Would the real Bill Maher please stand up? Who is he? I want to know. Is he a comedian or a political pundit? Is he a Progressive (as he claims he is), a libertarian (as he’s been on record in the past as saying) or a closet Republican (he did vote for Reagan the second time around and for Dole in 1996)? Is he a bona fide intellectual or a dilettante? An original thinker or a dedicated follower of fashion? Is he an atheist or is there a tryptiched altar in his bedroom, complete with votive candles and a picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus?
This is the man responsible for introducing the likes of Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, Grover Norquist and Christine O’Donnell into mainstream America. He counts Coulter amongst his best friends – one of two, I imagine, because media whore and Queen Ratfucker, Arianna Huffington is the other one. He lambasts the corporatocracy which has taken over America, yet bows from the waist in open admiration at Huffington’s defection to that realm of power and glory (not that she ever left off trying to break down the doors anyway).
He describes himself as a Progressive, but he openly supports the death penalty and racial profiling. He is anti-union and crossed the picket lines during the writers’ strike to carry on with his show. After the strike ended, he made it a stipulation that any writer working on his Real Time show not belong to a union. He is virulently against the National Endowment for the Arts. Whilst he was vocal in his criticism of George W Bush, he lauded him for the Iraqi surge. He’s a fervent defender of Israel.
If any other self-proclaimed “Progressive” openly claimed those credentials, he’d be immediately lambasted as a Blue Dog Dem, and that’s being kind. Those credentials are solidly Republican.
During the health care debates throughout 2009, Bill pushed the envelope in favour of the fashionable “public option,” even advocating Medicare-for-All when he interviewed Congresscritturs pushing that meme; but at the end of that season, in a lengthy interview with Bill Frist, he blurted out that he didn’t trust the government to administer any sort of health program, before launching into an anti-vaccine argument with Frist, a practicing physician, that belied his self-promoted reputation as a secular ratiionalist worshipping at the altar of science. The week before that episode, he engaged himself in a totally ludicrous argument with Jeff Toobin, criticizing what he called “Western medicine” and insisting that people left the United States dying of cancer for alternative treatments and lived to tell the tale.
In fact, Bill seems far cozier in the company of some of the most notorious conservative politicians and commentators, Frist included. Coulter, as mentioned, is his BFF; and the criminally-challenged Congressman, Darrell Issa is a frequent guest on Real Time, as is Dana Loesch, Matthew Continetti and the infamous Andrew Breitbart, whom he fails to challenge on any point and actually appears to protect.
In fact, it was the conservative writer, S E Cupp, who perspicaciously sussed that Bill’s strident atheism didn’t really appear to be non-belief at all, but rather, an anger at God. In fact, it’s only recently that Bill’s actually outed himself as an atheist. Until 2009, when Richard Dawkins awarded him his coveted Atheist of the Year award, Maher identified himself more as a questioning agnostic, saying that atheists were just as uncertain in their non-belief as fundamentalist Christians were in theirs. He actually admitted to believing in a higher power, just one which wasn’t the traditional view of God as the ultimate father figure.
The “Progressive” Bill Maher has shown himself openly queasy about Islam and Muslims, in general. In an interview with Anderson Cooper, in 2010, he quipped that, of course, Islam was a religion of peace. “There’s a piece of you over there and another piece over there, and that’s after the suicide bombers have struck.”
He was openly rude and blatantly disrespectful to Congressman Keith Ellison, one is Muslim.
And then, there are the remarks about the current President of the United States, referring to him disparagingly as “President Sanford and Son,” and lamenting the fact that Barack Obama wasn’t his idea of a real black President, one who would use ghetto-style language and intimidation techniques, even to the point of showing his Cabinet and Congress a gun tucked inside his suit jacket.
I’m positing that Bill Maher is a fraud, and anyone who looks at him either as an intelligent and fearless voice in the pundit community or an equally brilliant satirist, needs to wake up, smell the coffee and learn to think for themselves.
This is a man who follows the fashion of the easy money trail, rather than owning up to common sense principles that he’s afraid to avow publically because it would mean swimming against whatever the currently fashionable tide is concerning a popular topic of discussion or criticism.
He’s proven this with his attitude toward President Obama.
Bill was raised in a Democratic household, although now he doesn’t describe himself as a Democrat, and he’s too afraid to admit that he is, at heart, probably more of an old-style moderate Republican. It’s not unusual for someone to start life as a Democrat and then become a Republican – like John Boehner. Conversely, Hillary Clinton was formerly a Republican who switched parties along the way.
No, Bill’s a political starfucker. He leans Democratic when it’s cool to do so, and punches the Republicans when it’s the flavour of the moment to do that as well. And when the radical chic, whom he emulates and longs to join, find a trendy independent with a bone to pick, they push his meme too. Hence, Bill, along with those other two politically astute self-promoters, Michael Moore and Katrina vanden Heuvel, sold their followers on the message that it was all too hip to back Ralph Nader in 2000, because Bush and Gore represented the same corporate animal.
There you go. Bill enabled George W Bush, but then Bush gave him some great comedy moments and, no doubt, lined his pockets with money to ferret away from the California tax authorities, so who’s complaining? Not Bill.
Now we’re seeing Bill sell his dismay about Obama with everyone from Piers Morgan to Lawrence O’Donnell. I remember when he started this meme, and I remember the background to it, and it’s the background which, I believe, is sincere and incongruent to the undermining message he’s promoted on and off since then, which has done enough harm to the President, but serves only to enhance Maher’s own publicity. I don’t have any problem with self-promoting hacks, but I do have a problem with people who hang on their every word and follow them to the point that they convolute themselves in contradiction.
At the end of Bill’s 2008 season, the week after the Election, Bill – who was genuinely pleased with an Obama triumph – sat at his panel’s table and discussed with Jon Meacham how exactly they thought Obama would govern as President. Bill acknowledged that Candidate Obama had run as a centre-Left pragmatist and admonished Progressives not to get caught up in the hope that he would be able to pursue an exclusively Progressive agenda. He even warned that the Republican party, although defeated, was anything but down and out and would be an obstructive force with which to reckon.
He and Meacham then agreed that Obama would have no recourse but to govern from the centre and would have to seek bipartisan support from the GOP for certain measures. Bill even cited Mario Cuomo’s famous quote about politicians campaigning in poetry and governing in prose.
So far, ao astute. So sensible.
Fast forward to February 2009, and Bill’s first program after his hiatus. He took a break from comedy in his monologue, to remind his audience of the immense obstacles, especially with the economy, facing this President. He was right in saying that Obama was essentially the black man brought in to clean up the mess made by the entitled white man. He was actually facing the worst economic situation since Roosevelt’s first term, but then Bill reminded people about the public in Roosevelt’s time, the so-called Greatest Generation, of which Bill’s parents (and mine) were a part.
Bill reminded his llisteners that the President had said that this would take time, that he couldn’t do it without the public’s help, and that was reasonable.
“I hope,” he said, “that now we’ve got our man in the White House, that people are just going to sit back and expect him to perform miracles and right this situation right away, because that’s not the way it’s done. It’s gonna take some time, and we all have to tighten our belts. But, you know, I’m not so sure this generation is able to do that, not like our parents’ generation.”
He went on to explain how his parents had lived through a Depression and a World War. They were suffering when Roosevelt asked them to tighten their belts even more during a real Depression, and they came off that, only to be asked to make sacrifices during a war. They got on with it and did what was asked; but he was right to single out the immaturity of people in present times. He actually ended his spiel by wryly reminding people that this wasn’t a matter of just cleaning house, and the President wasn’t that sort of servant.
Again, brilliant summation.
By the third week in June, he was castigating the Republican party for moaning about Obama always being on television; by the fourth week in June, 2009, Bill abruptly changed tack, in one week: Now he was moaning about Obama being on television so much that he’d done nothing since he’d become President. He seemed to enjoy being in front of the camera too much. Why, the only thing he’d accomplished in the first 100 days was getting a dog. Where were the WPA-style jobs’ programs, where was healthcare? And then the killer line: Why couldn’t Obama be more like Bush in ramming legislation through? Why couldn’t he have more of the Bush swagger?
Such bodacity garnered Bill umpteen appearances on talk show after talk show and the floodgates on Obama-bashing opened in earnest. As time went by, Bill loved to remind people that he was the first political commentator who dared to criticize the President. By the end of that year, he was snarkily referring to him as “Barry,” emulating the pithy and petty old white men of the Tea Party he disdained. When the President fulfilled a campaign promise of implementing a surge in Afghanistan, Bill tweeted indignantly that Obama was now “just like Bush.”
This carried on to a lesser degree – racist comments aside – during 2010. At least Bill had retained enough of his integrity to realise that 2010 was a Midterm election year, and that the Democrats were in danger of losing out. But in the aftermath of the Midterms and after the tax cut compromise, he took to the airwaves on Fareed Zakaria’s program to label the President a “pussy.” He’s since called him that once again in recent weeks.
In fact, the only time the President has received any approbation from Bill Maher this year was when Osama bin Laden was killed.
Since then, his constant meme has been “caving” or wishing that Obama had pushed Democratic principles, and insinuating that Obama is a Republican at heart.
Singularly oxymoronic from a man who openly supports the death penalty, who’s on record as being anti-union (please, the attention paid by Maher to the Wisconsin debacle was fashion-following only), who’s against the NEA, who defends Israel in every corner, who starfucks Bibi Netanyahu, and who doesn’t have a problem with American citizens getting assassinated without due process.
Bill Maher says Obama is a Republican at heart.
As for the President not promoting Democratic principles, I presume Bill hasn’t heard about the following:-
■- The Lily Ledbetter Act (ensuring equal pay for women doing the same work as men – but wait! Bill Maher’s got a sexist problem with women).
■- The Matthew Shepherd Hate Crime Act (but wait! In 2007, no less than Alan Simpson, ripped Bill a new asshole, when he made an untimely gay joke, to which Simpson took offense)
■- The Dodd-Frank Act (but wait! Bill wholeheartedly approves of BFF’s Arianna Huffington’s entry into the Wall Street arena)
■- The Affordable Care Act (but wait! Bill’s on record as being against anything like a Congressional Act which regulates healthcare)
■- Repeal of DADT (enacted by the man Bill would crawl over broken glass to interview, Bill Clinton)
■- Pushing for the repeal of DOMA (another Clinton accomplishment)
There are other things. Bill, like most of his ilk, failed to see that the compromise secured by agreeing to extend the Bush tax cuts for 2 years, contained many valuable benefits for the unemployed, the poor, the working poor and small businesses. But Bill wouldn’t see these things, simply because he has no occasion to think about them. He simply isn’t concerned. And, by the way, just to detract from Bill’s constant meme of Obama being a bad negotiator, the tax cut compromise was negotiated by Joe Biden.
And this week he’s back, singing the same old song of Obama disappointment on Lawrence O’Donnell’s MSNBC show, when in reality, he was conflicted to the point of confusion. On the one hand, Bill understands very well that the President has to react the way he does at various times because he’s contending with an Opposition who’ve made no secret of the fact that their aim is to destroy Barack Obama – as a President, as a politician and as a man. And yet, he undermines the President in the next breath, by insinuating that he was naive to want bipartisan cooperation, that he was needy in “wanting the Republicans to like him,” that he was a bad negotiator (yet again) and was caving to their demands by not demanding revenues in exchange for spending cuts (when it was Harry Reid, who famously caved in this instance, after the Republicans had walked out on the Presidential negotiations).
Finally, by beginning his interview with O’Donnell with such an infamous qualitative statement as “I like Obama BUT …” he simply reveals that he doesn’t like the President at all, which indicates that Maher is either stupid enough not to have listened to the President at all during either the campaign or his early months in office or that he’s enough of a shallow starfucker to herd-follow the Professional Left shills who gratuitously criticize absolutely everything this President does or doesn’t do which doesn’t meet with their high purist standards, in an attempt to grift a spare buck and some free publicity.
Because I’ve heard him speak eloquently and intelligently in defence of this President and because he was still astute enough to realise that something as straightforward as increasing the debt ceiling (a procedure in which no President in recent history has had to involve himself directly) is a manouevre to destroy the country’s economy in an attempt to bring down one man, I believe the latter.
Like his mommy-figure, Huffinton, Bill’s all about self-promotion and getting as much attention as possible. And he wants to play with the big kids, be in with the in crowd. It’s cool in Bill’s world to be a Progressive hating on the black man in the White House, and when Bill derides the stupidity of Americans and manages to convince the dittoes who follow him religiously that he’s a Progressive who’s OK with the death penalty and who’s not ok with defending labour through unions, then he’s laughing all the way to the bank at such singular inability to think critically; but he’s not going to complain if it makes him some money.
At the end of his interview with O’Donnell this week, Lawrence asked Bill if there were even a remote part of him who was hoping for a default on the national debt for comedic purposes. Bill replied that he had money; even he wouldn’t want to see that happen. But I have a sneaking suspicion that he’d like to see this President fail and a Republican in Office in 2012.
After all, a Republican in the White House is just so much better for comedy.
Speaking Truth to the Power of the Lying Liars of the US Media, Right AND Left.
Showing posts with label Real Time with Bill Maher. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Real Time with Bill Maher. Show all posts
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Real Tense Real Time
Real Time with Bill Maher hit the boards running for its eighth season a couple of weeks ago, and I held out great hopes for my favourite fundit program, after a decidedly iffy season last year which ended in confusion.
However, I’m hoping I didn’t speak too soon, as it stalled in what it sought to deliver in the third episode of the season, which aired Friday evening.
A commentator on Bill’s MySpace page deemed the episode ‘caustic’, another friend of mine thought it was ‘quirky’ more than anything else. I thought it just oozed tension, and I’m at a loss to understand why.
To begin with, the guest list was a bit thin on the ground – three guests in the studio, including the one-on-one interview and a satellite interview with a dodgy connection. I think Bill struggles to get people to commit to appearing on the program, and whether that’s the nature of the host or the venue (Los Angeles is as long a flight time from the East Coast as New York is from London), I don’t know.
We’re three programs into the new season, and there’s yet to be a elected politician to appear. The result of this difficulty is that we keep seeing the same recurring guests, almost as ‘regulars’: most of the guests who’ve appeared already are repeat performers.
I approached this week’s instalment reluctantly. Arianna Huffington was a panel guest, and to say I loathe this diehard neocon corporate media whore disguised as a Progressive voice only when it became openly fashionable to hate Bush is being kind. The last time she appeared on the show last season, in the cohorted company of fellow (open) Republicans Darryl Issa and Jack Kingston, that trio so railroaded the discussion sequence that Bill, the host and moderator, was reduced to looking like a cross between a bewildered child at the adults’ table and a confused spectator at a tennis match watching such a never-ending volley that he’d forgotten who had the serve.
I’m still at a loss as to why the media in the US continue to give this intellectual lightweight and parvenue airtime to spout her ridiculous talking points, made only to enhance her own publicity; but then, I remember when Mrs Huffington, minus the ex-husband’s divorce settlement and the Wall Street hedge fund, was merely Miss Stanisopoulous, the daughter of a corrupt Greek politician, trying desperately to be taken seriously as an arch-Right conservative by the truly Progressive, serious British media intelligensia.
They considered her a joke.
Bill’s guests this week, besides the Queen Mother of Media Whores, included Andrew Ross Sorkin, financial correspondent for The New York Times, Sean Penn and (from New York) Michael Moore.
Although his previous two monologues this season had hit the bullseye for which they were intended, Bill’s monologue this week fell curiously flat. He wittered on about Oscars’ week, with the inevitable Sarah Palin joke.
I know Palin was a particular target and bete noire for Bill during the campaign and he eviscerated her shallowness with brilliant panache; from time to time, she surfaced last season, but only when she’d done something to merit newsworthy comment – like resign.
This time, I’m getting the uneasy feeling that Bill’s baiting Palin, almost stalking her with continuous snarky comment and open ridicule, and for a curiously self-serving purpose. Of late, those whom Palin has targeted with her snide and ill-founded observations, have achieved almost victim status – Letterman, Rahm Emanuel, Seth McFarlane and Family Guy – all rose like phoenixes from the ashes of her ignorant remarks and misconceptions.
In short, Palin’s invective got publicity for both Letterman and McFarlane, and even Rahm was seen in a more sympathetic light as almost an arbiter for freedom of speech.
Bill’s not above promoting himself shamelessly, almost by any means. That he compromised himself greatly last season with a blatantly opportunistic editorial, slating President Obama for ‘not doing enough’ a mere six months into his Administration, was all too obvious, especially if one cared to remember that the week previous to that particular editorial (June 16th), he was roundly criticizing the GOP for saying the very same thing about the President. Still, it achieved the end Bill desired – he ran the gamut from Blitzer to Olbermann, starting the Obama-bashin’ fashion that the base of the Progressive Left adopted with a fervour unseen since they campaigned for the man during the election.
A lot of real Progressives today still blame Bill for sounding the hammer blow that created a very noticeable ructure in the Democratic Party.
I think Bill is baiting Palin for the same reason. He’s relishing a response from this woman. He wants her to target him, to point a finger, to Twitter a tweet or sully her Facebook page with a diatribe against big, bad Bill Maher, which would gain Bill a soupcon of sympathy and a gaggle of publicity. Thing is, I get the impression that Palin isn’t much of an HBO fan, and I seriously doubt she’s even heard of Bill. Were I he, I’d leave off Palin. He’s only feeding fuel to her fire, and besides, as a part of his monologue and stand-up, she’s becoming boringly predictable as a reference.
But after the monologue, the atmosphere began to become almost surreal.
Sean Penn was the first guest, booked to talk about his humanitarian effort in the wake of the earthquake in Haiti and to plug the relief organisation he had established for that purpose.
I found this odd, to say the least, especially since one of Bill’s ubiquitous tweets during his hiatus had criticised the continuous news emphasis on the disaster by the mainstream media, to the exclusion of any other news. I understood Bill’s complaint; he’d reiterated the media’s propensity to flog one news item like the proverbial dead horse, but the tweet did come across to many as the whiney complaint of a bored adolescent. The other thing I found odd about the interview was Penn, himself.
Penn, florid of face and neck, with a dull, dazed look in his eye, was clearly drunk. More than that, he was a woozy, rambling, incoherent drunk.
To Bill’s credit, his interview questions were flawless. Under normal circumstances, he would have been pushing the right buttons, with the questions he asked. but circumstances were anything but normal. The result was that Penn’s answers rambled on ad nauseam, and he never truly answered any question.
For example, when Penn finally got to the point of his first answer – that the United States needed to give more, more and yet more again to Haiti in an effort to rebuild a viable infrastructure there, Bill, rightly, countered by asking Penn why he sought to concentrate his efforts on Haiti, when there was ample evidence of infrastructural decay in the United States and a plethora of Americans suffering badly as a result of the dire economic crisis.
Valid question; in fact, one many people have been asking in light of this.
This elicited another incoherent and torturously twisted reply from Penn, the gist of which being that by giving – yes – more, more and more again to rebuild Haiti, the US would be a better nation and benefit and learn from the Haitian people. Learn what, exactly, he never specified, and it’s doubtful that he knew. By that point, Penn was just phoning in his replies.
The interview wasn’t without controversy, however. Finally, Bill brought up the subject of Hugo Chavez, a particular ‘friend’ of Penn’s and one whom the actor has defended vociferously. The ensuing reply on Penn’s part is a testimony to the fact that, just because one is an extremely talented actor and icon for a generation, it doesn’t necessarily follow that the person has any great intellect, or even basic common sense.
Bill referred to Chavez, the dictator.
Penn quickly took umbrage. Chavez, he replied, in a pique, was most definitely not a dictator, but a legitimately elected head-of-state. In Penn’s mind, that’s not a dictator.
I disagree. Hitler was legitimately elected. So was Mussolini. So was Bush, allegedly. And elections can easily be rigged to favour the strong man who wants to rule. Look at Italy’s Berlusconi. Again, look at Bush and the Republican techniques. I’m sorry, Sean, this dude’s a dictator and a dick.
Bill then pointed out the fact that Chavez had shut down television and radio stations and newspapers who were openly critical of him, but Penn would have none of that. In fact, he declared, anyone in the United States, and especially in the media, who insisted on calling Chavez a dictator, should be put in prison.
From where I’m sitting, it looks as though Sean’s close association with Hugo Chavez hasn’t been for nothing. That’s a blatant denial of First Amendment rights - so are we to infer that the humanitarian and Academy Award-winning actor approves of a suppression of Freedom of Speech? What a walking advertisement for the Left in the face of the Right. And a blatant one as well.
The other interview came midway through the panel discussion with Michael Moore. It was beset by satellite difficulties, as Moore was attempting to be broadcast from New York City, outside Goldman Sachs. Bill was clearly frustrated by the delay, and Moore was frustrated as well, although by what, it was unclear. It was a tetchy, almost irascible interview, from the beginning, done to publicize the fact that Moore’s latest cinematic offering, Capitalism: A Love Story, was now available on DVD.
As the impending Oscars ceremony served more as a veritable Banquo’s ghost than as a backdrop to this episode, Bill began the interview by reminding Moore that it was Oscars weekend and that Moore’s film hadn’t received a nomination – although he couldn’t imagine why, Bill added for good measure. Clearly a joke between friends, but Moore failed to see the humour and tetchily remarked that, for what it was worth, he thought Bill’s documentary Religulous should have won the Oscar the previous year. (It wasn’t nominated).
Moore then went into a diatribe about the evils of Wall Street and the sufferings of the ordinary citizen in the wake of that, which – for some reason – elicited an irritated response from Bill, in which he noticeably raised his voice. Thereafter, the four-minute clip tailed off with Moore remarking that he’d written a letter to President Obama – understanding that Rahm Emanuel was about to leave – offering him his services as Chief of Staff for the salary of $1 per year and a bed in the White House basement.
In the moments after the interview had ended, Bill made two rather snarky allusions to ‘St Michael’ and ‘the spirit of St Michael’, obviously on the tail end of what amounted to a locking-of-horns encounter, no matter how unintentional that was.
The surrealism of the episode was heightened by the fact that almost nothing of any newsworthy event referenced in the panel discussion. It was patently obvious that the panel was there only as a prop for Huffington to publicise her ‘Move Your Money’ movement in an effort to cripple the four big, bad lending banks.
I find Huffington faintly ludicrous at the best of times. She usually manages to muscle in on any discussion and dominate the proceedings, and this time was no different. Bill began the panel discussion by singling out her ‘Move Your Money’ meme, adding a bit of self-promotion for himself, considering that she asked him to do the promotional video which was released on YouTube.
Now we get to the funny part.
Bill asked Andrew Sorkin, author of the book Too Big to Fail about what he thought of the idea of a mass movement of people taking money from the big four bad boys and placing it in locally-owned banks and credit unions. Sorkin remarked that he thought, in principle, Huffington’s idea was a good one; however, there were drawbacks to her idea:-
First, if everyone ‘moved their money’ from the big guys to the small fry, the banks that formerly had been too big to fail, would ... fail, and that wouldn’t be good for the economy. Secondly, many of the so-called local banks weren’t actually independent entities, themselves. Many were part and parcel of the very organisation Huffington sought to scupper.
(Huffington’s always out to scupper someone or something which effected a perceived slight on her fragile ego. Her vendetta against Clinton in the late 90s came as a result of her husband having lost a Senate race to Barbara Boxer; her vendetta against Tim Russert came from Russert’s wife having outed Michael Huffington in an article years before his sexuality became common knowledge; her vendetta against newspapers arises from the newsprint media failing to consider her a viable and reliable journalist, in her own right. So I can only surmise that her vendetta against the big banks comes from some kind of cashflow problem, which they can’t help her remedy – or at least more from that than out of any concern for ordinary people).
Thirdly, Sorkin concluded, these small local banks and credit unions weren’t entirely clean, themselves – that they employed a stringently vociferous group of lobbyists, whose job it was to nobble Congress, and were, in fact, more opposed to the President’s idea of regulating the banking industry than the big guys were, themselves.
At that moment, Huffington chose to suffer from a bout of selective deafness, because later, in her internet newsrag, she trumpeted the fact that Sorkin had given a pontifical blessing to her ‘movement’ and agreed with her entirely, although he actually didn’t ... such is her arrogance.
That moved the discussion onto the plight of the middle classes, where Huffington held forth on the fact that anger directed at Wall Street was a unifying factor between the middle class and the Teabaggers (and, in doing this, somehow managed to make Michael Moore sound like teabagging material). There followed a five-minute discussion between Huffington and Bill about the sufferings of the middle class and how the government and financial crisis was failing them.
I’m sorry, but I was mightily offended by what amounted to a dinner party discussion between two faux liberals talking about a demographic of people of whom one had actually forgotten he was ever a part and of whom the other had no real contact in her daily dealings. It was a moment straight out of a grotesque Goya painting of two narcissistic egoists paying pithy lip service to the plight of the little people and giving themselves congratulatory pats on the back for having noticed that a problem exists.
Frankly, it was insulting.
This led further into an unusual discussion about an American reality television program, Undercover Boss, which Bill, in a rare moment of realising that he was born a son of the working middle class, found insulting to ordinary people, and which Huffington, surprisingly in her Zsa Zsa-plays-Lady-Bracknell mode, found enlightening.
The whole discussion was pointless, with respect to current events. It was an exercise in publicizing Huffington’s latest venture, an opportunity for Bill to reiterate and reinforce the fact that he really, really did like President Obama, but he wished he could have acted tougher last year – the same old same old complaint he’d whined about since June 2009, only not as forcefully. (Earlier last month, in an interview clip with Joy Behar, I noticed the best-seller Game Change on the shelf in Bill’s office. He’d do well to read and digest the content of this, because ‘No-Drama Obama’ is the President’s schtick).
The New Rules weren’t Bill’s best, and the editorial was a bit of fluff, which, in other circumstances, might have been funny; but in these current times, came across as Bill’s Marie Antoinette moment.
It was an extollation of Hollywood’s virtues as an industry that was entirely American and didn’t come cap-in-hand to the government asking for help. (Of course, it never dawned on Bill that the film which won the Oscar last year was not an American film, or that most films aren’t actually made in Hollywood these days, mainly due to excessive costs). He excoriated the Republicans’ current triviality of promoting their two rising stars (yet another reference to Sarah Palin) as having been a local beauty queen and a nude male centrefold. Hollywood deserved the big party that accompanied the Oscars, as ribald, rambunctuous and excessive as it could be, and the public be damned in its criticism. (‘Let them eat cake, anyone?’)
One of the core messages of the editorial was the fact that any celebrity in the town who openly admitted to being a Republican, was usually of the naff, z-list variety: the late Sonny Bono, Fred Thompson or Fred Grandy, whose chief claim to fame was having played Gofer in The Love Boat.
Amongst the ueber-cool A-listers, only Democrats could be found.
Forty-eight hours later, that left me wondering on what list Bill, whom I love dearly as a fundit, when he’s thinking for himself and not aiming to please others for his own plaudits, could be found ... not the ueber-cool A-list, if this tweet, made in the early hours of Monday morning, whilst moving amongst the exalted at an Oscars’ after-party:-
"Actors are just the bestest people in thw world! We are so lucky to be sharing the earth with them!! Fuck!!!" (Typos are Bill’s).
Sarcasm? Heavily laced. Bitterness? A smidgeon. Jealousy? More than just a bit.
Billy, I love the bones of you, and for that, I’ll rate this episode 7 out of 10, but – damn! – it must be a heavy chore being Arianna’s Gofer. You’re much better than that.
However, I’m hoping I didn’t speak too soon, as it stalled in what it sought to deliver in the third episode of the season, which aired Friday evening.
A commentator on Bill’s MySpace page deemed the episode ‘caustic’, another friend of mine thought it was ‘quirky’ more than anything else. I thought it just oozed tension, and I’m at a loss to understand why.
To begin with, the guest list was a bit thin on the ground – three guests in the studio, including the one-on-one interview and a satellite interview with a dodgy connection. I think Bill struggles to get people to commit to appearing on the program, and whether that’s the nature of the host or the venue (Los Angeles is as long a flight time from the East Coast as New York is from London), I don’t know.
We’re three programs into the new season, and there’s yet to be a elected politician to appear. The result of this difficulty is that we keep seeing the same recurring guests, almost as ‘regulars’: most of the guests who’ve appeared already are repeat performers.
I approached this week’s instalment reluctantly. Arianna Huffington was a panel guest, and to say I loathe this diehard neocon corporate media whore disguised as a Progressive voice only when it became openly fashionable to hate Bush is being kind. The last time she appeared on the show last season, in the cohorted company of fellow (open) Republicans Darryl Issa and Jack Kingston, that trio so railroaded the discussion sequence that Bill, the host and moderator, was reduced to looking like a cross between a bewildered child at the adults’ table and a confused spectator at a tennis match watching such a never-ending volley that he’d forgotten who had the serve.
I’m still at a loss as to why the media in the US continue to give this intellectual lightweight and parvenue airtime to spout her ridiculous talking points, made only to enhance her own publicity; but then, I remember when Mrs Huffington, minus the ex-husband’s divorce settlement and the Wall Street hedge fund, was merely Miss Stanisopoulous, the daughter of a corrupt Greek politician, trying desperately to be taken seriously as an arch-Right conservative by the truly Progressive, serious British media intelligensia.
They considered her a joke.
Bill’s guests this week, besides the Queen Mother of Media Whores, included Andrew Ross Sorkin, financial correspondent for The New York Times, Sean Penn and (from New York) Michael Moore.
Although his previous two monologues this season had hit the bullseye for which they were intended, Bill’s monologue this week fell curiously flat. He wittered on about Oscars’ week, with the inevitable Sarah Palin joke.
I know Palin was a particular target and bete noire for Bill during the campaign and he eviscerated her shallowness with brilliant panache; from time to time, she surfaced last season, but only when she’d done something to merit newsworthy comment – like resign.
This time, I’m getting the uneasy feeling that Bill’s baiting Palin, almost stalking her with continuous snarky comment and open ridicule, and for a curiously self-serving purpose. Of late, those whom Palin has targeted with her snide and ill-founded observations, have achieved almost victim status – Letterman, Rahm Emanuel, Seth McFarlane and Family Guy – all rose like phoenixes from the ashes of her ignorant remarks and misconceptions.
In short, Palin’s invective got publicity for both Letterman and McFarlane, and even Rahm was seen in a more sympathetic light as almost an arbiter for freedom of speech.
Bill’s not above promoting himself shamelessly, almost by any means. That he compromised himself greatly last season with a blatantly opportunistic editorial, slating President Obama for ‘not doing enough’ a mere six months into his Administration, was all too obvious, especially if one cared to remember that the week previous to that particular editorial (June 16th), he was roundly criticizing the GOP for saying the very same thing about the President. Still, it achieved the end Bill desired – he ran the gamut from Blitzer to Olbermann, starting the Obama-bashin’ fashion that the base of the Progressive Left adopted with a fervour unseen since they campaigned for the man during the election.
A lot of real Progressives today still blame Bill for sounding the hammer blow that created a very noticeable ructure in the Democratic Party.
I think Bill is baiting Palin for the same reason. He’s relishing a response from this woman. He wants her to target him, to point a finger, to Twitter a tweet or sully her Facebook page with a diatribe against big, bad Bill Maher, which would gain Bill a soupcon of sympathy and a gaggle of publicity. Thing is, I get the impression that Palin isn’t much of an HBO fan, and I seriously doubt she’s even heard of Bill. Were I he, I’d leave off Palin. He’s only feeding fuel to her fire, and besides, as a part of his monologue and stand-up, she’s becoming boringly predictable as a reference.
But after the monologue, the atmosphere began to become almost surreal.
Sean Penn was the first guest, booked to talk about his humanitarian effort in the wake of the earthquake in Haiti and to plug the relief organisation he had established for that purpose.
I found this odd, to say the least, especially since one of Bill’s ubiquitous tweets during his hiatus had criticised the continuous news emphasis on the disaster by the mainstream media, to the exclusion of any other news. I understood Bill’s complaint; he’d reiterated the media’s propensity to flog one news item like the proverbial dead horse, but the tweet did come across to many as the whiney complaint of a bored adolescent. The other thing I found odd about the interview was Penn, himself.
Penn, florid of face and neck, with a dull, dazed look in his eye, was clearly drunk. More than that, he was a woozy, rambling, incoherent drunk.
To Bill’s credit, his interview questions were flawless. Under normal circumstances, he would have been pushing the right buttons, with the questions he asked. but circumstances were anything but normal. The result was that Penn’s answers rambled on ad nauseam, and he never truly answered any question.
For example, when Penn finally got to the point of his first answer – that the United States needed to give more, more and yet more again to Haiti in an effort to rebuild a viable infrastructure there, Bill, rightly, countered by asking Penn why he sought to concentrate his efforts on Haiti, when there was ample evidence of infrastructural decay in the United States and a plethora of Americans suffering badly as a result of the dire economic crisis.
Valid question; in fact, one many people have been asking in light of this.
This elicited another incoherent and torturously twisted reply from Penn, the gist of which being that by giving – yes – more, more and more again to rebuild Haiti, the US would be a better nation and benefit and learn from the Haitian people. Learn what, exactly, he never specified, and it’s doubtful that he knew. By that point, Penn was just phoning in his replies.
The interview wasn’t without controversy, however. Finally, Bill brought up the subject of Hugo Chavez, a particular ‘friend’ of Penn’s and one whom the actor has defended vociferously. The ensuing reply on Penn’s part is a testimony to the fact that, just because one is an extremely talented actor and icon for a generation, it doesn’t necessarily follow that the person has any great intellect, or even basic common sense.
Bill referred to Chavez, the dictator.
Penn quickly took umbrage. Chavez, he replied, in a pique, was most definitely not a dictator, but a legitimately elected head-of-state. In Penn’s mind, that’s not a dictator.
I disagree. Hitler was legitimately elected. So was Mussolini. So was Bush, allegedly. And elections can easily be rigged to favour the strong man who wants to rule. Look at Italy’s Berlusconi. Again, look at Bush and the Republican techniques. I’m sorry, Sean, this dude’s a dictator and a dick.
Bill then pointed out the fact that Chavez had shut down television and radio stations and newspapers who were openly critical of him, but Penn would have none of that. In fact, he declared, anyone in the United States, and especially in the media, who insisted on calling Chavez a dictator, should be put in prison.
From where I’m sitting, it looks as though Sean’s close association with Hugo Chavez hasn’t been for nothing. That’s a blatant denial of First Amendment rights - so are we to infer that the humanitarian and Academy Award-winning actor approves of a suppression of Freedom of Speech? What a walking advertisement for the Left in the face of the Right. And a blatant one as well.
The other interview came midway through the panel discussion with Michael Moore. It was beset by satellite difficulties, as Moore was attempting to be broadcast from New York City, outside Goldman Sachs. Bill was clearly frustrated by the delay, and Moore was frustrated as well, although by what, it was unclear. It was a tetchy, almost irascible interview, from the beginning, done to publicize the fact that Moore’s latest cinematic offering, Capitalism: A Love Story, was now available on DVD.
As the impending Oscars ceremony served more as a veritable Banquo’s ghost than as a backdrop to this episode, Bill began the interview by reminding Moore that it was Oscars weekend and that Moore’s film hadn’t received a nomination – although he couldn’t imagine why, Bill added for good measure. Clearly a joke between friends, but Moore failed to see the humour and tetchily remarked that, for what it was worth, he thought Bill’s documentary Religulous should have won the Oscar the previous year. (It wasn’t nominated).
Moore then went into a diatribe about the evils of Wall Street and the sufferings of the ordinary citizen in the wake of that, which – for some reason – elicited an irritated response from Bill, in which he noticeably raised his voice. Thereafter, the four-minute clip tailed off with Moore remarking that he’d written a letter to President Obama – understanding that Rahm Emanuel was about to leave – offering him his services as Chief of Staff for the salary of $1 per year and a bed in the White House basement.
In the moments after the interview had ended, Bill made two rather snarky allusions to ‘St Michael’ and ‘the spirit of St Michael’, obviously on the tail end of what amounted to a locking-of-horns encounter, no matter how unintentional that was.
The surrealism of the episode was heightened by the fact that almost nothing of any newsworthy event referenced in the panel discussion. It was patently obvious that the panel was there only as a prop for Huffington to publicise her ‘Move Your Money’ movement in an effort to cripple the four big, bad lending banks.
I find Huffington faintly ludicrous at the best of times. She usually manages to muscle in on any discussion and dominate the proceedings, and this time was no different. Bill began the panel discussion by singling out her ‘Move Your Money’ meme, adding a bit of self-promotion for himself, considering that she asked him to do the promotional video which was released on YouTube.
Now we get to the funny part.
Bill asked Andrew Sorkin, author of the book Too Big to Fail about what he thought of the idea of a mass movement of people taking money from the big four bad boys and placing it in locally-owned banks and credit unions. Sorkin remarked that he thought, in principle, Huffington’s idea was a good one; however, there were drawbacks to her idea:-
First, if everyone ‘moved their money’ from the big guys to the small fry, the banks that formerly had been too big to fail, would ... fail, and that wouldn’t be good for the economy. Secondly, many of the so-called local banks weren’t actually independent entities, themselves. Many were part and parcel of the very organisation Huffington sought to scupper.
(Huffington’s always out to scupper someone or something which effected a perceived slight on her fragile ego. Her vendetta against Clinton in the late 90s came as a result of her husband having lost a Senate race to Barbara Boxer; her vendetta against Tim Russert came from Russert’s wife having outed Michael Huffington in an article years before his sexuality became common knowledge; her vendetta against newspapers arises from the newsprint media failing to consider her a viable and reliable journalist, in her own right. So I can only surmise that her vendetta against the big banks comes from some kind of cashflow problem, which they can’t help her remedy – or at least more from that than out of any concern for ordinary people).
Thirdly, Sorkin concluded, these small local banks and credit unions weren’t entirely clean, themselves – that they employed a stringently vociferous group of lobbyists, whose job it was to nobble Congress, and were, in fact, more opposed to the President’s idea of regulating the banking industry than the big guys were, themselves.
At that moment, Huffington chose to suffer from a bout of selective deafness, because later, in her internet newsrag, she trumpeted the fact that Sorkin had given a pontifical blessing to her ‘movement’ and agreed with her entirely, although he actually didn’t ... such is her arrogance.
That moved the discussion onto the plight of the middle classes, where Huffington held forth on the fact that anger directed at Wall Street was a unifying factor between the middle class and the Teabaggers (and, in doing this, somehow managed to make Michael Moore sound like teabagging material). There followed a five-minute discussion between Huffington and Bill about the sufferings of the middle class and how the government and financial crisis was failing them.
I’m sorry, but I was mightily offended by what amounted to a dinner party discussion between two faux liberals talking about a demographic of people of whom one had actually forgotten he was ever a part and of whom the other had no real contact in her daily dealings. It was a moment straight out of a grotesque Goya painting of two narcissistic egoists paying pithy lip service to the plight of the little people and giving themselves congratulatory pats on the back for having noticed that a problem exists.
Frankly, it was insulting.
This led further into an unusual discussion about an American reality television program, Undercover Boss, which Bill, in a rare moment of realising that he was born a son of the working middle class, found insulting to ordinary people, and which Huffington, surprisingly in her Zsa Zsa-plays-Lady-Bracknell mode, found enlightening.
The whole discussion was pointless, with respect to current events. It was an exercise in publicizing Huffington’s latest venture, an opportunity for Bill to reiterate and reinforce the fact that he really, really did like President Obama, but he wished he could have acted tougher last year – the same old same old complaint he’d whined about since June 2009, only not as forcefully. (Earlier last month, in an interview clip with Joy Behar, I noticed the best-seller Game Change on the shelf in Bill’s office. He’d do well to read and digest the content of this, because ‘No-Drama Obama’ is the President’s schtick).
The New Rules weren’t Bill’s best, and the editorial was a bit of fluff, which, in other circumstances, might have been funny; but in these current times, came across as Bill’s Marie Antoinette moment.
It was an extollation of Hollywood’s virtues as an industry that was entirely American and didn’t come cap-in-hand to the government asking for help. (Of course, it never dawned on Bill that the film which won the Oscar last year was not an American film, or that most films aren’t actually made in Hollywood these days, mainly due to excessive costs). He excoriated the Republicans’ current triviality of promoting their two rising stars (yet another reference to Sarah Palin) as having been a local beauty queen and a nude male centrefold. Hollywood deserved the big party that accompanied the Oscars, as ribald, rambunctuous and excessive as it could be, and the public be damned in its criticism. (‘Let them eat cake, anyone?’)
One of the core messages of the editorial was the fact that any celebrity in the town who openly admitted to being a Republican, was usually of the naff, z-list variety: the late Sonny Bono, Fred Thompson or Fred Grandy, whose chief claim to fame was having played Gofer in The Love Boat.
Amongst the ueber-cool A-listers, only Democrats could be found.
Forty-eight hours later, that left me wondering on what list Bill, whom I love dearly as a fundit, when he’s thinking for himself and not aiming to please others for his own plaudits, could be found ... not the ueber-cool A-list, if this tweet, made in the early hours of Monday morning, whilst moving amongst the exalted at an Oscars’ after-party:-
"Actors are just the bestest people in thw world! We are so lucky to be sharing the earth with them!! Fuck!!!" (Typos are Bill’s).
Sarcasm? Heavily laced. Bitterness? A smidgeon. Jealousy? More than just a bit.
Billy, I love the bones of you, and for that, I’ll rate this episode 7 out of 10, but – damn! – it must be a heavy chore being Arianna’s Gofer. You’re much better than that.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Real Time Should Meet the Press
Even though I was in the US for two weeks, I suffered real Real Time withdrawal. Because of the crisis in the economy there, belts were tightened, satellite companies changed, and the HBO subscription went out the window.
Because, when it's on, I view Real Time with Bill Maher as absolutely essential viewing, I manage to be able to download it in Britain, the day after it's shown live in the US. So, I've three episodes, including the most recent one, to catch up on.
Last night, I'd acclimatised myself enough to settle down and watch the episode which aired on Friday, 6 March.
Bill Maher is a particular hero of mine. I share many of his political and ethical views, and I actually consider him to be somewhat of a spokesman of our mutual generation, since we are of similar age. I think he's witty, intelligent and probably the most astute and canny political intervier on television. In point of fact, I think there's no other political pundit in the media today who intrinsically knows more about the Constitution than Bill Maher. HBO's gain is definitely a loss to the other bigger networks.
When NBC's Meet the Press moderator, Tim Russert, died suddenly last year, I immediately thought that Bill would have been an excellent choice to replace Russert in the chair; although I knew NBC would never have balls brass enough to make what would have been an interesting, refreshing and provocative gamble that would have paid off handsomely. I'll go as far as saying that Maher is actually a better interviewer than Russert.
Russert was an all-around nice guy, a working class stiff from Buffalo, who earned a handsome wage but was at pains to remind everyone all around just how blue collar he was. Everyone liked him, left and right. In fact, I've even heard he was a close friend of Rush Limbaugh. And he had the uncanny knack of putting every person he interviewed at ease, before, during and after any interview. All Tim had to do was ask about the person's family - his kids, elderly mother or dog - or his sports team; and they were putty in his hands. But he had an infuriating knack of letting his culprits off, even when he had them in his sights in a gotcha moment. Tim would ask a question, the interviewee would waffle out an answer, Tim would show a quotation made by the person from a previous interview and the person being interviewed would waffle out an answer that didn't really explain why a position had sharply changed; Russert would smile and nod benignly and move on.
Not so Bill Maher.
A lot of people have the misguided conception that Maher is rudeness, personified. As an interviewer, this is simply not so. He's sharp, but he's polite. He's meticulous in letting the person being interviewed get his point across, however much it might differ to his own or that of the audience. He doesn't allow waffle, but he's clever about getting the person interviewed to actually answer a question, no mean feat as this is something most politicians have down to an art. He simply re-states the question in a different way, often so cleverly worded that the interviewee thinks another question is being asks and falls into the trap. Before he realises he's been gotcha'd, Bill's moved onto the next question. In fact, I've never seen a political interviewer so sharp, so persistent, yet so deft of phrase and so respectful of his subject; and he even is human enough to admit an error on his part. In fact, I'd stick my neck out and go as far as saying that Bill Maher is the Barack Obama of political interviewers.
Living in the UK, I'm familiar with one Jeremy Paxman, who hosts the BBC's flagship news and political talk show, Newsnight. Paxman's a hard and persistent interviewer, and he holds his subjects' feet to the fire; but where Maher probes, Paxman berates, hectoring, interrupting, repeating the question again and again until the subject feels persecuted to the point where the viewing audience actually feels sympathy with whoever is being interviewed no matter how big a scoundrel he or she is. And a lot of the time, Paxman's approach doesn't get the desired result.
Maher's does.
On 6th March, his Real Time guests were T Boone Pickins, the billionaire entrepreneur advocating wind power in order to reduce the US dependence on foreign oil; Newark mayor Cory Booker, Erin Burnett of CNBC, and Dr Peter Singer of Yale University.
The interview with Pickins was interesting and could have/should have gone on longer. Ten minutes was far too short. It was the sort of thing you would have expected to see in the first half hour of MTP; but the ten minutes allotted proved provocative.
Pickins is an eighty-something Southerner from Texas, a man of his time, who's built and lost three fortunes. It was obvious to anyone watching the program who knows anything about politics and the South that Pickins's politics were of the right-wing red variety, to a degree. Still, Maher treated him with very proper respect, verging almost on gentleness, due to the man's age. He showed interest in Pickins's philosophy of oil-free dependence and queried him on his knowledge and background in trying to get successive US governments and Presidents to heed his urgings about lessening dependence on oil. He even began by asking Pickins, respectfully, what he should call him. I liked that.
I felt the interview was just starting to roll when it had to end; but Maher managed to get in a teasingly naughty question, phrased and presented much in the was a visiting nephew might gently goad an elderly uncle into explaining a viewpoint which seemed at odds with the 'uncle's' philosophy. There was even a point where Maher stumbled, after having said that he'd red Pickins's biography. When Pickins corrected him on the point, Maher admitted he'd actually 'skimmed' the biography, cheerfully admitting his error.
After ascertaining that Pickins was working with the Obama administration on reducing oil dependence, Maher asked how things were going in working with this administration. Pickins replied briefly, 'Better than the others.'
Maher then deftly remarked that, had Albert Gore or John Kerry won their respective elections, Gore in particular, might Pickins's plan have had enjoyed an 8-year head start, instead of the country finding itself up the proverbial Sewanee in oil dependancy now. Then Maher naughtily jibed that Pickins had, in fact, voted for George W Bush; and Pickins, obviously a man of honesty, admitted that he was no Democrat.
Maher then had a teasing moment, asking - never rudely, but with odd gentleness and deference - how, now that Pickins was actively working with the Obama government, he could actually have voted for John McCain.
As I said, this was a bit naughty. Just a bit; but I got the gist of the question. Pickins, an octogenarian Southerner from Texas, is a man of his time. He lived in the segregated South, was probably reared a Dixiecrat and most likely switched parties the instant Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Bill. Maher was inferring, subtly, that maybe, just maybe Pickins might have voted for McCain because a man of his generation and social background might have found it, mildly difficult - shall we say - in voting for a left-wing black man with socialist tendencies.
Pickins hedged the question initially, reminding Maher that he never actually supported McCain.
'But you voted for him,' nudged Maher.
Yes, Pickins admitted, he did vote for John McCain. Maher persisted, ever gently, ever politely, in wondering aloud how Pickins could justify voting for McCain and how he now could involve himself in the Obama administration.
Pickins replied that, at the end of the day, he simply realised both he and John McCain were too old to be President. On that note, Maher jocularly ended the interview (for time reasons) and even allowed Pickins an extra 38 seconds to urge the audience and viewers to insist that the government seriously explore means of lessening the US dependence on oil, telling everyone that this was in their interest, the people's interest, for their country and a better quality of life and a better environment.
For me, this was the highlight of the program, as it highlighted Maher's knowledge, skill and ability as a crack interviewer.
At the beginning of this year, when MSNBC announced they were looking for someone to present a political talk show in the 10PM slot after Rachel Maddow's show, the internet was abuzz with rumours about Maher being approached or sought for the slot. I'd welcome that, even if it meant that Real Time was shelved or that MSNBC bought the rights to Real Time and brought it into that time slot, at least once a week. More people should be exposed to Bill Maher, especially those who judge him on remarks taken out of context. He's one pundit who doesn't kowtow to the Beltway bunch or to any political party in general. In short, he's truthful and to the point and says a lot of things a lot of other political talking heads are too afraid to say. And, you know, I don't think this would change were he to accept a position on a major network again.
I've read recently in various places that Meet the Press is tanking against George Stephanopolous on ABC and the grandfatherly Bob Shieffer on CBS's Face the Nation. MTP with the bland and boring David Gregory, dancing partner of Karl Rove, is tanking even against Chris Wallace on Fox. I hope NBC is kicking themselves. And if they've any imagination, nous and sheer cojones, they'll pay handsomely to acquire Maher's talents for MSNBC and move him pronto into the moderator's chair on Meet the Press as soon as Gregory's dire contract expires.
Did I say 'pay handsomely' in this time of economic crisis? Yes. Because Maher, himself, has gone on record as saying, many times, that he and those of his ilk should pay more taxes. The man is nothing, if not honest. He is the jewel in the crown of political pundits.
Because, when it's on, I view Real Time with Bill Maher as absolutely essential viewing, I manage to be able to download it in Britain, the day after it's shown live in the US. So, I've three episodes, including the most recent one, to catch up on.
Last night, I'd acclimatised myself enough to settle down and watch the episode which aired on Friday, 6 March.
Bill Maher is a particular hero of mine. I share many of his political and ethical views, and I actually consider him to be somewhat of a spokesman of our mutual generation, since we are of similar age. I think he's witty, intelligent and probably the most astute and canny political intervier on television. In point of fact, I think there's no other political pundit in the media today who intrinsically knows more about the Constitution than Bill Maher. HBO's gain is definitely a loss to the other bigger networks.
When NBC's Meet the Press moderator, Tim Russert, died suddenly last year, I immediately thought that Bill would have been an excellent choice to replace Russert in the chair; although I knew NBC would never have balls brass enough to make what would have been an interesting, refreshing and provocative gamble that would have paid off handsomely. I'll go as far as saying that Maher is actually a better interviewer than Russert.
Russert was an all-around nice guy, a working class stiff from Buffalo, who earned a handsome wage but was at pains to remind everyone all around just how blue collar he was. Everyone liked him, left and right. In fact, I've even heard he was a close friend of Rush Limbaugh. And he had the uncanny knack of putting every person he interviewed at ease, before, during and after any interview. All Tim had to do was ask about the person's family - his kids, elderly mother or dog - or his sports team; and they were putty in his hands. But he had an infuriating knack of letting his culprits off, even when he had them in his sights in a gotcha moment. Tim would ask a question, the interviewee would waffle out an answer, Tim would show a quotation made by the person from a previous interview and the person being interviewed would waffle out an answer that didn't really explain why a position had sharply changed; Russert would smile and nod benignly and move on.
Not so Bill Maher.
A lot of people have the misguided conception that Maher is rudeness, personified. As an interviewer, this is simply not so. He's sharp, but he's polite. He's meticulous in letting the person being interviewed get his point across, however much it might differ to his own or that of the audience. He doesn't allow waffle, but he's clever about getting the person interviewed to actually answer a question, no mean feat as this is something most politicians have down to an art. He simply re-states the question in a different way, often so cleverly worded that the interviewee thinks another question is being asks and falls into the trap. Before he realises he's been gotcha'd, Bill's moved onto the next question. In fact, I've never seen a political interviewer so sharp, so persistent, yet so deft of phrase and so respectful of his subject; and he even is human enough to admit an error on his part. In fact, I'd stick my neck out and go as far as saying that Bill Maher is the Barack Obama of political interviewers.
Living in the UK, I'm familiar with one Jeremy Paxman, who hosts the BBC's flagship news and political talk show, Newsnight. Paxman's a hard and persistent interviewer, and he holds his subjects' feet to the fire; but where Maher probes, Paxman berates, hectoring, interrupting, repeating the question again and again until the subject feels persecuted to the point where the viewing audience actually feels sympathy with whoever is being interviewed no matter how big a scoundrel he or she is. And a lot of the time, Paxman's approach doesn't get the desired result.
Maher's does.
On 6th March, his Real Time guests were T Boone Pickins, the billionaire entrepreneur advocating wind power in order to reduce the US dependence on foreign oil; Newark mayor Cory Booker, Erin Burnett of CNBC, and Dr Peter Singer of Yale University.
The interview with Pickins was interesting and could have/should have gone on longer. Ten minutes was far too short. It was the sort of thing you would have expected to see in the first half hour of MTP; but the ten minutes allotted proved provocative.
Pickins is an eighty-something Southerner from Texas, a man of his time, who's built and lost three fortunes. It was obvious to anyone watching the program who knows anything about politics and the South that Pickins's politics were of the right-wing red variety, to a degree. Still, Maher treated him with very proper respect, verging almost on gentleness, due to the man's age. He showed interest in Pickins's philosophy of oil-free dependence and queried him on his knowledge and background in trying to get successive US governments and Presidents to heed his urgings about lessening dependence on oil. He even began by asking Pickins, respectfully, what he should call him. I liked that.
I felt the interview was just starting to roll when it had to end; but Maher managed to get in a teasingly naughty question, phrased and presented much in the was a visiting nephew might gently goad an elderly uncle into explaining a viewpoint which seemed at odds with the 'uncle's' philosophy. There was even a point where Maher stumbled, after having said that he'd red Pickins's biography. When Pickins corrected him on the point, Maher admitted he'd actually 'skimmed' the biography, cheerfully admitting his error.
After ascertaining that Pickins was working with the Obama administration on reducing oil dependence, Maher asked how things were going in working with this administration. Pickins replied briefly, 'Better than the others.'
Maher then deftly remarked that, had Albert Gore or John Kerry won their respective elections, Gore in particular, might Pickins's plan have had enjoyed an 8-year head start, instead of the country finding itself up the proverbial Sewanee in oil dependancy now. Then Maher naughtily jibed that Pickins had, in fact, voted for George W Bush; and Pickins, obviously a man of honesty, admitted that he was no Democrat.
Maher then had a teasing moment, asking - never rudely, but with odd gentleness and deference - how, now that Pickins was actively working with the Obama government, he could actually have voted for John McCain.
As I said, this was a bit naughty. Just a bit; but I got the gist of the question. Pickins, an octogenarian Southerner from Texas, is a man of his time. He lived in the segregated South, was probably reared a Dixiecrat and most likely switched parties the instant Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Bill. Maher was inferring, subtly, that maybe, just maybe Pickins might have voted for McCain because a man of his generation and social background might have found it, mildly difficult - shall we say - in voting for a left-wing black man with socialist tendencies.
Pickins hedged the question initially, reminding Maher that he never actually supported McCain.
'But you voted for him,' nudged Maher.
Yes, Pickins admitted, he did vote for John McCain. Maher persisted, ever gently, ever politely, in wondering aloud how Pickins could justify voting for McCain and how he now could involve himself in the Obama administration.
Pickins replied that, at the end of the day, he simply realised both he and John McCain were too old to be President. On that note, Maher jocularly ended the interview (for time reasons) and even allowed Pickins an extra 38 seconds to urge the audience and viewers to insist that the government seriously explore means of lessening the US dependence on oil, telling everyone that this was in their interest, the people's interest, for their country and a better quality of life and a better environment.
For me, this was the highlight of the program, as it highlighted Maher's knowledge, skill and ability as a crack interviewer.
At the beginning of this year, when MSNBC announced they were looking for someone to present a political talk show in the 10PM slot after Rachel Maddow's show, the internet was abuzz with rumours about Maher being approached or sought for the slot. I'd welcome that, even if it meant that Real Time was shelved or that MSNBC bought the rights to Real Time and brought it into that time slot, at least once a week. More people should be exposed to Bill Maher, especially those who judge him on remarks taken out of context. He's one pundit who doesn't kowtow to the Beltway bunch or to any political party in general. In short, he's truthful and to the point and says a lot of things a lot of other political talking heads are too afraid to say. And, you know, I don't think this would change were he to accept a position on a major network again.
I've read recently in various places that Meet the Press is tanking against George Stephanopolous on ABC and the grandfatherly Bob Shieffer on CBS's Face the Nation. MTP with the bland and boring David Gregory, dancing partner of Karl Rove, is tanking even against Chris Wallace on Fox. I hope NBC is kicking themselves. And if they've any imagination, nous and sheer cojones, they'll pay handsomely to acquire Maher's talents for MSNBC and move him pronto into the moderator's chair on Meet the Press as soon as Gregory's dire contract expires.
Did I say 'pay handsomely' in this time of economic crisis? Yes. Because Maher, himself, has gone on record as saying, many times, that he and those of his ilk should pay more taxes. The man is nothing, if not honest. He is the jewel in the crown of political pundits.
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