Is Bill Maher never going to go away? That he ought to was proved definitively the other day during his interview with Rep. Ron Paul, who recently announced his candidacy for the GOP presidential nomination. Senor Maher claims to be a “libertarian” — but doesn ‘t seem to realize that this is not (necessarily) synonymous with being a sleaze-bag. (Maher, you’ll probably not want to remember, starred in the role of Bill Clinton’s penis). The smarmy look on his face as he tried to snark Paul with questions designed to trip up the congressman was a cross between Smeagol and one of those gargoyles that leer from the parapets of medieval churches. Paul creamed him, and won over the audience — much to Mayer’s visible annoyance.
I had my own duel with the fake “libertarian” Maher, which you can read about here. Suffice to say that Maher represents the “liberalism” of the Hollywood crowd: facile, content-less, and, in this particular case, downright malevolent. This is a guy who said of the Kosovo war, “I’m for this war because it’s the liberal thing to do,” agreeing with his guest Bill Kristol that we ought to “crush Serb skulls.” Oh, but that was one of Clinton’s “liberal” wars, and therefore fine with Maher.
I doubt I’m all that alone in being thoroughly sick of the posturing “comic,” whose unique blend of condescension and cant is now fermented beyond the bounds of good taste. It is especially embarrassing to see one of my formerly favorite television newscasters, Keith Olbermann, treat Maher as if he were the oracle at Delphi — with Maher sneering openly at him the whole interview. If Olbermann, who I’ve defend in the past, is intent on turning his program into a left-liberal copy of Fox News – with Olbermann as the Bizarro World Bill O’Reilly — then that almost merits yet another entry in the “People I’m Sick Of” sweepstakes. (Shouldn’t we have a contest, at year’s end, to see who people are the most sick of?)
[For more of the “People I’m Sick Of” series, go here for Part I (Arianna Huffington, of course), here for Part II (Camille Paglia), here for Part III (Andrew Sullivan), and here for Part IV (David Sirota: yeah, he’s a nobody, but they can be just as annoying as celebrities precisely because of their nobody-ness.]
