Bill Maher and class are not synonymous
In the past I’ve taken some shots at Glen Beck, and for good reason. However, I don’t think there’s a chance he’d ever be considered to appear on This Week. This Week is supposed to be a show where level-headed adults discuss current events, which is why it’s so puzzling to me that ABC decided to book Bill Maher as a participant in the round-table.
On HBO it’s okay for Maher to indulge his ignorant generalizations about Republicans or his misinformed ideas about Brazil’s oil usage, but This Week is the real world. You have to give credit to Maher. It takes a great deal of effort to come off less sensible than Al Sharpton.
Mickey Edwards has an op-ed in The Atlantic titled “On Discovering Bill Maher” that is hilarious because Edwards had never heard of listened to Maher until he was on This Week. Here are some of Edwards’ observations about Maher’s idiotic remarks:
I had actually been watching something else on television (a tribute to Ella Fitzgerald), but switched in time to watch Mr. Maher’s performance. I’m glad I did. Had I not done so, I would have continued to be among those blissfully unaware of what a dolt he is, of how hateful and venomous and destructive of civility and intelligent discourse he is.
And so the villain of this piece is? Not Mr. Maher: he is, sadly, what he is, and that is all he is, and (my heart goes out to him) that is probably all he will ever be; one can only do one’s best with whatever limited capacities one has. But George Will, Matthew Dowd, Al Sharpton, and Katrina vanden Heuvel, agree with them or not, have a proper place at the grown-up table; one can only wonder what the producers at ABC were thinking when they moved this character to a table at which the likes of George Stephanopoulos, Cokie Roberts, Cokie Roberts, and Sam Donaldson once sat.
A link to the video can be seen here. The look on Maher’s face when George Will asked for clarification about Brazil’s use of oil was hilarious. That’s the type of “real time” that’s missing from Maher’s show on HBO. Hopefully ABC realized that this dolt should not be allowed around adults.
I don’t like Governor Charlie Crist. He represents the worst thing about Republicans. Crist is not interested in taking a principled stand on any issue. He would rather do whatever it takes to remain popular to advance his political career. Unless there’s some kind of political upheaval in the next few weeks Crist’s political career is over.
It should also be noted that Crist helped McCain get the GOP nomination. In the 2008 Florida Primary, Crist’s endorsement helped push McCain past Romney. At the time that was Crist’s high water mark for political relevence. Now he’s being bashed by everyone, even George Will. Will has an op-ed in The Washington Post discussing how rare it is to find a politician who is honest about our entitlement crisis. Governor Crist is cited as an example.
A recent debate on “Fox News Sunday” illustrated the differences between the few politicians who are, and the many who are not, willing to face facts. Marco Rubio, the former speaker of Florida’s House of Representatives who is challenging Gov. Charles Crist for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination, made news by stating the obvious.
Asked how the nation might address the projected $17.5 trillion in unfunded Social Security liabilities, Rubio said that we should consider two changes for people 10 or more years from retirement. One would raise the retirement age. The other would alter the calculation of benefits: Indexing them to inflation rather than wage increases would substantially reduce the system’s unfunded liabilities.
Neither idea startles any serious person. But Crist, with the reflex of the unreflective, rejected both and said that he would fix Social Security by eliminating “waste” and “fraud,” of which there is little. The system’s problems are the result not of incompetent administration but of improvident promises made by Congress.
Synthetic indignation being the first refuge of political featherweights, Crist’s campaign announced that he believes Rubio’s suggestions are “cruel, unusual and unfair to seniors living on a fixed income.” They are indeed unusual, because flinching from the facts of the coming entitlements crisis is the default position of all but a responsible few, such as Wisconsin’s Rep. Paul Ryan, who has endorsed Rubio. What is ultimately cruel is Crist’s unserious pretense that America faces only palatable choices and that improvident promises can be fully funded with money currently lost to waste and fraud.
There’s not much to add to Will’s point. Crist’s rhetoric and other politicians who mimic it are a disgrace. The nation has no hope of tackling difficult issues as long as there are politicians like Crist around. I’m not sure Rubio will be any better, but it’s difficult to believe he’s worse than Crist. I expect this stuff from all politicians (especially Democrats), but if the Republicans ever want to be considered a serious alternative this stuff has to end.
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