Monday, November 15, 2010

Time Marches On Bill Maher

A little over a week ago, unfunny comedian and ignorant but opinionated HBO star Bill Maher offered his assessment of the November 2 rejection of the Democratic Party. His conclusion? He concluded that since blue dog Democrats lost and leftists Democrats won, the answer to why the Democrats lost big time is that they didn't move far enough to the left fast enough.

"What does this [the huge loss] tell you?" asked Maher rhetorically. "You know, it tells me that this election was lost when Obama didn't back the public option [on health care]. To me, that was the one key thing that said to the people--You know what? This is no different than the Al Gore Democrats, the old Al Gore playbook. 'Let's run from our achievements. And let's not stand for what we believe in.'"

Somewhat surprisingly, Maher was challenged by the editor-at-large of Time Magazine, Fareed Zakaria. Zakaria was one of Maher's guests on his HBO show Real Time. Well, Time got real. Using the same sarcastic tone for which his host is famous, Zakaria retorted with: "It's difficult to imagine independents saying 'I'm gonna vote for extremely right-wing Republicans because Obama wasn't left-wing enough'--I think it's more plausible to say that they perceived, rightly or wrongly, that Obama had moved too far left. Fundamentally, 85% of the country has healthcare and worries about costs. 15% doesn't and worries about access. What Obama did was, he dealt with the issue of the 15% before he dealt with the issue of the 85%."

Although Zakaria characterized conservatives as "far right wing" and used the weasel-words "rightly or wrongly," this editor of a very liberal magazine laid Maher out. And that was while neglecting to mention that the concerns of the 85% were exacerbated by the passage of Obamacare, while the needs of the 15% were left largely untouched. In other words, Zakaria, a man of the left, analyzed Maher's conclusion from Maher's right. And his assessment made Maher's look very foolish. Zakaria was not willing to think that Democrats were choosing suicide by electing Republicans, including Tea Party candidates. They were simply saying, "we reject socialism."

Many Democrats love socialism, but as many do not. Much of the Democratic base is union labor. Even though the union bosses took their dues to promote socialism in very expensive campaign ads, nearly half of union workers voted to stop the march of Marx by voting for the other party. "Labor" is not nearly as leftist as "Big Labor Bosses."

Andrew Stern, the longtime leader of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and former bedmate at Barack Obama's White House, may spout "worker's of the world unite," but most plain union workers think Marx was a jerk, and vote on bread and butter issues rather than social philosophy. This time, nearly half thought that they were likely to run out of both bread and butter if the marching Obamists were not stopped in their tracks.

Zakaria, unlike Maher, picked up on all of this. He is able to distinguish between his own personal opinions and those of the elections he is analyzing. I don't think for one minute that Zakaria wanted the Democrats to lose. But he was able to do what Maher wasn't--step back, suppress his personal feelings, and look at what the real meaning of the Republican surge meant. And he concluded that moderate-conservative Democrats along with independents joined conservative Republicans in saying plainly: "Obama, the House and the Senate, are too far left." Poor Bill Maher still doesn't get it.

13 comments:

Tennessee Jed said...

Nice effen' picture, Hawk . . . and nice effen' post. I wonder if Maher actually thinks before he blurts. He always struck me as an only dish it out kind of a guy. It's funny how when he made his ill-advised comments about courage and suicide bombers, he was all about anti-censorship. I can't remember if he weighed in l'affaire Juan Williams or not, but would doubt it.

Tehachapi Tom said...

Hawk
Good insight into Maher and his blithering. The picture really is an icon for him. What a classless boob.
What has happened to our media that has resulted in gestures being allowed that would get you removed from any place except your car?
Of course the only safe way to not be removed from your car is to show it as passing at speed.

Tennessee Jed said...

I now realize that in the picture, Maher is just getting ready to scratch is nose in the manner of his hero, B.O.

Joel Farnham said...

Andrew,

If Bill Maher gets more mileage out of an ignorant opinion, more power to him. If he is typical of the Democrat reaction to the November election, we won't have too much of a problem in 2012.

Unfortunately, Zakaria is more likely to be the reaction. Hopefully, from all indications, Obama will cite Maher instead of Zakaria. Pelosi will too. I don't know about Reid.

Anonymous said...

Tennessee: Maher's comment about the bravery of the suicide bombers cost him his job at ABC. He might have survived it, but the accuracy of the statement was accompanied by a clear sympathy for the mass murderers. So he moved to HBO where his goofy and obnoxious opinions were more at home.

He didn't back down then, and he won't now. He is married to his leftist, anti-American opinions, and like Obama, is unable to admit the reality of the situation or that he might be looking at the facts wrong.

Anonymous said...

Tehachapi Tom: "Classless boob" is the best description of Maher that I've heard so far.

Anonymous said...

Tennessee: I thought he was getting ready to scratch someone else's nose in the Obama style, but you could be right. LOL

Anonymous said...

Joel: At one time, I would have worried that Zakaria's more logical interpretation in Time could be more dangerous than the frothing-at-the-mouth opinions of a nasty, sarcastic comic. Today, the magazine's readership is less than Maher's viewership. The upside to this is that Maher is preaching to the choir, and only those stupid enough to think the same way he does are watching the show for serious opinion anyway.

StanH said...

Maher for years professed that he was a libertarian. Andrew Breitbart was a guest one evening and asked something to the effect, “so I guess it’s safe to say that you’ve abandoned your libertarianism?” Following up about his support of all things Barry, Barrycare etc. The following deer in the headlights look into the camera by Maher was priceless. Bill Maher, is an avowed fool, and proves it with every show.

Anonymous said...

Stan: Maher probably considered himself a libertarian because he thought it had something to do with being a libertine. And probably for the same reason he doesn't like veterinarians, since they are doctors who treat veterans.

Individualist said...

You know it is somewhat ironic that leftsts usually only prevail in an election by restructuring a debate with blatant lies, ad hominem attacks, outright slander and where that does not work simply cheating at the ballot box.

Then when they get into office they cannot understand why the majority of people completely reject their policies.


I misremember how it goes Lawhawk but you are a lwyer so you may know better than I.... something bout fooling some people some of the time.....

Anonymous said...

Individualist: Please don't bring up lawyers from Illinois! LOL

darski said...

When Maher got spanked for his foolishness after 9/11 he lost all sense of rational discourse.

His narcissism matches that of his Dear Leader perfectly though.

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