Tim Tebow is apparently the starting quarterback for the Denver Broncos professional football club. He is also apparently a public Christian and advocate of home schooling and has co-authored a best-selling, religiously flavoured autobiography.
On Dec. 24, Denver lost 14-40 to the Buffalo Bills and comedian Bill Maher sent out this tweet:
Fox News’s Eric Bolling responded with this tweet:
Apparently someone is trying to organize another boycott of H.B.O.–which broadcasts Maher’s Real Time–over this.
I don’t see why anyone should really get upset over this, but I guess some people make a living by making hay.
This is the best assessment I have ever seen of Tebow as a football player.
This isn’t going to hurt Bill Maher. He’s on HBO, which is a very different animal from ABC, and making fun of Tim Tebow is very different from what he said about the September 11th hijackers.* As far as Eric Bolling goes, but he sounds like another Fox News douchebag. Maher isn’t a Christian- why exactly does he have to be nice because it’s Christmas Eve? And by Christmas Eve, of course, I mean that it was 5 p.m. Eastern on Saturday the 24th. If Christmas lasts from the end of October to the end of December, I guess the afternoon of the 24th can be Christmas Eve. Whatever calendar you operate on, Maher has made fun of Tebow before, and if NFL hadn’t played its games on Christmas Eve, he’d have said essentially the same thing with different particulars. There’s no rule that requires people to refrain from making jokes on Christmas, let alone Christmas Eve.
*As I recall, what he said was essentially that they were brave, and that it takes more bravery to kill yourself in a hijacking than it does to fire cruise missiles at someone else. I don’t think that’s particularly wrong, but it’s also easy to understand why people were offended.
If Tebow were Jewish and Maher had said something to that effect, it would’ve been a much bigger story. But he’s not and he didn’t, so I guess this is just another mark in the “Assholey things Bill Maher says” category.
I have to say, as much as Tebow’s Jeebus Love makes me cringe, he’s a rather classy fellow. Especially for a football player.
Marley, his tweet said:
so it would be he who brought up the Xmas Eve significance. I don’t think it’s about being a dickbag on Xmas Eve. It’s about being a dickbag in general.
Yup. Stevie Johnson has rocks between his ears, but as a Bills fan, I continue to like him based on that comment. It was refreshingly honest and logical.
There is essentially no such thing as an evangelical Jew and Jews don’t believe in the Christian Hell. So why would Maher have said it in the first place?
I read the tweet, and if the game had been on December 22 or 23 or 26, I think Maher would’ve made essentially the same joke. Why would anybody react differently because the game was on December 24? I mean, yes, it’s a dickish thing to say, but he’s a comedian and this is what he does. I laughed.
You can be funny. You can be funny by being a jerk. A good comedian can make fun of you or your favorite cause and you’ll be laughing your ass off with him and the audience. I don’t think he does that.
I don’t think Maher is that funny. I think he mostly funny to mainly to those who agree with his points of view on various matters (the liberals lightweight version of Rush Limbaugh).
And my big peeve with him is this. Lets say some situation comes up where he can make fun of somebody he appears to disagree with intellectually/morally/whatever. And his joke might or might not be funny. Another comedian might do the same thing but they seem to realize its just a joke and has no real impact on the actual intellectual debate going one. I get the impression Maher thinks that if he can make a good funny he is actually scoring “real” debate points for his “side” (and that makes me think he is just a pompass dumb ass jerk).
I don’t think Tebow has been prone to thank God for on-field success, I think he’s been careful to not to imply that he was winning or would because God was on his side. Given that Tebow never claimed Jesus was helping him win when he did, Maher’s “joke” about Jesus making him lose to the Bills was just kind of stupid, but he’s never been much more than a smug smirky ass.
You don’t enjoy Maher’s humor and that’s perfectly fine… don’t try to intellectualize your disdain for his point of view. My only question is why is the dickbag from Fox News following Maher? I don’t follow Grover Norquist… nor do I follow Gary Bauer for instance… or Rush Limbaugh… here’s a hint… if you follow Maher or say Howard Stern… you just might see a tweet like that…