Junto Boys

BILL MAHER

I try to watch Maher every week. It's the best way to see what the other side is doing in one hour and it has some entertainment value too. Maher is funny even when he's infuriating. The last show had Andrew Sullivan, Martina Navratolova, and Wesley Clark as guests. They are all operationally people of the Left, but not without contradictions that made them a fun panel.

I use to read Sullivan's blog after 9-11. He was steadfast for the war, can't get the bombs there fast enough, etc. He hates the war now and endorsed Kerry in 2004. He's always been vague about his change of heart. The war was managed poorly, Bush wasn't truthful, all that stuff. The real reason, of course, is that Bush opposes gay marriage. Had Bush supported it, Sullivan would be shouting to kill those homophobic Islamists still.

Wesley Clark is interesting because he was a lifelong Republican brought to politics by Bill Clinton. It puts him in the position of defending the military and Hilary while crying about global warming.

The most interesting exchange occurred when Sullivan proposed that Hilary supports an attack on Iran as much as Bush. Clark became furious. Later Maher was taking credit for calling Bush a liar in 1999, when Sully still liked him. Sullivan said he should be happy to have him on board. Clark said that it was hard to tell if he was on board with the way he attacks Hilary. Sully said that he supports Obama. Clark then attacked Obama as using religious language to oppose gays in South Carolina. Neither gave a substantive reason for their support of their candidate. It's all based on personalities.

Maher, Sully and Martina were all making fun of Laura Bush in that picture next to two women in burkas. Clark defended Laura and the women wearing burkas. He says that those women like the burkas, just ask them. He's talked to many of them and they all like it. To Maher's credit he compared it to Putin's favor ability rating. How do we really know in a police state? Clark's position was that age-old cultural equivalence argument where any culture no matter how backward is valid simply because it isn't American.

Maher is a funny guy and some of his criticism is pointed well, but other times it's naive. He gives Arnold some credit for his environmentalism and then argues that the Republican primaries would have a different tone if Arnold was running. Is he kidding? Arnold would ditch all of that Leftwing stuff that Maher likes and start running to the Right. The Global Warming Arnold polls about 8% in the Republican primary. Anyway, Maher complains about the constitution not allowing Arnold to run. Sully agrees, but Clark in an unguarded moment becomes the rightwinger. What if 50 years from now China is the top dog and we're a satellite. Our constitution forbidding foreign born Presidents is going to stop China from taking us over. I understood what he was trying to say, but he could have expressed it much better. And the China example is surprising considering that Hilary is getting all that money from China. I'm sure in retrospect he would presented another example.

Martina could have been made out of copper for all the insight she gave during the hour. She too is product of identity politics. I'm not sure if that's because she wants to marry a lady or if she just hates Republicans for looking down on her. My initial question would be why anyone raised in a communist country could defect to the west and not support conservatives? But when you think about it, she never had a real totalitarian experience. She was one of those athletes who grew up in the high life courtesy of the state, defection just allowed her to keep more of the money.

In Maher's eyes all the world's problems are courtesy of Bush. You never get the idea that problems existed in the world before him. Bush created this awful world. Bush is not just wrong in the eyes of Maher but stupid or corrupt or duplicitous. But Maher spends scant time explaining why in detail. Bush is a liar because Saddam didn't nuke our troops, he's corrupt because he has friends in the oil business, and he's stupid because he doesn't agree with Maher.

If these are his best arguments against Bush, I have to think that Maher is playing a character that hates Bush more than anything else. C-Span's Washington journal has guests every morning that make better anti-Bush arguments. Even the caller make interesting points. Maher is just feeding mice to the snakes in the audience. As entertainment his approach is more effective than C-Span and I'm usually entertained between moments disgust.