s clear why he forgot these instances. They didn’t conform to the narrative he has sold himself that Dems don’t fight back. Except he’s wrong. The White House staff secretly undermining the president’s orders are not the only people who have kept his presidency in check. The Dems have been pushing back and fighting. Too bad Maher’s too interested in his own perspective to notice.