Bill Maher Eats His Foot

This morning, I kicked a foul-mouthed woman off my Facebook page. She was a totally unreconstructed PUMA, who posted this article from the UK broadsheet, The Telegraph.

I’ve nothing against foul mouths. I can swear with the best of them and in four languages. Hell, I live in Britain, where foul mouths are created at birth; but she was presenting the information given in this article as Gospel fact, when it was exactly what I called it: bullshit.

I pointed out to her that The Telegraph was the official mouthpiece of the Conservative Party (read: Republicans, the way they used to be). It stood for the England of flowery meadows, quaint little towns full of Tudor houses, and cricket on the village green. In other words, white Britain – the same white Britain where the sun never set on its empire of oppressed brown and black people.

She was quick to point out to me that I didn’t know what I was talking about. (Really? I’ve only lived in England for 30 years with a husband who’s worked directly for every Prime Minister from Maggie to Gordon Brown. I think I would know a little bit more about that newspaper and its agenda than she).

But n-o-o-o-o-o-o, as the late John Belushi would say. She had to inform me that no less than The Huffington Post, Salon, and Bill Maher said the same as the article: That Democrats were tanking on Obama, that they didn’t think he would win. The article even quoted Bill Maher as having buyer’s remorse re supporting the President.

And those people, this woman pointed out smugly, all had brains.

Well, so do I; and better brains than they. They just have more money, a lot of which has been made off the stupidity of people like this talking-point PUMA.

First, we all know about the proprietor of The Huffington Post, Her Serene Highness Queen Ratfucker Omnipotent of Medialand and how she ratfucked the deluded Progressives into thinking she was their friend; but if this woman thinks the Media Whoreanna is a friend of Hillary’s, she’s sadly mistaken. And as she reads HP and takes its word as truthful, I suggest she check out this article, or this one.

And Joan Walsh has been rooted our for her white privilege and racist slips since Ta-Nehisi Coates started calling out her behaviour in early 2008. You can check out Joan’s articles here and here, with TNC’s rejoinders here and here.

The person who values Joan’s talking points can even see here that Joan’s still conflicted on racial issues and still in denial about her problem.

Not that she would be convinced by any of this. I got the impression that this particular woman loved Hillary, loved Bill even more, and just like Harriet Christian, considers the President of the United States to be just an “inadequate black man” who displaced an entitled white face.

So the banished person also is taking Bill Maher as an expert voice on this as well? That’s as reliable as asking the Pope to bless an abortion. Bill follows political fashion. When it was OK for everyone to criticize George Bush openly* (*meaning after he won his second term and effectively became lame duck), Bill led the charge. Prior to that, his jokes were lame and he actually supported the Iraqi surge. But Bill’s a moral coward, and he’d already been rendered unemployed once during Bush’s tenure because of his mouth.

First, during the primary campaign in 2008, Bill and his bumchum, Chris Matthews, discussed both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, before rounding on Hillary’s problems. Matthews was often criticized for his overtly sexist remarks concerning Clinton’s campaign, whilst Maher, earlier in the year, had referred to her as by the c-word:-

Hold Bill’s “orange juice and gin” remark in your mind now.

Here’s Bill in 2010, on ABC’s This Week, where, during a discussion about immigration, interjected his opinion about Republicans and racists and how they’re related:-

Not all Republicans are racist, but if you are racist, you’re probably a Republican!

Yet, later that same month, when Anderson Cooper posited that Islam was a religion of peace, Bill blew off on Islamic violence as par for the religious course.

Later,in October 2010, he actually expresses fear that Islam is taking over the world and wonders if that makes him racist. (Actually, Bill, that exposes your prejudice and intolerance, which are, technically, not supposed to be liberal or progressive traits, although we know that they can be.

But in between these two incidences, we had this remark about the President, which is not only ignorant, it’s distinctly whiffy:-

Blogging on Loonwatch.com, the blogger Emperor, spoke about a confrontation earlier this year on Bill’s show, when Bill got into an argument with Tavis Smiley about women’s rights in the Middle East, and presented some details as facts which, clearly, were not. I leave it to Emperor to set the record straight:-

How long will Bill Maher get a pass on his racism and anti-Muslim Islamophobia? Is it acceptable because the targets are Arabs and Muslims and because Maher is a comedian from whom outrageous things are expected?

On his last show Bill Maher went on a speel undermining the Democratic character of Revolutions sweeping across the Arab world. Amongst his ludicrous statements he claimed “women can’t vote in 19 of 22 Arab countries,” that “women who have dated an Arab man, the results aren’t good,” that “Arab men have a sense of “entitlement,” etc. He also went onto forward the argument that “we are better than them,” justifying it by implying he is not a “cultural relativist.”

No, Bill might not be a “cultural relativist” but he sure sounds like a “cultural supremacist.” His factual accuracy about the Islamic and Arab world is akin to Robert Spencer’s. It is patently false that “19 of 22″ Arab states don’t allow for women to vote, a brief trip to Wikipidea would have disabused him of that false fact:

Women were granted the right to vote on a universal and equal basis in Lebanon in 1952[46], Syria (to vote) in 1949 [47] (Restrictions or conditions lifted) in 1953 [48], Egypt in 1956[49], Tunisia in 1959 [50], Mauritania in 1961[51], Algeria in 1962 [52], Morocco in 1963 [53], Libya [54] and Sudan in 1964 [55],Yemen (Partly)in 1967 [47] (full right) in 1970 [56], Bahrain in 1973 [57], Jordan in 1974 [58], Iraq (Full right) 1980 [57] Oman (Partly) in 1994 and (Fully granted) 2003 [59], and Kuwait in 2005 [57]. Y3WF28MHH4A4

The reality, (what is lost on Maher) is that even though nearly all Arab states allow for voting for men and women, their votes didn’t matter in the autocratic kleptocracies that littered the Middle East, and this is what Arabs — men and women — have been fighting against these past few months. It seems Maher just can’t handle all the myths he’s been pushing being shattered.

Bill Maher goes onto talk about how Arab men are bad spouses and boyfriends, to buttress his points he brings up “anecdotal” evidence and his opinion that Arabs have a “sense of entitlement.” How does Bill know? Has he dated Arab men? This is one of those things that is so ridiculous and patently unsubstantiated that it is beyond being laughable, you almost cringe with embarrassment for how stupid it makes Maher look.

Maher also seemed to use “Arab” and “Muslim” interchangeably, perhaps not knowing that a significant number of Arabs are not Muslims. While there are certainly problems in the Middle East and the Muslim world regarding the treatment of women, Maher judges Arabs and Muslims by their lowest common denominator. Ignoring countries such as Turkey, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Tunisia, Lebanon, Jordan and others that have progressive legislation regarding women and which have had women presidents, prime ministers, parliamentarians, business leaders, sports icons, journalists, etc.

At the end of the day Maher needs to have someone on his show who can push back against the myths that he indulges in and propagates. Someone of the caliber of As’ad Abu Khalil or Juan Cole might be a good start.

And, finally, here’s a clip from his March 2011 interview with Rep Keith Ellison, where he literally attacks Ellison on Islam’s message, along with a stereotypically racist quip about where Ellison was converted.

So, for my banished Facebook PUMA, I’d think twice before I cite either Huffington or Walsh or certainly, Maher as impeccable sources of imparting fact-checked information. Huffington has her own agenda (ratfucking and the return of the Republicans) as does Walsh (Hillary running for President and replacing the “inadequate black man”). Bill’s agenda is just to follow whatever the political fashion is, but like Walsh, his racism in general and his intolerance of Islam in particular are distinctly at odds with the Leftwing credentials he pushes relentlessly.

Insert foot in mouth and shove.