all-encompassingly

BILL MAHER

maher got a pass from the left-of-center “fresh air” host, terry gross, on NPR yesterday. he twisted the facts to defend teresa heinz-kerry, who rudely dismissed a journalist in boston last week (now known as the ’shove it’ incident). gross asked maher to compare the remark vice president cheney made to pat leahy to what teresa heinz billionairess said to the reporter. the conversation went like this:

bill maher: “to tell a reporter who, in her view–i haven’t really looked into it–but apparently, in her view, anyway, he made stuff up about her…i mean, come on. what’s the big deal about telling a reporter to “shove it” if they lied about you? that’s the least you can do. that’s a lot different than talking in a much more tawdry way to a US senator! i mean, this wasn’t some low-life reporter…this was senator pat leahy.”

liberal NPR host: “—”

terry gross moved on to the next question, not bothering to correct maher (that, in fact, the “low life” reporter was repeating something heinz kerry DID say–it’s on tape). she also ignored the fact that maher had just spoken divisively–as if there were ‘two americas’ or something!–by calling a reporter a “low-life” and implying that senators deserve better treatment than journalists. at the DNC, senator edwards specifically called such divisiveness a republican tactic, and the claim was a major theme of the democratic national convention.

later on, when gross raised a question about hollywood being liberal, maher responded by claiming it’s only liberal “on the surface”. because since they’re all rich, “they all want the stock market to remain stable”. thus, deep down, they’re conservative. i’m not kidding. that was his argument.

of course! only a conservative would want the stock market to remain stable!

listen to the whole thing here. his majorly idiotic statement comes about 2/3 of the way through.

COLIN QUINN

liberal NPR host: (asking about the two-party system and, since quinn supports bush, why quinn would even think of voting for nader) “why would you vote for [ralph nader]?”

colin quinn: “just because i’m outraged that people are so mad that…it’s like so funny, ’cause like in facism you have one person–horrible dictatorships–you only have one person. and here you have two. one more than facism. [laughs] that’s not good either. so i just hate the fact that everybody’s like, “we can’t have three parties spoiling things”…

and later, gross questions quinn about liberal hollywood:

host: “you know, a lot of conservatives are anti-hollywood and i know you live in new york not LA but you’re still a part of the “show business family”, so hollywood is perceived as very liberal. being a part of the entertainment business and, actually, being inclined to vote for president bush. how do you feel about the image of hollywood as being liberal?”

quinn: “it’s not an image; they’re all liberal. i mean, it’s outrageous how liberal it really is. i mean, [laughs] it’s completely liberal. but i mean, it’s not a conspiracy, but they are all liberal and all TV shows have a liberal bent. and then when something like fox news comes along they all get outraged, like “how could they…fox news!” you know, and it’s like, hey, it’s the one thing that’s not liberal.”

quinn then goes on to make a great point. he says that while hollywood stars consistently blame american “imperialism” and “oil greed” for the way we are hated in the islamic world, they leave out their own “cultural imperialism”–as quinn describes it–the immoral culture we export in our salacious movies and music, which is just as much a reason why muslim fundamentalists (who force their women to wear beekeeper outfits) hate us. nevertheless, the blame never seems to shift from corporations and government policy.

[listen to the whole interview]

colin leans conservative and hosts tough crowd on comedy central. the show is perhaps doug’s and my favorite. follow the link, browse the short video clips, and see if you agree with us. [here]