This is a GQ thread.
I have read in a couple (biased) sources that Bill Maher’s audience applauded portions of the recent ObL tape when he read it to them.
Can anyone confirm or refute this?
How about a link? It might help.
On Friday night’s Real Time, Bill Maher said that some of Osama bin Laden’s statements in the recently aired video sounded similar to charges Democrats have made against President Bush. The initial reaction was disbelief that anyone would say such a thing, and the panelists Richard Belzer, Wesley Clark and Kevin Costner couldn’t object fast enough. Bill Maher asked everyone to listen and read three quotes from bin Laden’s statement:*
“Despite entering the fourth year after Sept. 11, Bush is still deceiving you and hiding the truth from you and therefore the reasons are still there to repeat what happened.”
“We had no difficulty in dealing with Bush and his administration because they resemble the regimes in our countries, half of which are ruled by the military and the other half by the sons of kings … They have a lot of pride, arrogance, greed and thievery.”
“He (Bush) adopted despotism and the crushing of freedoms from Arab rulers and called it the Patriot Act under the guise of combating terrorism.”
I can’t recall the exact reaction of the audience, but the overall tone was that the original claim was not as outrageous as it seemed at first. At no point did Bill Maher, the panelists or audience indicate that they approved of bin Laden’s message.
*I believe these were the passages Bill Maher chose.
I saw the show. ** Nobody Special**'s description is accurate.
Alas, it was a link to a link to a link to a couple of blogs, and now I can’t find them.
Thanks to NS and BJ
Bill M. made it very clear that he did not approve or support Bin Laden, and held a brief debate on how you can despise the PERSON, but still agree with CERTAIN PARTS of the person’s message. “For example,” he said, “Hitler was a vegetarian.” To which Kevin Costner replied, “Being vegetarian is a good thing?” (Or maybe it was that other guy…)
The only reason the audience cheered & applauded that routine was because (1) it was cleverly done, and (2) it really did sound like the Democrats bashing the Bush Administration…