On this weekend’s Real Time with Bill Maher, the host presided over a discussion of imagined violent sex with two presidential candidates (Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum), courtesy of Air America’s Marc Maron and Dan Savage (who we last heard from on the joys of non-monogamy).
What a repulsive conversation. And it is not a first there.
Can we all agree to avoid that show? To avoid going on it. To avoid watching it.
I’d like to think most try to enter conversations on television hoping to bring something new and different but uplifting and constructive, that might move the conversation forward. Going on Real Time, it’s hard to avoid being dragged down.
Let’s just say “no.”
Well said Ms. KJL.
How about turning HBO down entirely?
That kind of garbage should be rejected completely.
Funny, seeing Maher's vivid irrational sense of his own worth - the overt hubris from this tiny, rather unattractive, lackluster talent, failed 'comedian'.
Who in the world would turn to this joke, named Bill, to seek any advice, insight, opinion?
Maher is a prime example of the worst, a juvenile hatred formed from some deep insecurity, lacking any substance or intelligence.
Truly amusing to think the Democratic Partisans dominating the MSM think this is someone worthy of air time. But then again, they gave us Joy Behar, Keith Olbermann, Jeneane Garofalo, etc., even tried to resell Eliot Spitzer.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIt's important to note that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert offer a milder form of the vulgar and profane approach to comedy, starting with their choice of vocabulary. Stewart is actually more cowardly than Maher. When the question of fear of insulting Muslims came up, Stewart ran a string of his routines where he had insulted religions other than Islam, while studiously avoiding mocking the Muslims. He must have felt guilty or open to criticism when the possibility emerged of attacking Michele Bachman's husband by accusing him of being gay or like a gay person. So he used the dodge of having Jerry Seinfeld counsel him to help him resist what amounted to gay-bashing (which is often followed by physical or other bullying), while including the very gay-bashing he pretended to abhor. Note also how the cowardly Stephen Colbert always throws in "peace be upon him," when he once in a great while says something that might be even mildly anti-Muslim or anti-Mohamed. It is appropriate to attack the delight in verbal or fanciful rape by Maher; one can still notice that he is not a calculating coward the way Stewart and Colbert are.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseTell this to Ann Coulter.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhy? I doubt she watches Mahr unless doing research.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWell, she does go on the show on occasion. In fact, I believe she was on it last week. And she says that she's a friend of Maher's.
It should be noted, however, that Ms. Coulter's works don't appear on this website. And it's not by accident.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI agree with Old Fan and K-Lo. Maher is shamelessly depraved and if you pay for HBO you pay for him. Personally I find the rest of HBO's content pretty awful too, but I suspect some NRO writers would disagree... Jonah.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI would strongly disagree. "The Wire" is possibly the best show I have seen on television. Most of HBO's programming (with the exception of Maher) is a cut above the shallow nonsense on most channels. Outside of sports, HBO is possibly the only TV programming I would consider watching.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe 1970s (violent radical politics, bad fashion, bad music, betrayal of allies to certain death, hard drugs, promiscuous relationships) are my least favorite decade and Bill Maher came of age right in the middle of it.
Too bad his soul did not survive.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYes, K Lo, we can say "no." That is just about the foulest political show there is out there.
God have mercy on America!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIt is as distasteful and destructive as the psychological violence that Bachmann and Santorum enjoy visiting on young gay men and lesbians.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbusePlease shouldn't discriminate against and diminish gay and lesbian people, as you have, by insinuating they are so weak as to be hurt by the mere words of Bachmann and Santorum, who do nothing but express their disapproval of the lifestyle, an expression they are guaranteed by the First Amendment.
If folks in the gay/lesbian community are as weak and vulnerable to the 'psychological destruction' of people expressing opinions as you say they are, then they'll need to find a country without free speech that tolerates homosexuality.
Of course, people in the gay and lesbian community are no where near that weak, and so, you owe them an apology for your cynical and denigrative depiction of them. We conservatives aren't going to stand for that sort of treatment of people.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMr. Hawkins, you failed to see that I qualified "gay men and lesbians" with "young." I was referring to the psychological damage inflicted upon young gay people, teens primarily (particularly those trapped in Red States)who must absorb the rank homophobia that spills out of the likes of Bachmann and Santorum. Try to imagine trying to come to terms with your sexuality to despicpable taunts of "barbarian" (to quote Ms. Bachmann's husband, Corky St. Clair). You conservatives have caused more misery among a truly "weak and vulnerable" population than you might appreciate. No, perhaps you do appreciate it.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSo if I take your premise to be true than kids in Red States are forced to feel bad over Bachman and Santorum's beliefs, and kids in blue state's have no problems. I don't buy this.
Also, where is your concern for all the young kids that will have to pay for Obama's spending spree?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseA fair point. It's probably safer to say that kids in urban environments (regardless of state) have a better fighting chance than kids stuck in rural America. But how does Obama come into this particular discussion? Is my expressions of concern for at risk youth null and void because I have failed to take in wider economic concerns? Couldn't I also be concerned about pregnant teen girls without having to qualify that concern with considerations of the economy?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAnd now, having already bigotry-driven ageism in your comments, you compound your prejudice by dissing rural areas and "red" states vs. urban areas?
So let's sum this up, shall we? You, steffen silvis, believe in (a) the superiority of urbanites over rural citizens, (b) the protection from emotional harm of young gays over older gays, and (c) that all of this justifies violent sexual fantasy promulgation on television programs which hew to your own bigoted points of view?
WOw, what a tolerant fellow you are!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThose of us who are older can take care of ourselves, which I think we have proven, so there is no "ageism" meant in my remarks. As for the urban vs. rural divide I pose it to you. If you were a gay 16-year-old would you rather be in Chicago or Seattle or living five miles from the Creation Museum?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOh. So now if you are young and gay, you MUST perforce also be anti-Creation and thus anti-Biblical and anti-Judeo-Christian, too?
You just keep digging that hole of prejudice deeper, steffen, don't you?
But to answer your question: IF I were gay 16-year-old, I think I'd want to pray for Divine guidance...and would find it pretty hard to find any such guidance from you, Bill Maher, or the rest of those who claim to be there to help such kids.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseBy the way and P.S.:
How do you know I'm NOT gay and 16 years old?
You seem to jump to so many bigoted conclusions, I'm amazed that truly tolerant people haven't helped you gain some enlightenment yet. Ah well...I'll pray for your self-examination and greater self-awareness and redemption, ok? Maybe being "older" doesn't really provide everything you need to "take care of" yourself. Maybe you need help after all.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abusesteffen, I have to take issue with yet another example of your blind bigotry. "trapped in Red States" you say? Trapped?
Here's how the world works--the real one, not your persecution-fantasy-driven one: People VOTE. They vote, in our system, largely for Democrats or Republicans. The states that go predominantly for Republicans are known in the vernacular as "Red States" because, in a pretty silly color-coding convention of the news media (silly because "Red" is the self-chosen color symbol of Communists and Socialists, which Republicans most certainly are not) that's the way things are done.
Nobody is "trapped" and if you really believe that, you clearly are against the free and democratic exercise of the franchise to vote. Of course, when Californians, an allegedly "Blue" state btw, voted against gay marriage, your compatriots did just what you do--they ignored the vote of the people and went around them. It must be easier to deny people their right to vote and the results of that vote if you imagine that the losing side is "Trapped" somehow, huh?
But it isn't so. And you know better, don't you? Of course you do.
Finally, as to coming to grips with sexuality? That's what ALL young people do, regardless of orientation. It is the price we pay for being human beings, it seems. To presume a handicap exists for gays compared to straights is, frankly, prejudiced against gays. I'm really shocked you feel that way...but then, I temper that with my understanding of the left's most prized political technique: "Victim Status" as a way to, yes, ignore votes they don't like.
Maybe you are not quite the free-thinking, sensitive, and unbigoted soul you think you are, steffen. Maybe you, like your idol Mr. Maher and his cohorts, are just as predictably biased, too.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseBy the way, Dr. Bachmann didn't refer to homosexuals as barbarians. As a non-candidate, he should be free to express such an opinion (although it would be a bizarre opinion, in my view), but he did not. You guys should really stop repeating lies.
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