Very Funny, From Bill Maher

Bill Maher has a great rant about Bush.  Much as I hate to steal his big finish, I will:

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...Maybe you're just not lucky!

I'm not saying you don't love this country. I'm just wondering how much worse it could be if you were on the other side.

Ouch.

 

Comments

[kim]

I'm reminded of the proper English matron at a dinner party, who, on learning that her neighbor was an orphan, said "I can see losing one parent, but losing both looks a lot like carelessness".
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[Strick]

"I can see losing one parent, but losing both looks a lot like carelessness".

Shaw, "The Importance of Being Ernest"

Maher used to be funny, but I can't deal with his mean streak. It's like George Carlin, that's all that really comes through anymore.

[kim]

Er, thanks, how Wildely wrong, but earnestly so, I was.
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[Miller]

Would things be better or worse if we had a full-time President? As much as the Administration dislikes France, they have adopted the French practice of basically shutting down the government during the month of August. Don't let the terrorists know.

[kim]

In case you didn't know, Bush is fully engaged wherever he is.

That great wartime President, FDR, spent far more time truly out of touch in Georgia.

What a pitiful argument.
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[richard mcenroe]

You quote Bill Maher like he matters. That sort of ineffectual sniping is all the "progressives" have left.

When your platform is reduced to the level of a Letterman one-liner, your party is over.

[SteveMG]

Actually, this isn't that bad although my guess is we'll see Dean et al. repeat a variation of it for the next two years.

Two years? Hell, next 25 years.

From the self-described "libertarian" (ahem) Bill Maher it's pretty good venting.

SMG

[George]

What ally did we lose?
When did we last have a surplus?
(Hint, it wasn't under Clinton, the federal
debt went up EVERY year of the Clinton administration).
All the other items were not under Bush's control.

It's "comedy" based on Democratic talking
points that have no basis in fact.

[ObiWan]

The other side never liberated 50 million people.

[kim]

G, I wonder if there isn't some issue of hubris working. Political Correctness has become so sure of itself, it can no longer see its falsities.

Would they laugh if they knew that not only the comedian, but themselves, had no intellectual clothes on?
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[Syl]

We need humor during hard times.

We don't need mockery.

The other night, following links to postings re ABC interviews after the speech, I ran across two comment sections filled with people who love this man named Bush.

I almost wept. I tarried for a very long time, reading each comment. I couldn't pull myself away. It was comfortable reading the words of those who admire his sincerety, his hard work, and who find his verbal gaffs endearing.

The contrast with Bush-hating comments I see every day made me doubt we all live in the same country.

I don't have any emotional investment in Bush. I do support Iraq and have no trouble defending him. But there are times when he speaks, or acts, that leave me in awe of his vision.

After 9/11 we could all live in fear of the 'other' (which the Left assumes we do) and ourselves succumb to hatred of our fellow man because of the depravity of the actions of the terrorists.

Instead we have Bush who in every act and deed and word proves his faith in humanity.

Instead of condemning the arab world, he gives them hope and a better future.

Yet some dare call him Chimp.

[Pablo]

I don't think it's very funny. It seems all the grief we've suffered, with the exception the the natural disaster that was Hurricane Katrina, was the result of the criminally negligent, and just plain criminal previous administration.

I despise Bill Maher, and all the middle-aged adolescents who identify with him.

However I did hear a funny joke at Bush's expense yeterday:

"Did you hear about President Bush's press conference this morning? A reporter asked him what he thought about Roe vs. Wade. He replied that he didn't care how those folks got out of New Orleans."

[Jim Hu]

I agree with Pablo. There are plenty of things to mock about W, but what makes this rant "great" much less funny? One of my liberal friends emailed the same thing to me, so others seem to think it's amusing. I guess I just don't get it.

[Barry Dauphin]

Bill was funny once, when he actually was trying to be a comedian. But now he has deluded himself that he matters and is important. He's basically lame at this point.

[Etienne]

Kudos for actually publishing this most excellent rant on your front page. I posed it a few days ago on a long thread, and got a deafening silence....

I'm sorry. If you guys can't see the humor in "Bush governs like Billy Joel drives", you just ain't got your funny bones connected. (Though I like Pablo's joke very much also - gonna use that one tonight.) The sanctimony that surrounds Bush from the dwindling few like Syl who worship him only lends a little extra oomph to the fun the rest of us are having every night from the likes of Jon Stewart...who is going to go in the Comedy Hall of Fame thanks to Bush...heh heh heh.

Sorry you all don't appreciate it, but it sure does make the pain of watching him repeatedly drive our country into one brick wall after another a little more bearable to the 60% or so of us who wish this guy had just stuck to running his daddy's friends' oil companies into the ground.

[Bill]

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

--Rudyard Kipling

[kim]

So to you it looks like 9/11 and Katrina represent carelessness on his part. You are the one making a deity of him; one you despise but fear.

You could get over it.
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[Etienne]

kim, as usual I can't understand a word of what you're saying, but I can always rely on your trusty telegraph to pound something out in reply twenty seconds after I post.

You guys gotta learn to laugh a little. Aren't there any rightwing political comedians?

[Syl]

Etienne

The problem with the left today is that they have no sense of humor. They only laugh at Bush. Everything else is an outrage to them.

Oh, every once in a while someone leaves the reservation.

Donna Brazile:

"On Thursday night President Bush spoke to the nation from my city. I am not a Republican. I did not vote for George W. Bush -- in fact, I worked pretty hard against him in 2000 and 2004. But on Thursday night, after watching him speak from the heart, I could not have been prouder of the president and the plan he
outlined to empower those who lost everything and to rebuild the Gulf Coast."

I doubt that Steve will add this quote to his database.

[Travis]

Ouch? That stuck from where you're sitting? Amazing. The blame Bush for everything game is sooooo old. Can't you folks find a new game?

[Mike]

I've never seen commenters with less of a sense of humor. Come on, people! Intelligent people should be able to recognize good humor even when it doesn't entirely mesh with your political views. Tom clearly has this ability, or he wouldn't have posted this. Maher can be annoying, but this particular rant is incredibly funny. Liberals had plenty of laughs at Clinton's expense. They didn't take it all personally. Lighten up, people.

[kim]

The carelessness with which you lose threads might explain your waifness, Etienne.
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[Kate]

Not impressed with this article. The myth that everyone loved us during Clinton's Administration is just that, a myth. We were hated back then also, more so probably.

The difference is that Clinton went around the world apologizing for the US so he gained their quiet disdain, which the author probably interpreted as love.

Hmm...during Clinton's administration we lost 2 embassies, a warship, a military housing compound, a Federal Building, 975 souls during a heat wave in Chicago, and laid the groundwork for Bin Laden's offensive by Clinton's constant retreats.

[AcademicElephant]

Richard McEnroe makes an excellent point--Maher might be exhibit facile cleverness in a post-modern spin on Wilde that elicits a smile, but like most post-modernist spins, it is emptily derivative and has nothing on the original--and if this is all the left has left, as it were, then it is no wonder that they keep losing elections.

I understand about wanting to keep things light, Etienne, but this rings hollow and a little pathetic to me.

[AcademicElephant]

Sorry, clicked too fast--try "be exhibiting" in that first sentence.

[Etienne]

Oh, lordie, "libruls have no sense of humor"....like so much from the right, no evidence presented. Someone point me to a funny rightwing comedian....or hell, a rightwinger who even makes the effort to try and be funny.

It isn't only Bush that's food for the funnies. You've got the whole dang Republican party and their gang of oddly obedient followers. I heard someone today, just casually, in passing, say that electing Republicans to govern is like hiring an Amish car mechanic....I mean, it's so easy, it just falls into your lap.

[Etienne]

Syl via Academic Elephant, you want to know why Dems keep losing elections, don't look at Bill Maher... he's just an entertainer. Check out Donna Brazile. That's the reason Dems can't win. She's stil trying to toss this loser a life preserver, even when he's already hugging the anvil.

[Pablo]

"gang of oddly obedient followers."

Pot meet kettle.

For a funny center right writer check out Greg Gutfield over at the otherwise abject HuffPo. Then check the grey, souless, humorless "liberals" in the comments. Damn funny.

[boris]

The Roe vs Wade joke was funny.

The Twin Tower rant was not.

We didn't lose them, we know where they went and how and who.

Who ??? Bush ??? Yeah right ... real funny.

Those of us who get what happened don't see "humor" in the stupidity of those who don't.

[Paul Zrimsek]

Bill Maher was quite bad enough when the only thing we had to worry about was telling him apart from Jon Stewart. This new challenge of telling him apart from Maureen Dowd is more than I want to deal with.

[Etienne]

Good catch, Pablo. Greg Gutfeld is pretty funny...I don't think the HuffPo was created as a comedy venue, so can't fault the other posters, but you gotta give them points for having Greg there. Whose still recycling that tired cliche that libruls can't laugh at themselves?

Any funny rightwing standups? Are they just afraid of the audiences?

[AcademicElephant]

Now Paul's post is funny.

[Pablo]

Well I saw some "redneck" comics on the Comedy channel that were pants-wettingly funny. Some of the wittiest and most hilarious people I've met are from the South and have a delicious, dry sense of country humor. I know plenty of leftys and rightys and frankly don't think either group is more or less funny than the other. Some INDIVIDUALS are gifted with a superior sense of humor, and politics got nothin' to do with it.

The main difference I see between Repubs and Dems is one of maturity, logic, willingness to debate, and a sense of personal responsibility, vs. perpetual adolescence, mental incoherence, dogmatism and a vicious suppresion of dissenting points of view, and a victim mentality.

Oh yeah, and I've never met a lefty who wasn't a physical coward, though they do seem prone to violence in a mob.

[Etienne]

I've never met a lefty who wasn't a physical coward

Sigh...another freeper asshole, tossing insults from the safety of his keyboard.

I'll pass that on to the cops and firemen at the BBQ I'm headed out to, Pablo. Let's just say, I'd like to see you say that to their faces.

[Lesley]

Hey, who says we Conservatives are without a sense of humor?

If you haven't read Liberal Larry's blog "Blame Bush!" you've really missed a treat: his most recent post is entitled "Bush Urinating on Company Time."

"It's bad enough that the Shrub vacations for 9 months out of the year, but does he have to urinate on my dime as well? Do the math, folks. Bush's salary is $400,000 a year, or 76 cents a minute. Let's say he takes six pee breaks a day at three minutes each - five minutes if he pees sitting down like Oliver Willis. Perhaps we should ask ourselves if we can really afford to continue the war in Iraq, AND pay Bush over $7,000 a year to use the loo.

Say what you will about Bill Clinton, but he never allowed his natural urges to interfere with his job. Al Gore hasn't had a bowel movement in over 17 years. Yet Bush apparently thinks he can piss away our hard earned money whenever nature calls."

Who could resist such a blog, especially with commenters like Talking Toaster, Bush Borrowed My Adult Diaper, Menstrual Rainbow, Crouton or John Roberts Oppresses Cross Dressing Toads?

[Syl]

Hog on Ice is pretty funny sometimes. I don't think I'd want to meet him in person though ;)

But I appreciate anyone who doesn't bow to the Gods of PC.

Oh, and Tim Blair!! He can be brutal! His commenters are funny too. But I've learned more about Aussie politics than I could ever want to. I could live quite happily without Margo. LOL

[Pablo]

Well Etienne you're right that cops and firemen are brave men and women, but while some of them misguidedly still vote Democratic due to union pressure and media disinformation they are certainly not lefties. No, I'm talking about your Deanic-Moveon-Mooreon- Cindy Sheehan faction. I know lots of these folks and they are in my experience, with very few exceptions, absolutely pussified beyond the redemption.

And you could call me an asshole to my face and I would let you get away with it, since you're a female, but if my wife was present she'd beat you silly while I choked with gales of laughter. She's Columbian, grew up in Washington Heights and she's both fierce and loyal. She hates lefty twits like you. LOL

[Harry Arthur]

Bill, excellent!

[Les Nessman]

"The sanctimony that surrounds Bush from the dwindling few like Syl who worship him..

..watching him repeatedly drive our country into one brick wall after another...

..like so much from the right, no evidence presented...

..the whole dang Republican party and their gang of oddly obedient followers..

..toss this loser a life preserver...

..Are they just afraid of the audiences? "

followed by:

"Sigh...another freeper asshole, tossing insults from the safety of his keyboard."

LOL! All in the same short thread!

[Josh]

I have found plenty of Maher's career good. This isn't a good example of that, unless "bushitler murdered MILLZION$" is supposed to be a clever observation. It's a lot like Jon Stewart proclaiming that "half our potential audience is evil."

[sulla]

I used to find Maher funny...but in all honestly, not since he moved Politically Incorrect from Comedy Central to ABC. Once he began seeing himself as a truth teller, somewhere around 1998, his days as a funny man were numbered.

Jon Stewart and the Daily Show still makes me laugh, loud and often, even when in full rant against Bush. Stewart still understands that when you're on COMEDY central, job one is all about the funny.

Heck, there were times in the 1992 election that I thought Bill Clinton was funny; I knew he was getting some professional help with his sound bites, and they were good. He should have kept some of them around.

I'd love to be in the vicinity of Will Durst; for equal opportunity political humor, he had few equals.

Now, about funny right-wing standups:

* Bill Engvall, of blue-collar comedy tour fame

* Dennis Miller (perhaps not a full-fledged Righty, but certainly a 9/11 Hawk)

* Jeff Wayne

* Jackie Mason

* Warren Bell (according to Jim)

* Rob Long (of Cheers fame)

* Mark Levin

* Chris Muir

Funny Bloggers/pundits:

Ace of Spades

Jeff Goldstein of Protein Wisdom

Frank J and the IMAO bloggers

Jonah Goldberg

PJ O'Rourke

caveat: even the funniest often stop being funny when they start getting too into the topic, whatever their politics. I did standup for a while, and learned early that if a political joke was more political than jokey, it tended to fall flat. And in some crowds, anything more complex than "(politician) SUX!!!" went over their drink-addled heads.

Ranting is easy. Comedy...that's hard.

[nikita demosthenes]

Tom:

I agree with Patterico. You've really missed the boat on this one.

See:

http://patterico.com/2005/09/17/3596/who-hacked-tom-maguires-site/

It's ironic that Bill Maher talks about Bush being "on the other side."

The irony is that, if one compares the actual public policy positions of organizations like (1) the Communist Party USA, (2) al Qaeda, and (3) the American Democratic Party, it is amazing how often they adopt similar positions.

In other words, when it comes to actual positions on public policy, the Democrats (and Bill Maher, who almost uniformly echos the Democratic Party talking points) really ARE on the other side.

See, e.g.:

http://www.cpusa.org/article/archive/3/

-nikita demosthenes

[BumperStickerist]

Taken as individuals, the Left is funnier.

However, when two or more usually funny Left-types gather, they become earnest.

And not the 'you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll see turtles fall from the sky' Ernest, either.

[SteveMG]

Nikita:
"When it comes to actual positions on public policy, the Democrats (and Bill Maher, who almost uniformly echos the Democratic Party talking points) really ARE on the other side."

Now that's an uncommonly silly statement. Not just regularly silly, but uncommonly silly. As in Blue Ribbon, Gold Medal, Olympic class silly.

To argue that is to say that Democrats wish for the people who want to kill us to actually succeed in killing us. Even though the people who want to kill us don't distinguish or care whether one is a Democrat or Republican or Whig or Rastafarian or any other member of an ideology that opposes their brand of Islam.

What? There aren't any Democrats over in Iraq fighting the Islamofascists? Or in Afghanistan? Or in the CIA or FBI hunting down al-Qaeda agents?

SMG

[kim]

Iowahawk.
=========

[kim]

and the Master, Mark Steyn.
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[Les Nessman]

Entertainers tend to be more Left than Right?

And this is new information?

[demosthenes]

see my new blog, "demosthenes redux" here:

http://demosthenes-redux.typepad.com/

[richard mcenroe]

Etienne — Blake Clark

[Deagle]

While I rarely fine Mr. Maher funny (especially regarding politics), I did have to laugh at this one. Not exactly reality, but funny nevertheless...