BILL MAHER
Labels can be misleading.
By any measure Bill Maher is a hardcore dyed-in-the-wool left-wing liberal champing at the bit to defame, besmirch, disparage or denigrate those for whom he has little use, namely conservative Republicans, white nationalist/supremacist hooligans and cannabis haters.
And that for which he has no use, like religion. Easy. He’s a bit of a renegade.
But it’s deeper than that and he’s far more complex a human being than the glossed-over aforementioned might suggest.
He is hardly the square peg fitting numbingly into the square hole. Or fitting into any hole for that matter. He simply doesn’t fit and the man seemingly has been proud of that for all of his professional life which began in 1979 and probably just as proud of it well before then.
His friendly dispensation of political news/satire, observational comedy comprised of cringe, black and insult, tossed with healthy dollops of sarcasm and cynicism pretty much defines Maher’s schtick.
But the thing is, Bill Maher is not that simply described.
Or is he?
As Larry David might chirp with a smirk, “he’s pretty pretty pretty good.”
And at least that smart.
Say what you will — and he does — Bill Maher is very smart.
“We need more people speaking out. This country is not overrun with rebels and free thinkers. It’s overrun with sheep and conformists.”
“We have the Bill of Rights. What we need is a Bill of Responsibilities.”
“If you think you have it tough, read history books.”
“Women cannot complain about men anymore until they start getting better taste in them.”
“Religion, to me, is a bureaucracy between man and God that I don’t need.”
“Everything that used to be a sin is now a disease.”
“What Democratic congressmen do to their women staffers, Republican congressmen do to the country.”
— Bill Maher —
Quick with a quip and eminently quotable, that’s Bill Maher.
His views are clearly his own, reflective of his upbringing and widely shared by liberal-minded thinkers. Seemingly hell-bent to court controversy, he says what he means and means what he says. A shock jock of sorts, broad-nosed and pompous — even before he opens his mouth with that tongue forever flapping — he lives to annoy. He irritates you with his mere presence, his being. His smile even.
But his words resonate.
Just last night (10/26/2018) he harpooned Fox News, a frequent target, for its reporting on the migrant caravan traveling through Mexico. He accused the conservative network of blatant fear-mongering with respect to its coverage of the thousands of “desperate” people from Central America who are heading for the United States.
“They are over a thousand miles away, they are mostly women and children,” he remarked. “On Fox News, they are tracking them minute-by-minute like an Uber driver coming up.”
Then he wondered, “Can’t we be a little kinder?”
To wrap it up with a tidy bow Maher poked, “The single, overarching message of Fox News is that weirdos are coming for your shit. Well, that’s what happens on Oct. 31.”
And in that context he wryly suggested that Halloween be moved “far, far away from election day. Because Republican voters are scared enough as it is.”
Which for better or for worse segues nicely to Bill Maher’s unmasked and pure hatred of Donald Trump.
Could there be two other people so diametrically opposed in every way, so radically different? Yeah maybe. It’s a big world.
Maher may appear to be a bit full of himself but he characterizes Trump’s narcissism as a “serious, dangerous mental illness,” something which “we have to stop treating…like it’s an unfortunate personality tick.”
The comedic side of Maher is not meant to be on display here. He’s dead serious.
[Trump’s] narcissism “isn’t a quirk like having a fear of clowns…it’s in the Big Book of Crazy. Trump sets up a hundred bombs a week and we chase all of them,” he remarks.
According to Maher, Trump’s narcissism allows the President to view himself differently than we do. He behaves treasonously and believes with all his heart that he’s a patriot.
If JFK began by imploring, “Ask not what your country can do for you…” then Trump finishes by beseeching, “ask what you can do for ME.”
Adds Maher, “and narcissism is why we have a foreign policy based entirely on whether or not when our leader meets your leader, he thinks they like him.
All you gotta do is say something nice, Donald Trump is the world’s cheapest date.”
On last night’s edition of Real Time (11/02/2018) kindred spirit Barbra Streisand appeared and pulled no punches in her own way.
She readily admitted to Maher that her new album, Walls was conceived, produced and fueled by “real sadness as well as anger. I must say, [this] motivated me.”
Expounding she said, “I couldn’t sleep nights. The photographs in my head — the pictures of the children being ripped out of the arms of their parents…”
She and Maher agreed that being friendly with the other side — those who sit across the aisle — though a lost art is still doable.
Being real as in honest, decent and candid coupled with the will and ability to listen would be an empirically good start.
Streisand, who has long frightened conservatives, recently got a call from 1996 GOP presidential nominee Bob Dole whom Maher sheepishly confessed he thought had died. They talked about how they had worked across the aisle when Dole headed the Senate.
She then cited a recent Fareed Zakaria program featuring two former Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright and Colin Powell, guests with different views and perspectives appearing together demonstrating that “sane people can agree to disagree in a very civil conversation.”
(In fact Albright and Powell appeared together again on October 30 before a packed arena at Creighton University as part of a Presidential Lecture Series celebrating the Omaha, Nebraska institution’s 140th. anniversary.
They both offered vociferous criticism of the country’s divisive political climate and Trump’s immigration policies while expressing disgust over the current incendiary political rhetoric.
Noted Powell who served under Republican President George W. Bush, “We have come to live in a society based on insults, on lies and on things that just aren’t true. It creates an environment where deranged people feel empowered.”
Albright who served at the pleasure of Democratic President Bill Clinton lamented, “I’m deeply troubled by the direction we’re going. I’m a naturalized American citizen. I came when I was 11 years old. I’m very upset about the image we’re projecting abroad.”).
Maher noted in passing that the right fears Streisand, “but they go to your concerts.”
To which Barbra shot back anecdotally that at a concert in Washington, D.C. when she asked how many of those in the audience were Republican, “a lot of people raised their hand.” Nonplussed and happy with her delivery, she recalled her hair-trigger retort. “Sure, you’re the ones who could afford these tickets!”
Streisand has been unnerving conservatives for eons and recalled a concert in the mid-80s which she performed to raise money for a number of Democratic Senate hopefuls who went on to win their races, flipping the executive chamber majority from Republican to Democrat. “So that was very powerful,” she acknowledged, quick to deflect praise and credit opening act Robin Williams along with her duet partner Barry Gibb.
Some thirty-odd years later she offered Maher a glimpse of her personal strategies to deal with Trump and the havoc he has wreaked. “First of all, I eat a lot. I eat sweets, like coffee ice cream, that counterbalances the bitterness that he is throwing at us.
Also, I have to play games, literally, before I go to sleep. To get him out of your head…you have to play gin,” she joked.
To which Maher replied that “I find I’m watching in-season basketball.”
Any port in a storm.
Before Maher wrapped the interview, Streisand grabbed a few more arrows from her quiver, addressing fears related to Trump’s war on the environment, his vehement denial of climate change and his tiresome Hide-and-Seek Tax Return posture.
“What is he hiding?” she wondered aloud. “Why is he abusing the power he has: Why is he living with these conflicts of interest? Why do other Republicans let him get away with it?”
Rhetorically she asked, “Why do we allow the media to keep showing him on TV? Why are we covering his rallies? He’s got 71 rallies!”
Maher explained that — as with so many things — it was all about the money.
Barbra’s solution? “That’s so sad to me. Don’t cover him!”
Bill Maher is a comedian. He can be pithy but thoughtful, he will expound, he embellishes, he offends and he makes you laugh. His cup of opinions forever runneth over.
And will; it’s just the way he is.
He supports the legalization of marijuana, same-sex marriages and animal rights. He hates religion.
(Raised as a Roman Catholic, his father’s religion, Maher was unaware that his mother — whose family was from Hungary — was Jewish until his early teens).
Is he a regular guy with too much to say? Yes and yes.
But that’s not only his job, it’s his identity, his heart and soul. Beneath the cloak of humor is a dedication to fairness and an understanding that calling out your side once in a while is as important as skewering the other.
Pontificates right-leaning comic Tim Young, Maher’s audience pricks up its ears when his political punchlines occasionally gore his own. Says he, “When you have someone purely left or purely right, it becomes white noise. With [Mr. Maher], you never know what to expect.”
Which keeps you listening. And thinking. And watching. And perhaps even learning.
Maher engenders conversation and willingly engages with those who don’t share his views.
To fellow liberal comedian Robert Baril who salutes him for his comedic honesty, “What Maher’s doing is really important. It’s also how you grow as a party and a group…Without that, you’re not going to evolve.”
Concludes Young, “If you’re a comedian, you should want to emulate him. You just don’t blanket support a political party or political ideas.”
Of all people, the enigmatic Bill Maher surely would subscribe to that.
“…all kidding aside, there isn’t an illegal crime wave. There just isn’t. Some Americans commit crimes, some don’t. The ones who do tend to be in the cabinet.”
“If Trump thinks there’s a caravan of angry brown people in Mexico, just wait till he sees the lines at the polls [tomorrow].”
“Remember after the ’08 crash, banks had to do a ‘stress test’ to see if they could withstand big losses? Trump is kind of our ‘stress test’ for democracy — to see if our institutions, laws, norms and basic decency can hold. Don’t fuck it up folks…”
“Mark Tuesday November 6 down on your calendar like you’re Brett Kavanaugh planning to get shit faced. Because Tuesday is win or go home for democracy.”
— Bill Maher —
[Editor’s Note: This piece was written by Mr. Kaplan in November 2018.]
