Saturday, March 3, 2012

Bill Maher's Lenten Penitence (Because I'm Too Nice to Call It Moral Cowardice)

Bill Maher's pockets are one million dollars lighter, thanks to his donation to the President's SuperPac, and this week on Real Time, Bill reflected on the reason why he contributed that money.



Now, I'm a cynic, and I've lived long enough to realise that you should never underestimate either the ability of the Republican Party to frame a narrative or the stupidity of the American electorate to believe a horror story. I am very much aware of the fact that the President may lose.

I'm just about old enough to remember Richard Nixon losing the California gubernatorial election to Pat Brown. Nixon's petulant remark to the press about not having Dick Nixon to kick around anymore just about convinced the media of the day that Nixon was unelectable ... but he won the Presidency six years later. He won two terms.

Just as Maher references the public's feeling of absurdity at the thought of someone as conservative as Ronald Reagan ever sitting in the Oval Office in 1968, by 1980, Reagan had won the first of his two Presidential terms.

And then there's 2000, and it's kind of ironic listening to Maher extol the virtues of Al Gore over Dubya Bush, with twelve years' hindsight, considering the fact that Maher pushed the Nader ccandidacy during that election to the point of likening Bush and Gore as one and the same.

Regrets? He's had a few ...

And a few of those regrets most certainly have been the way he's undermined the President to his viewing public and all and sundry throughout the past four years - a result being we're in the precarious position of maybe having a Democratic President losing to someone as nefarious as a real-life version of Thurston Howell III in flip-flops or the illegitimate son of a Borgia Pope. (This isn't 15th Century Europe, and Rick Santorum isn't Cesare Borgia).

But, sadly, Maher does have a point. Because of the Citizens United ruling, whichever Klown Kar participant gets the Republican nod will have a veritable unlimited amount of finance from various and sundry corporate sugar daddies from the Koch brothers ad infinitum. There's no need for liberals - the West Coast variety and otherwise - to sit back on their comfortable asses and assume the President has this one in the bag.

No indeed.

Remember: The Democrats fall in love, whilst the Republicans fall in line, and they'll turn out for anyone with R after his/her name if it means removing the Negro from the Oval Office.

If Maher's Lenten act of contrition in the form of a prescient call to monetary arms in support of the Democratic candidate isn't enough, then harken unto the words of James Carville, Bill Clinton's strategist - honestly, he really was a political strategist - who was a vocal part of this week's panel, when he reminded people that instead of Rush Limbaugh being the de facto head of the Republican party, the Republican party now had actually become Rush Limbaugh, and these Rush Limbaughs were responsible for choosing and for voting for the inadequate and poor excuses for Presidential candidates you see before you now, vying for the nomination.

You can watch Carville's assessment of the Republican Party and its members below in the two clips from the panel part of Maher's show below. But contemplate this - it's all well and good for him to donate such a large amount of his personal fortune for the re-election of the President, but don't you think that should also come with an acknowledgement and reinforcement of what this President has actually achieved, instead of the abject fear of the country electing a Republican and Bill feeling the wrath of various tranches of his viewing public who remember the part he played in selling out the President?

Wasn't thirty pieces of silver part of the Easter story too?



1 comment:

  1. My problem with what Bill's saying is that there is more to politics than polls. The presidential election is in November 2012 not 2010. Another thing is that Reagan and Bush were much better politicians than the clowns we have out front right now. History is good but we always have to look at what's happening today. We have a big demographic shift happening right now. Women are more independent(they vote more). There is also the reality of Republican overreach in battleground states. There is also those few times that the nominee has to debate the president in front of an audience of normal people on national tv. Everything they have been saying will be used against them. That thought should be terrifying to any teatard or Republican. And they've all teamed up to fight the good fight against birth control. That's going to come back up during the debate. Weaseling out of that will be difficult.

    Bill Maher's a hack. He doesn't know shit about politics for real. The evidence I have is what he's said about gun control. He acts as if PBO hasn't been demonized since 2007. There wasn't the looney tune Glen Beck telling people he was trying to take their guns. Failure to acknowledge our political reality is a sign of hackism.

    Apologies for cussing.

    Vic78

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