Saturday, December 26, 2009

Bill Maher is a fraud

This has nothing to do with any current news he may or not have made, but I feel the overriding urge to make the following definitive statement: Bill Maher is a fraud.

As we get ever closer to what appears to be the unavoidable passage of the so-called health care reform bill, I cannot help but recall Maher’s comments back in August on the “Tonight Show” with Conan O’Brien. That evening he went on a rant about the discussion in the public about Senate Democrats pursuing 60 votes in their quest to move their agenda forward. Referring to President Barack Obama, Maher insisted “he needs to drag them to it because they’re stupid.”

Very simply, the notion that the public at large lacks the intelligence, wherewithal, or even the fundamental right to make basic choices for themselves (particularly on matters such as their own health care and whether or not they will seek related coverage) and we must allow ourselves to be dependent on so-called experts to “guide us” in making any such choices is the most politically correct notion floating around in our society.

And that is what’s truly fraudulent about Bill Maher. For years he has portrayed himself as a champion of all that is politically incorrect – hence the name of his former television program on ABC. Yet, now he is spewing-forth an endless stream of modern progressive dogma.

Adding to the case against him is the fact most of his comments over at least the last 10 years have fallen in-line with the rest of the Hollywood establishment. This is further highlighted by Maher’s far-left stance on gun control and endless mocking of anyone who openly practices Christianity.

The picking and choosing of easy, overdone targets doesn’t end with Christians. I distinctly remember watching an airing of “Politically Incorrect” during which Penn Jillette called him out for using phrases such as “white trash” and "trailer trash.” He reminded Maher that these euphemisms “are racist terms” just as much as any ethnic slur directed at a minority. In this situation, again Maher falls back on the easy jokes and commentary – this time at the expense of Southerners, people living in rural communities, and white people in lower income brackets – because they better enable him to curry favor with Hollywood’s elite.

The truth is such material, including making fun of patriotism, is the easy way to get laughs anymore. These types of jokes and comments were edgy 30 and 40 years ago. Today, in the 21st century, they are commonplace in American pop culture.

Now, if Maher wants to be truly edgy and politically incorrect he ought to work on material that calls into question leftward ideas such as climate change. If he is so eager to mock members of a religious congregation, targeting the worshipers of modern environmentalism would cut harder against the Hollywood grain than anything else in circulation.

Otherwise, he is basically like Gwyneth Paltrow with chest hair – or or more simply Janeane Garofalo.

Cheap and easy jokes can go both ways, I suppose.

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