# Bill Maher's Real Time, 9/9 **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 10, 2005, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-mahers-real-time-9-9/320949 "2005-09-10T04:14:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![ParentalAdvisory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/53a042/32.png) [@ParentalAdvisory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParentalAdvisory)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2005, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-mahers-real-time-9-9/320949/21 "2005-09-11T03:44:14Z")
[quote[…On your watch we’ve lost almost all of our allies, the surplus, four airliners, two trade centers, a piece of the Pentagon, and the city of New Orleans… [/quote] I like Bill and everything, but did everyone elses watch stop or something when these things occured? ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2005, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-mahers-real-time-9-9/320949/22 "2005-09-11T05:49:02Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Who the hell would WANT to be the frigging president anyway? I think it was my high school American Government teacher who opined, ‘The people who deserve to be president don’t want to get involved. Thus, there are only scoundrels.’ (Rather heavily paraphrased.) ---
**Author:** ![Sequent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@Sequent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sequent)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2005, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-mahers-real-time-9-9/320949/23 "2005-09-11T06:18:17Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#): > > Mr. Roosevelt, you should be impeached. On your watch we’ve seen 25% unemployment, destruction of our farmlands, a great depression, an attack that destroyed a good chunk of our naval fleet, and hundreds of thousands of dead Americans overseas! In addition, even though we were attacked by the Japanese in the Pacific, you now have troops fighting Germans in Africa, distracting us from the real war! I guess that’s why those masochistic Americans elected him four times. Roosevelt inherited the Depression and turned it around; Bush inherited the strongest economy in the world and watched it slide away. Roosevelt reached out to working Americans and put them to work; Bush handed out tax cuts and claimed victory. They may have both wanted war, but at least Roosevelt didn’t have to fabricate a cause and falsely proffer it to the world. Roosevelt had the Allies; Bush had the Coalition of the Willing. Roosevelt really did lead a mission accomplished; Bush just bought the t-shirt. I think Bill’s point was that things under Bush have gotten _worse_ instead of getting _better_. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2005, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-mahers-real-time-9-9/320949/24 "2005-09-11T06:25:08Z")
> [@Sequent](#): > > I guess that’s why those masochistic Americans elected him four times. Roosevelt inherited the Depression and turned it around; Bush inherited the strongest economy in the world and watched it slide away. Roosevelt reached out to working Americans and put them to work; Bush handed out tax cuts and claimed victory. They may have both wanted war, but at least Roosevelt didn’t have to fabricate a cause and falsely proffer it to the world. Roosevelt had the Allies; Bush had the Coalition of the Willing. Roosevelt really did lead a mission accomplished; Bush just bought the t-shirt. > > I think Bill’s point was that things under Bush have gotten _worse_ instead of getting _better_. And things under Roosevelt were much worse in 1942 than they were in 1938. Sometimes bad stuff happens, and my whole point was that playing the ‘on your watch’ card means you get to blame a president for anything in the world that happens, whether it had anything to do with him or not. By that standard, Bill Clinton’s death toll is much higher. After all, on his watch genocide took place in Rwanda. ---
**Author:** ![initech](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/439d5e/32.png) [@initech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/initech)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2005, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-mahers-real-time-9-9/320949/25 "2005-09-11T06:30:24Z")
> [@astro](#): > > Maher has gotten to the point that he would pay to hear himself gargle, and apparently so would some others on this board that are swooning over his little stand up bit. I’m not a big GWB fan, but Maher’s self satisfied litany of Bush’s grand failures “on his watch” are cheap, lazy and asinine. Maher used to have a segment, on his old show, called “Get over Yourself.” He would do well to train that segment on himself. He often gets hung up in a phrase or simple, outrageous statement that discourages the audience from considering the larger thought (listen to him go off on corn sometime). That said, the larger thought it usually pretty sound, and I find his reasoning to be among the best of the current class of pundits. I don’t see the cheap, lazy or asinine qualities in Maher’s essay. In fact, I found it funny, insightful and (except for the part where it may be plagarized!) novel. The president is just a rich-kid dilettante who’s bored with his toy. That’s a thought I haven’t heard widely expressed, and it seems like a worthy vehicle for satire. Sam Stone’s use of FDR is fair, but what’s missing is context. Anyone arguing against the Roosevelt administration’s policies during WWII might have been reasonable in using those facts to bolster their argument. Maybe someday Bush’s detractors will turn out to be that misguided. But I doubt it. ---
**Author:** ![Sequent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@Sequent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sequent)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2005, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-mahers-real-time-9-9/320949/26 "2005-09-11T06:37:25Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#): > > And things under Roosevelt were much worse in 1942 than they were in 1938. But not worse than they were when he took office in 1932. And FDR’s watch was a fair bit longer than Bush’s watch will be. > [@Sam Stone](#): > > Sometimes bad stuff happens, and my whole point was that playing the ‘on your watch’ card means you get to blame a president for anything in the world that happens, whether it had anything to do with him or not. Sure, and we might as well throw Darfur on Bush’s list, as long as we’re holding him personally responsible. Of course you can’t _blame_ him. But that’s why Bill said, “maybe you’re just not lucky.” ---
**Author:** ![Sequent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@Sequent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sequent)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2005, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-mahers-real-time-9-9/320949/27 "2005-09-11T06:39:48Z")
> [@Sequent](#): > > But not worse than they were when he took office in 1932. 1933, sorry; he was elected in 1932. ---
**Author:** ![Sequent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@Sequent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sequent)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2005, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-mahers-real-time-9-9/320949/28 "2005-09-11T06:49:32Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#): > > Hell, if I had to endure six years of snotty anklebiters like Bill Maher yapping at me I’d probably up on the White House roof with a rifle. “President Stone’s on the roof again? Who’s gonna talk him down this time?” I think I’d be up there on the roof with the firearms after maybe one year of that job. In my pajamas. Quoting scripture to Secret Service agents. “And I beheld a pale horse, and upon him a rider…” ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Svinlesha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/22d042/32.png) [@Mr.Svinlesha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Svinlesha)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2005, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-mahers-real-time-9-9/320949/29 "2005-09-11T07:26:46Z")
> [@](#): > > originally posted by **Sam Stone** : > > \*Oh, the old, “On your watch” trick - employed so you can smear someone with any bad-sounding shit you can think of, whether it had anything to do with him or not. But since we’re playing that game… > > …But Maher’s right about one thing: The job can’t be that much fun any more. Hell, if I had to endure six years of snotty anklebiters like Bill Maher yapping at me I’d probably up on the White House roof with a rifle.\* Once again the indubitable **Mr. Stone** displays a stunning inability to differentiate between substantive critique and rhetoric. I guess he lumps war critics such as myself into the category of ”ankle biters” as well. Equally astonishing to me the sheer quantity of denial required to continue supporting this lame-ass president in the face of overwhelming evidence of his incompetence and duplicity, the federal government’s response to Katrina being only the last in a long string of examples. How much you wanna bet that I can find numerous examples of **Sam** blaming Clinton or other ”liberal” politicians for things that happened ”on their watch”? ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2005, 9:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-mahers-real-time-9-9/320949/30 "2005-09-11T09:09:22Z")
Ah, Mr. Svinlesha’s back again, trying to make it all personal. This ain’t about me, dude, but if you want it to be, the pit’s over thatta way. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2005, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-mahers-real-time-9-9/320949/31 "2005-09-11T15:01:41Z")
Bill Maher’s Real Time, 9/9 Should have been called Bill Maher’s Waste of Time, 9/9 Maher is an raving asshole. Either that or he’s pretty smart and has discovered that liberals will give him lots of money if he says bad things about Bush. Or both. ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2005, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-mahers-real-time-9-9/320949/32 "2005-09-11T15:19:15Z")
> [@C K Dexter Haven](#): > > **commasense** , you’ve been around long enough to know better. I defer, as always, to the authority of the moderators, and apologize for whatever my infraction may have been. It wasn’t my intent. But with all due respect, I must point out that none of the political comments in this thread are mine. As I mentioned in my second post, I thought the monologue was funny, and that Maher’s comments about the personality traits of the president–“losing interest and walking away”–were particularly apt. But I had no position I wanted to debate, so I didn’t post in GD. I was giving Mr. Maher a voice here, and since he’s an entertainer I put it in CS. I suppose in retrospect, the Pit would have been a better location, since I was effectively pitting the president with Mr. Maher’s words. I’ll choose my forum more carefully in future. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2005, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-mahers-real-time-9-9/320949/33 "2005-09-11T15:44:53Z")
> [@commasense](#): > > But with all due respect, I must point out that none of the political comments in this thread are mine. With all due respect as well, I think we need a sticky telling us that if you are going to start a thread about Bush regardless of the sentiment, that it should go directly into the pit. ---
**Author:** ![Frostillicus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Frostillicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frostillicus)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2005, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-mahers-real-time-9-9/320949/34 "2005-09-11T15:54:35Z")
**Originally posted by Bill Maher…** …On your watch we’ve lost almost all of our allies, the surplus, four airliners, two trade centers, a piece of the Pentagon, and the city of New Orleans… Not to mention over 2,000 American soldiers and Marines. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2005, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-mahers-real-time-9-9/320949/35 "2005-09-11T16:44:51Z")
> [@commasense](#): > > I defer, as always, to the authority of the moderators, and apologize for whatever my infraction may have been. It wasn’t my intent. > > But with all due respect, I must point out that none of the political comments in this thread are mine. As I mentioned in my second post, I thought the monologue was funny, and that Maher’s comments about the personality traits of the president–“losing interest and walking away”–were particularly apt. > > But I had no position I wanted to debate, so I didn’t post in GD. I was giving Mr. Maher a voice here, and since he’s an entertainer I put it in CS. I suppose in retrospect, the Pit would have been a better location, since I was effectively pitting the president with Mr. Maher’s words. > > I’ll choose my forum more carefully in future. If you think about it, what’s doubly annoying about posting stuff like this in Cafe Society is that you get to re-post someone’s anti-Bush rant, and yet no one is allowed to rebut it, because that would be ‘political debate’. Imagine I was in the habit of posting clips from the Rush Limbaugh show slamming Democrats or John Kerry. “Hey, did you guys hear Limbaugh totally destroy John Kerry? Wasn’t that FUNNY?” Of course, I’m just talking about ‘entertrainment’, right? But if anyone dares come back with a rebuttal, suddenly it’s ‘political debate’ and off-limits. That’s why threads like this don’t belong in Cafe Society in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2005, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-mahers-real-time-9-9/320949/36 "2005-09-11T16:48:00Z")
Who was the Conservative/Libertarian guy? I can’t believe how clueless he was. Rather than debate George Carlin he just rolled his eyes and said, ‘Oh, I see.’ And then he spouted The Conservative Truth, and it was so out of synch with reality the audience laughed at him and Bill Maher had to ‘defend’ him. 😛 I’m sick of George Carlin. It’s as if he has a string you can pull and then he says ‘I hate God! I hate God!’ You know, George, I got it the first time you said it so many years ago. It was funny then. But telling the same joke over and over and over and over is tiring. Get a new schtick. Having said that, I was pleasantly surprised that he kept those comments to a minimum. He was actually trying to debat Mr. Conservative Guy. But Mr. Conservative Guy would only roll his eyes and say, ‘Oh, I see.’ ---
**Author:** ![Sequent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@Sequent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sequent)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2005, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-mahers-real-time-9-9/320949/37 "2005-09-11T17:12:36Z")
> [@Johnny L.A.](#): > > Who was the Conservative/Libertarian guy? I can’t believe how clueless he was. Rather than debate George Carlin he just rolled his eyes and said, ‘Oh, I see.’ Acutally, it was something Carlin said. I can’t remember what it was, but they were actually debating eachother until Carlin said something that made the lights go out in the conservative’s brain. As if to say, “if you really believe that, then we’re living on two completely different planets.” Wish I could remember what it was. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2005, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-mahers-real-time-9-9/320949/38 "2005-09-11T19:39:03Z")
> [@Sequent](#): > > Acutally, it was something Carlin said. I can’t remember what it was, but they were actually debating eachother until Carlin said something that made the lights go out in the conservative’s brain. As if to say, “if you really believe that, then we’re living on two completely different planets.” Wish I could remember what it was. First Carlin tried to lecture the guy by saying: “Listen. Just listen, and learn something.” (paraphrase) I thought that made Carlin look like an arrogant ass. I mean, this guy is some political nerd. I doubt very much that Carlin can teach this guy anything about politics and governmental policy. Then, Carlin said somthing to the effect that he didn’t have any problem with looting or theft during Katrina. Then the guy asked him if was okay to steal or loot absent a natural disaster, and Carlin said yes. That’s when they guy just shook his head. And when he did try to bring it up Maher cut him off. I thought Carlin came off as nothing but an angry asshole. I enjoyed Cynthia Tucker and was glad that Maher had at least put on a guy who was informed and not a pussy. I mean, it is four against one. (I’m counting the audience, too.) ---
**Author:** ![ExTank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@ExTank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExTank)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2005, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-mahers-real-time-9-9/320949/39 "2005-09-11T21:18:33Z")
IN all fairness to Bill Maher (and it takes some effort on my part to do so), what he does is no different than what Rush Limbaugh’s been doing for over a decade. If I were Bill Clkinton, and had to put up with ankle-biters like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, I’d be up on the roof of the White House, too. With water balloons and a Mega-Super-Soaker 5000 (puts out forests fires a whole state away!) for all of the conservative pundits who spin an event into a national disaster laid directly at my feet before I’m even briefed fully on it by my Cabinet. Neither Limbaugh or Maher have any hammerlock on truth, even if Maher gets reprieve after reprieve for his incredible lack of judgement and taste, and a major cable network for a platform with which to spew his brand of bile. If HBO didn’t have damned good shows to watch (The Sopranos, Deadwood, Entourage, and now Rome is looking to be somewhat interesting) I’d have cancelled my subscription to them long ago just because of Bill Maher. ---
**Author:** ![Governor\_Quinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/d26b3c/32.png) [@Governor\_Quinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Governor_Quinn)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-mahers-real-time-9-9/320949/40 "2005-09-12T00:22:05Z")
> [@Johnny L.A.](#): > > Who was the Conservative/Libertarian guy? Finance columnist James Glassman. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-mahers-real-time-9-9/320949.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-mahers-real-time-9-9/320949.md?page=3)