Days before the 2008 election, HBO host Bill Maher expressed his hatred for Sarah Palin: “If there is such a thing as karma, let’s hope that Sarah Palin comes back as a wolf being shot from a plane.” Maher returned to the wolf-shooting metaphors on Friday night’s Real Time as he discussed her farewell address in Alaska – except this time Maher suggested Palin would execute Cherokee Indians. Right-leaning humorist Joe Queenan set off the “joking.”
QUEENAN: Are you blaming Sarah Palin for the extermination of the Cherokee tribe?
MAHER: I certainly am.
QUEENAN: Exactly.
MAHER: Not that she did it, but if she was around then, she would have – from a helicopter, like she did the wolves.
Notice how the logic collapses: Palin in a helicopter in the 1800s? That was not the only moment when the Palin mockery seemed a little mangled on the Maher show. This is how the bashing began:
MAHER: Sarah Palin, as you know, she made her farewell speech this week, and she said, and she used the term “apologetics,” which is priceless.
MICHAEL WARE, CNN: Is that in the dictionary?
MAHER: No. I lost 15 pounds with Apologetics.
Wrong. “Apologetics” is certainly in the dictionary, but it’s a theological term (which would explain why the atheist comedian and the CNN reporter are giggling in ignorance). Webster’s defines apologetics as “a branch of theology devoted to the defense of the divine origin and authority of Christianity.” Palin wasn’t using the term in that way, but the oh-so-smart liberals weren’t exactly displaying their intellects, either.
Ware also suggested his distaste for religion when he came on to discuss Iraq and Afghanistan and his newest beat, the drug wars in Mexico:
WARE: A choice between holy war and drug war. I know which one I’ll take.
MAHER: You’re saying this is safer? Mexico?
WARE: No, but it’ll be a lot more fun.
Drugs trump God every time, according to the CNN reporter.