I knew there was a good reason I long ago stopped watching Bill Maher. His latest: furiously defending Tweety.
Maher claimed that all Chris Matthews did was make a poor “analogy” when he compared Bernie Sanders, a Jew, to the Nazis (“I hope the victims got some closure,” the comic sarcastically cracked); that Matthews was basically branded a “Klansman” for mixing up Jaime Harrison and Tim Scott, two African-American politicians; and that people overreacted to Matthews being “mean” to Elizabeth Warren when he pressed her on why people should believe Mike Bloomberg’s female accusers over the billionaire himself.
And then things got really ugly, as the HBO host targeted Laura Bassett, who accused Matthews of sexually harassing her when she was a guest on his program.
Isn’t it astonishing how being sexually harassed makes you a target again, if you’re forthright enough to tell others the truth? And how dinosaurs like Maher crawl out of the swamp to declare that he did nothing wrong?
According to Maher, Matthews “said some things that are kind of creepy to women,” continuing, “You know, I just, guys are married for a million years, they want to flirt for two seconds. He said to somebody, Laura Bassett, four years ago, she’s in makeup, he said, ‘Why haven’t I fallen in love with you yet?’ Yes, it is creepy. She said, ‘I was afraid to name him at the time out of fear of retaliation. I’m not afraid anymore.’ Thank you, Rosa Parks. I mean, Jesus fucking Christ! I guess my question is: Do you wonder how Democrats lose?”
I’ll tell you why Democrats lose: because they refuse to stand up for any robust principles of ethical behavior, favoring expediency over everything. Because “liberals” allow any old fraud, like Maher, to pretend to be the standard bearer for reason and virtue.
Then, every week, he brings in a goon squad of terrible conservatives with the pretense of balance.
One of his roundtable guests, the anti-#MeToo writer Caitlin Flanagan of The Atlantic, proceeded to further mock Bassett, saying of her, “How fragile can one woman be?” and insinuating that she was only booked on Matthews’ show because “she probably looked good on camera.”
With that, Maher chimed in: “Is she a compliment-victim or a compliment-survivor?”
Enough already. Maher is just a horrible faux-liberal shit-stirrer who provides a megaphone for even worse people. He belongs on Fox News.
I’d stopped watching his show long before giving up cable. I grew increasingly uncomfortable with his virulent Islamaphobia, and simply couldn’t overlook any of his other snotty opinions either, on women, on Black people. Maher’s regressive opinions on most issues often get overlooked, because he smokes weed, and believes in whoring around.
I gave up on him about a decade or so ago. His Islamaphobia was an issue, but then I heard the “jokes” he’d made about that conservative reporter lady who was captured by Islamic militants. Hard nope.
Though that was after seeing Religiosity and wondering why atheists were praising him for effectively doing the same sort of ambush interviews that we criticized religious people for doing to atheists all the time.
I felt the same way about Religiosity! It was another peg knocked out of my trust in the atheist movement. I saw the movie, didn’t care much for it for the reasons given, and then everyone was praising it and it was given a Dawkins Award at an atheist conference. The whole thing made me queasy.
Not surprising coming from Maher, who thinks that boys can’t be raped by women. When it comes to sexual harassment or sexual violence, Maher is very much on the wrong side of nearly everything.
Guys, it was religilous or something.
“I was afraid to name him at the time out of fear of retaliation.”
Yep, that’s exactly how that works. We had a GM at a restaurant I worked at who was after one of our bar tenders. This guy was fucking disgusting. The things he would say about the women he worked with were disgusting. I kept quiet because he was my boss and it was 2010. I was afraid. We didn’t have an HR so she went to the owner and he shitcanned the guy on the spot.
So the bartender drank herself to death a couple years ago and the misogynist GM, well he makes 6 figures running an entire chain of restaurants now. You have no idea how angry I am whenever I think about this. I SAW IT ALL. I’m angry at myself, I’m angry at the culture. I will NOT stay quiet if I ever see anything like that again.
As far as Tim goes, he better hope he doesn’t EVER meets me again. He’s not my boss any more, and I have no reason not to beat the ever loving shit out of him.
Ah, yes. They clearly need more virtue signalling instead of implementing policies that help the bulk of the people. Because helping those people might goad them into voting and the election tampering to combat that might seem too obvious.
There are plenty of superhero flicks to scratch your goodies vs baddies theatrical itch. Let’s have politicians actually help people.
@7
Interesting that you associate the mere concept of ethical behavior as useless virtue signalling.
A refreshingly realistic take on the state of the Democratic party, sure, but not an ideal worth aiming for if you actually want people to support your apparently unethical party.
If Biden can get away with being racist, sexist, homophobic, pro-war, pro-Republican, and willing to undermine the public for the benefit of corporations for 40 years and still be even in the running to get the Presidential nomination of the Democratic Party — let alone be the frontrunner — then how is it even remotely surprising that Maher can hold a position which isn’t even officially intellectual or on the left despite being a hypocritical sealion?
Yeah, Drew usually pops in to defend right-wing assholes from the brutal assaults of the libs, so it’s no surprise that he’d pop up in this thread. Although simultaneously complaining about “virtue signaling” and saying politicians should help people is a troll too far, I think.
@7 drew
As Thomas Frank has remarked, the democratic elite don’t care if they lose elections. They are a part of the failure of the two party system.
jack16
I actually don’t think it’s that the Democratic elite don’t care if they lose elections.
I actually think it’s that more than 50% of the Democratic elite are also members of the Republican elite. They give to both parties and if they have some mild preference for funding food stamps or pro-/anti- Obamacare, they aren’t issues that they get worked up about. They care about making money and they give political gifts because it helps them make money.
The politicians can have their pet issues, and as long as they’re mostly good those pet desires will be indulged, just like a dog might want you to play fetch when you’d really rather kick back with a glass of wine. Dragging you out for a metaphorical game of fetch every once in a while isn’t going to bother the elite, because the point of owning a politician is owning the politician. The benefit they get from the 98% of the time their politician spends desperately seeking to please more than makes up for the 2% of the time the elite have to take time out of their day to respond to what the politician wants.
And it works almost the same way whether you’ve bought a Republican or a Democrat, so why worry?
Ironically, the purest form of virtue signalling is accusing someone of it. It takes no effort and solves no problems to make the accusation, but it allows one to feel smug and superior.
As I read Maher’s version of the events I said to myself “that’s not creepy. Its just a compliment. I don’t get it”. Then I clicked the link and realized that she describes this as staring her down as well. Okay, that is creepy as fuck now. Maher completely ignores that context. What a dishonest asshole. Now I picture it in my head as some creepy fuck leering at her and then saying that line, jeez it feels gross.
Crip Dyke–
Yep. The giveaway is that most large corporate donors give to both parties. They’re not just supporting the party that happens to have the most favorable policies, they’re buying party influence on both sides of the house to get the policies they want.
Maher has a small talent for snark, that’s about it.