# Who is more smug: Bill Maher or Bill O'Reilly? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 3, 2003, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-more-smug-bill-maher-or-bill-oreilly/166206 "2003-04-03T14:57:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![cainxinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7bcc69/32.png) [@cainxinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cainxinth)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2003, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-more-smug-bill-maher-or-bill-oreilly/166206/41 "2003-04-05T20:07:14Z")
Mick Hucknell couldn’t outsmug Bill O’Reilly on the smuggingest day of his life with an electrified smugging machine ---
**Author:** ![amarone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@amarone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarone)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2003, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-more-smug-bill-maher-or-bill-oreilly/166206/42 "2003-04-05T20:49:12Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by KidCharlemagne \* > \*\*I just saw Sean Hannity for the first time a few days ago. He spent half the time with his guest arguing whether or not he had the right to literally point a finger at him. He was so unprofessional. He also acted like a fricking two year old who had to get the last “Yes you are (No I’m not)” in. He tried so desperately to be “hard-hitting” and “no-nonsense” that he came off like a saturday night live sketch. \*\* Hannity was so proud of his performance that he replayed the soundtrack on his radio show. I thought it just made them both sound like jerks. As to the OP, I’d go with Maher, by a nose. But Hannity out-smugs them both. ---
**Author:** ![Punoqllads](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d2c977/32.png) [@Punoqllads](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Punoqllads)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2003, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-more-smug-bill-maher-or-bill-oreilly/166206/43 "2003-04-06T00:31:04Z")
41 posts and yet no props for Dennis Miller? C’mon people, this is the man who has _defined_ smugness since the mid-80s. At least Maher and O’Reilly can sometimes keep a straight face when they deliver a line. Great googly-moogly, he makes Leno sound funny. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2003, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-more-smug-bill-maher-or-bill-oreilly/166206/44 "2003-04-06T02:24:37Z")
**Punogllads** , when you’re right, you’re right. When it comes to pure, insufferable smugness, Dennis Miller is the Smug Lord of the Smuggiverse. ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2003, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-more-smug-bill-maher-or-bill-oreilly/166206/45 "2003-04-06T19:54:35Z")
> [@](#): > > Mick Hucknell couldn’t outsmug Bill O’Reilly on the smuggingest day of his life with an electrified smugging machine Bill O’Reilly must indeed be the Obersmugfuerher but before you rush to this conclusion you should check out the video for Mick Hucknalls latest song ‘Sunrise’. Here our hero is looking upon a pool scene where a bunch of video-stock-in-trade beautiful things are covorting around and allegedly passing admiring glances toward him. Except that he appears to be a fat middle aged little ‘blerk’ with a ginger beard and looks so completely out of place that one would think he would be self-conscious and embarassed about it. Not a bit of it, he is just so smug, and probably has good reason to be too, given the money he is making from ripping off two songs and calling it ‘his creation’. …but the most smuggest part about this is that in a radio interview he stated he was a little concerned that the listening public might have left him behind, apart from the fact that he reasoned that people will always want good music produced by good proffessional musicians such as himself ie Quality Such As Himself Will Always Shine Through. Just how smug is that ?..and on material he has simply lifted body and soul from other artists, ok so one part is lifted from his own song ‘Fairground’ still does not make it better. ---
**Author:** ![Torgo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@Torgo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Torgo)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2003, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-more-smug-bill-maher-or-bill-oreilly/166206/46 "2003-04-07T01:23:56Z")
O’Reilly and Maher are smuggier than Smuggy the Smugster smugging on a smuggish smuggometer. ---
**Author:** ![Morrigoon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/858c86/32.png) [@Morrigoon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morrigoon)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2003, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-more-smug-bill-maher-or-bill-oreilly/166206/47 "2003-04-07T07:03:11Z")
See, I can’t stand to watch Maher, he’s an annoying fuckwit. O’Reilly is at least funny when he’s being an arrogant asshole. ---
**Author:** ![widdershins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f0a364/32.png) [@widdershins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/widdershins)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2003, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-more-smug-bill-maher-or-bill-oreilly/166206/48 "2003-04-07T13:43:45Z")
O’Reilly is the more smug of the two Bills. He clearly believes he is right on everything, and maintains his cool better. He equates people not coming onto his show (where the deck is stacked in his favor) with cowardice and fear of him. He laughs off negative comments during the viewer mail segment with bad jokes, condescending comments, and or the occasional banal dismissal of “get a life”, “it’s over, move on”, etc. Maher is much more insecure and it shows. When someone confronts him with information he doesn’t like or can’t refute he attacks by calling the person a liar or saying that their info is irrelevant because they have an agenda. He gets hostile when people come after him personally, even in a joking way, like when Arsenio Hall would come on and point out that the opening monologue wasn’t part of the show (on _PI_) anymore (people sure weren’t laughing at it), so it must not be working. Maher would get huffy and deny this, but never explain why the monologue had been moved. That’s bad to be shown up by _Arsenio Hall_. Hannity is just a crude and baiting bully. Apparently he used to have a local talk show on a Huntsville, AL radio station (WVNN) before he got his big break. Glad I missed that. Miller, who I used to like when he sounded rational rather than just cranky, might be the most smug with the least reason to be. He’s a professional guest now, sure they have him on _Hardball_ and _The Tonight Show_ and he gets to spout off about politics. But the NFL gig was a bust, even he admits his movie career was a joke, his talk show has ended, and I swear I saw the guy on that syndicated TV turd, _Ask Rita_. Dennis when you willingly turn up on shows that are frequented by Paul Rodriquez and Coolio, your career is in trouble. Mick Hucknell, the little twit from Simply Red? Do his solo albums even get released in the US? He has **one song** that still gets played over here, but only on soft rock stations. Hasbeen. ---
**Author:** ![cainxinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7bcc69/32.png) [@cainxinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cainxinth)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2003, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-more-smug-bill-maher-or-bill-oreilly/166206/49 "2003-04-07T15:56:49Z")
A fine analysis of all that is smug in smugopolis. But, why do I feel like we’ve forgotten someone? There seems to be one other person whose smugness tips the scales, not necessarily in it’s vitriol or coolly managed haughtiness, but in it’s impact. Someone who has trouble keeping a smirk from his lips even when describing situations of the gravest importance, who laughs off or grows angry at anyone who dares question his motives or his methods, and who lives contentedly in black and white film of the righteous versus the evil doers where he’s playing the heroic lead. A smuggster of smugtastic proportions, smugging on an international level. Puzzling… ---
**Author:** ![widdershins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f0a364/32.png) [@widdershins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/widdershins)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2003, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-more-smug-bill-maher-or-bill-oreilly/166206/50 "2003-04-07T16:51:09Z")
Now is that anyway to talk about Gore Vidal? 😛 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-more-smug-bill-maher-or-bill-oreilly/166206.md?page=2)