Commentary
More muck on Maher
By Jerry Mazza
Online Journal Associate Editor


Oct 24, 2007, 01:28

After I wrote I am �that big of a lunatic,� Bill Maher, in response to Maher�s attacks on 9/11 Truthers on his show Real Time, saying that we were lunatics, crazy people, and in need of Paxil; in fact, after receiving a raft of thank you emails from all over the country . . . lo and behold, Bill stepped deeper into the muck by physically attacking 9/11 Los Angeles Truthers who attended his October 19 show to protest.

What�s next, Bill, throwing nets around people who disagree with you, that is, before someone throws one over you?

Among Bill�s guests that evening, when the incident occurred, were Democratic Representative Sheila Jackson Lee from Texas, Hardball talk show host Chris Matthews and journalist Joel Stein. You can view the scene at the above link.

The venerable Ms. Lee was speaking about taking money from the Iraq war and using it to attack problems in education. At this point a male protestor shouted, �Talk about 9/11.� Another echoed his sentiment.

Maher, rather than try to engage the protestors in debate, or more positively, invite them for their day in court on his show -- after all 9/11 was obviously an issue of importance that many of his viewers had been asking him to cover, causing his first outburst -- Maher instead stood and shouted, �Hey, do we have some fucking security in this building or do I have to get this (inaudible) out of here myself?� At this point, macho man Maher ran into the audience to attack some protestors, in tandem with his show�s goons, pushing them towards the exit.

Macho Maher then rushed back to the stage and triumphantly said, �Is it that hard to throw someone out of a building?� The response ironically is one of laughter and applause. I guess no one really does believe in the First Amendment after all, and people�s right to protest their views to a broadcaster face-to-face.

Maher's show is taped live in CBS� Television City in Los Angeles for HBO, the same HB0 that keeps running the bogus Flight 93 into the ground over and over again, propounding the Administration�s conspiracy theory.

Thus, the live taping brought the courageous protestors who didn�t agree with Bill�s remarks to show up and have their say. In fact, even after the first protestors were pushed out, a female protestor responded to Maher�s gaff with: �Tell them about Tower 7.� She meant that Tower 7, not hit by a plane, might have gone quickly by internal demolition. To which macho man Maher responded, �Hey, I�ll kick your ass out, too.�

Once again, without even changing into his Superman uniform, he streaked off the stage in his Clark Kent suit to push the young woman out with the help of his goons.

Bill then ran back to the stage as the audience applauded and laughed at the unreal circus Real Time has turned into. What with Edward R. Murrow turning over in his grave somewhere, Maher said, �This isn�t the Iowa caucus. It�s not a debate. It�s a debate between us,� referring to the panel. �Audience comes from the Latin, to listen?� This, too, got a big laugh and applause. Only the Emperor must speak. The rest of you zip up your lips. It�s Bill�s show and he�s the decider. He asked, �What�s going on here?�

Yet still another protestor came up with another Tower 7 question.

This time Bill, showing some fatigue, said, �This is the problem with live TV.� Gee, I thought that was the genius of live TV, being able to bring the uncut moment to us, to bring us 9/11 truth and the JFK assassination truth and Bill Maher truth as it was unfolding. And let us make up our own minds who was crazy and who wasn�t. But Bill added, looking towards the protestor, �Then the nut cases, and you are a nut case, Building 7.� Okay, if you say so, Bill.

Then, turning to his panel, Maher said, �You know what that�s [Tower 7] all about? Given all the things I�ve said, and believe me, I�ve said a lot of things, as you all know, that could get my head on a block. The one they protest about out here, people think that the World Trade Center was a controlled explosion [not demolition].� And here comes the piece de resistance: �So in that incident, I�m actually defending President Bush [no applause]. I don�t think President Bush brought down the World Trade Center [no applause].�

But there were boos in response from more protestors. And Maher went for a laugh, saying �And cows,� referring to the protestors� boos. He got his laugh although his Bush statement hung in the air like the atomized cloud of the Towers over the World Trade Center apocalypse.

Ever the show biz trooper, Maher changed the subject and went on to talk about �the general who says we have eliminated al Qaeda in Iraq. AQI -- it�s like KFC. We don�t make the bombs that killed the troops. We [AQI] make the hate that makes the bombs.� And what do you make, Bill, but more hate, even as a protestor makes another comment.

Yet, Maher, still unsettled, said to himself: �How come I don�t fire my audience department? Yeah, that�s what�s running through my mind now.� He got a big laugh once again, as if all this were scripted for hilarity. Right, fire them all, anyone who doesn�t agree with Bill; anyone who lets a little reality slip into the hyper-controlled �taped" live show.

Then, looking into the audience, where more protestors are being hustled out of the studio, he uttered a note of encouragement to his staff. �Yeah, don�t be gentle with them [the protestors]. Ass kicking is what�s called for.� Laughter and applause, God bless America, because Bill isn�t, or its First Amendment from that �goddamn piece of paper� Constitution, as Bush referred to it.

In fact, amid the insane crescendo of lions eating Christians, Maher turned to his panel and said, �If this was a microcosm of America, I�d vote for Rudy Giuliani at this point.� The panel pulled back a bit, offering polite smiles. The audience laughed (and probably somewhere so does Rudy). But Representative Sheila Jackson said, �I�m not gonna even touch the First Amendment. I�m gonna leave it off, you know.� And Bill turned to her and said, �Well good.� Let�s not let that sticky old flypaper Constitution get in the way here. And on we go into the night.

Kudos from Fox News

Of course, as soon as possible Fox News ran a story by John (slightly to the right of Genghis Khan) Gibson, Hat�s Off to Bill Maher. You should be proud, Bill. Put this on your resume or in your scrapbook. You could even bounce right into an anchor chair at Rupert�s delicatessen of lies, half-truths and pro-administration pap. I mean, read the story, folks. Here�s the opening paragraphs for starters, misspellings included . . .

�I don't agree with Bill Maher about much. In fact, his �Bush Derangement Syndrome� is so bad I'd probably double-check if he said the sky was blue.

�However, on his HBO show Maher did something worth applause, and I'm going on record now to say he's right and hope it proves to at least a few liberals out there that I don't reject each and every thing a liberal might say.

�Maher has in the past publicly rejected the lunatic notions of the 9/11 truthers, a ragtag army of conspiratorialists who won't take Usama bin Laden at his word and insist that George W. Bush was in fact the terrorist behind the 9/11 attacks. Maher is right when he tells 9/11 truthers that they have gone too far, and they are out of their minds.

�That has earned him the enmity of 9/11 truthers, and they struck back by sneaking into his live HBO show a few days ago. They began heckling Maher with their lunacy about who is really responsible for 9/11, as if it weren't already well known and well established. . . ."

Nice work, Bill. You�re sleeping with the devil, to borrow Robert Bauer�s title of US involvement in the Middle East. So obviously you didn�t read my article, the one I emailed your show via HBO, about Osama bin Laden, who was really bought and paid for by the CIA to fight the �atheistic� Russians in Afghanistan for 10 years along with his Mujihadeen jihad buddies. Check it out. It�s the link in the first line of this article. But here�s the really curious thing about you, Bill.

Bill�s backstory

Previous to Real Time for HBO, Maher had a kind of comedic but seriously intended interview show called Politically Incorrect. It ran on Cable�s Comedy Central from 1993-1996. In 1997, it moved to the big-time media network ABC (C as in Company), to follow Ted Koppel�s Nightline. Ted was the guy with the funny hair, but about as straight a commentator for �real news� as ABC had, which isn't saying much. Koppel, however, did not particularly like being followed by a funny man, thinking it was soft news. So there was a gap of commercials separating the shows, not a direct flow in with, �and now Bill Maher, etcetera . . ."

Bill claimed in a CNN interview with Larry King that neither Koppel nor ABC did much to plug his show, because he was too edgy and too apt to speak the truth. In fact in 2002, Bill was fired by ABC in relation to a statement that he made after 9/11. Here it is, as noted by the New York Library Association and their (?) headline added . . .

TOO BAD WE CAN�T FIRE THE TERRORISTS FOR SAYING THE SAME THING ABOUT HIM . . .

�Bill Maher, who was essentially fired by ABC for saying that the September 11 terrorists were not �cowards� (in the President�s word), and boldly continuing the logic by suggesting that surgical strikes at civilians might be more so [cowardly], concludes his six-year run on that network of �Politically Incorrect� on June 28th. Arianna Huffington credits the First Amendment values of the show with her own transformation from political wife of closeted gay Republican Michael Huffington to free-thinking progressive activist -- and bids �Politically Incorrect� a fond farewell at: http://www.ariannaonline.com/columns/files/061702.html.

Ah, what a shame. Maher got canned for expressing his views, right or wrong, crazy or sane. And Huffington invokes the First Amendment values of the show with her own transformation, etcetera. So, Bill, what happened? You sat out the year, did some standup, and then on February 21, 2003, returned to the air on HBO with Real Time. But you weren�t bitter, were you? You didn�t realize that touching certain shibboleths could doom you to the crapper in no time in prime time or any time on mainstream TV or in mainstream America?

You weren�t so soured that the once shoot-from-the-hip Bill wanted several years later to call some free-thinking, smart, informed people, who happen to believe 9/11 was an inside job, cuckoos, nuts, crazy, Paxil-maniacs? Just the way the American Broadcasting Company (think of the gravitas of that name), the AMERICAN BROADCASTING COMPANY (well known for its Company gents advising on copy) shit-canned you for your quirky remark about �terrorists not being cowards,� but maybe �surgical strikes at civilians might be more so.� Nice.

Like they say in California, everything that goes around comes around, but maybe in the wrong lane, and smack, crashes. In fact, Bill, maybe you�re just a good Catholic/Jewish boy who got burned bad and never forgot how �god� or the folks upstairs can punish. So you start punishing, flexing a little muscle, pushing truth aside, and making fun of possible scenarios? Who knows, right? That�s life in the fast lane. Wheels fall off every now and then. Shit happens.

Well, at least, we know now you�ve suffered the slings and arrows of repression for being too smart for the room. But what have you learned, Bill, apart from pushing other people? What have you learned? And when will you learn, before you blow this show, too? Your highbrow guests, between forced smiles, were looking on somewhat in horror at the events. And Sheila, who knew right from wrong, tried to say you were walking on that precious First Amendment, the same one that was violated to show you the door. So it goes. So it goes.