Bill Maher: Man Of The People, Or Something

A very different Sunday show rundown!

The usual Sunday shows were filled with Republicans outraged at the recent decision from the Biden administration to halt some shipments of weapons to Israel if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered an attack on the city of Rafah in Gaza. But since we don’t feel like touching that with a 10-foot pole, let's all hate Bill Maher together!

Maher, promoting his new book What This Comedian Said Will Shock You, was featured on CBS “Sunday Morning” and shared his inane musings about comedy and politics.

The introduction from CBS’s Robert Costa did not get us off to a good start.

COSTA: If you catch yourself laughing at something Bill Maher has said lately on HBO's “Real Time”, his Friday night perch for the past 21 years, just be careful. Next time, the joke could be on you …

If you find yourself laughing at Maher’s schtick in 2024, you’re either an out-of-touch boomer or a member of Maher’s writing staff and audience forever trapped in an APPLAUSE-sign-lit circle of Hell.

Truly a fate worse than death.

After that fluffy introduction and some clips of his “comedy,” Maher began spouting what he assumed was wisdom, when Costa asked what’s the through line of his work:

MAHER: Keep it real. You know … don't be tribal. Don't say something just because that's going to make the audience of one side applaud or boo. Practical solutions as opposed to ideological, and don't pull a punch.

Yep, that sounds just like Bill Maher to us.

So, 68-year-old Maher’s book is a collection of editorials he’s written during his decades-long stints doing Comedy Central/ABC’s “Politically Incorrect” and HBO’s “Real Time.” Why dedicate a book to basically doing the literary equivalent of a clip show in a sitcom?

MAHER: I wanted to see if the world had changed, or I had changed more. I was excavating reading over all these editorials from years and years and years, and I wanted to find that answer.

Oh, that seems interesting. Often when we look at things we did when we were younger (or less old in Bill’s case), we are able to gain new perspective in our current state, and maybe relate more to the youths of today. So, did going through years of badly aged predictions and takes give Bill Maher a new sense of perspective?

MAHER: I speak for the “normies.” You know I, I speak for that, I think, vast middle that is tired of the partisanship. I don't want to hate half the country and I don't hate half the country.

So no. Maher has now become a living embodiment of the Principal Skinner meme.

Maher says he is speaking for the “normies,” and not the picture of Hollywood elites that conservatives rail about. He’s just a regular “average joe” who fires his Hollywood representation because he was not invited to an Oscar party. Whom amongst us does not own a minority stake in New York Mets, which has tripled in value? He’s a simple farmer. A man of the land. The common clay of the new West …

You know ... a moron.

Costa, in his one and only moment of doing accidental journalism, asked Maher to reconcile his false equivalency about liberals and conservatives today.

COSTA: You write a lot of throughout this book that “the left” irritates you. Frustrates you at times. But “the right” often alarms you.

MAHER: Yes, they're very alarming. They're extremely alarming. More alarming.

COSTA: What do you say to your critics, though, who say “Then you should just focus on them, Bill?” If they're more alarming to you than the left, then why not shine the spotlight on them only?

Maher tried to “both sides” the issue, while simultaneously conceding that the difference is between religious fundamentalist fascists and people who irritate him. He followed this by suggesting liberals should stop pointing out Trumpism is evil and hateful, because a good portion of conservative people are saying “Watch me … Hold my beer and watch me to vote for him [Trump] again.”

The same Maher who “doesn’t hate half the country” is calling one side pointless while the other unreachable. Truly the “practical solutions” we need.

In truth, Maher has always had a certain level of comfort with bigots that he doesn’t seem to have with progressives. From Milo Yiannopoulos to Steve Bannon to the numerous appearances on his shows of Ann Coulter, Kellyanne Conway, Matt Schlapp, Glenn Greenwald, Tomi Lahren, Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro, and many more.

Because as Costa, and then Maher, pointed out at the end, he’s a regressively cynical guy:

COSTA: “As good as it gets” could well be Maher's motto for politics […] and for life.

MAHER: To me these are probably the good old days. It could get a lot worse.

What do you call a white guy who’s happy with the status quo that benefits him and disdainfully hates progress? Sounds to us like a conservative who’s just unhappy he’s not with the '‘cool kids.”

Promises, promises.

Have a week!