Thank you, Jesus, for Bill Maher's "Real Time" (9/2/05)

Cafe Society
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After spending the better part of the day being horrified by the lackluster city, state, and federal response to Katrina, and participating in threads where allegations of structural and institutional racism and classism are dismissed as relevant explanations of what hasn’t happened in New Orleans this week, I took a deep swig of the lefty Kool Aid courtesy of Bill Maher’s Real Time.

Anderson Cooper. Some scientist talking about global warming. The former head of the civil rights commission, Michael Eric Dyson, the West Wing guy, and Bill, all working Bush and his ilk over. Kneeing the weak-assed reactionary Dems in the groin for their pathetic response to date. Great stuff, and I needed it. And Fareed Zakaria is on too!

I’ve always been a Democrat, but a centrist one, but the events of this week - and the excuse making from Bush apologists - may have flipped me into a stark raving lefty.

Anyone else drinking this stuff and liking it?

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I truly wish I had HBO right now. I love Bill Maher and am sorry I’m missing all the What-the-Hell-Happened-After-Katrina debates.

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Damn skippy!

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Am on a vacation weekend here, and I can’t wait to see this show when I get home. “Real Time” is one of the few reasons that I subscribe to HBO, and it rarely gets its due.

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“New Rule: As a member of the Alabama Air National Guard, President Bush gets called up.” :smiley:

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I turned it off in disgust last year–has Bill gotten rid of that howling, egregiously partisan, time-wasting audience?

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Another good line: ‘A combination of ebonics and a thesaurus.’

Comparing religious Fundamentalists: ‘If you put Pat Robertson in the middle of a desert… Hey, that’s good!’

‘Stop comparing Iraq to the American Revolution. The American Revolution was about using guerilla tactics to fight against an occupying foreign power. In Iraq we are the foreign power! We’re the British! Want further proof? Our only ally there is Britain!’ (I was waiting for someone to say, ‘You forgot about Poland!’)

Maher put out a plea for Conservatives to join the studio audience, in response to complaints that his audience was too Liberal. From what I could see since he made the request, there have been more Conservatives in the audience. Last night he apologised for not having a Conservative on the panel. But he admitted that he was so pissed off that it would feel good to vent.

Props to Anderson Cooper. He is the first reporter I’ve noticed taking government officials to task for answering hard questions with mindless ‘thank yous’. Maher asked him if ‘the press corps are growing balls’. Cooper said that after the WTC attacks and the initiation of the war in Iraq the answers they were getting to their ‘hard questions’ made them run out of questions. Something like, ‘When you ask about WMD and everyone keeps telling you that there are WMD, then you believe they exist and stop asking whether they do.’

Cooper said that being in an American city – as opposed to being out in the desert in Africa and being rather isolated – is giving reporters more opportunities to ask the ‘hard questions’ and to press for the answers.

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I think Maher made an important point. (Well, that’s what he does!) I don’t remember what Administration Official said it, but someone in Washgington said something to the effect of ‘Why didn’t the people who are trapped in New Orleans get out when they had a chance?’ Maher said that the Administration just doesn’t understand the concept of ‘poor people’. Bill mocked, ‘Why didn’t they get into their Range Rovers, pack up a few cases of Polan(d) Water, and move to their Summer homes until the hurricane was over?’

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Bill also said something to Anderson Cooper about “getting our press corps back”…Anderson didn’t really answer, but it looked like he wanted to. :wink:

This edition ROCKED! I think I might TiVo it, just to watch again & revel in the goodness that is a well-crafted Real Time.

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It was a good episode, the topic of global warming and its role in Katrina was interesting too.

I haven’t been following the news up until yesterday so I don’t know what the refernces to ‘getting our press corps back’ actually means. Are reporters getting more aggressive when the white house spokesman answers questions or something like that?

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Oh, another funny gag (paraphrased):

‘It took the President five days to get help to hurricane victims in New Orleans. It makes us wish for the days when he’d sit on his arse for just seven minutes after a disaster!’

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I caught it Saturday in rerun and I caught myself shouting, “yes! yes! yes!” at so many of his points.

Personally, I’m waiting to see what country Bush is going to invade to get back at Katrina ------I’m betting on Rumania because Katrina sounds like a Rumanian name.

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Holy crap, yes. Yesterday (was it yesterday?) when he tore a strip off Senator Landrieu… Yipes.

Understandable, after how close he got to things down there.

I wish I could get Real Time.

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mr cooper did get tough. he has been very vocal about press conf.s and congratulatory politicians.

interesting that the gov. of la has called in the former fema director. he was very disturbed about how fema has been messed with. said it should go back being under direct control of the pres.

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Here’s the transcript of that interview, which I linked to in another thread. It was Thursday’s edition of 360.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0509/01/acd.01.html