"Real Time" Update

(After some serious overtime at the hands of “the man” – or, “the woman,” to be more precise – an illness, and unexpected family circumstances, I am FINALLY getting to this!).

Last week’s show began with a parody public service announcement on behalf of repealing the estate tax (“Hi, I’m Bill Maher. Won’t you help the neglected children of these millionaires? For a donation of just $2,000, you can buy a Republican politician of your choice.”). I thought the monologue was funny in light of Hurricane Rita, with Maher observing that, since it was due to hit Texas, “Barbara Bush could now insult survivors closer to home.” Also, in light of the Jet Blue scare with the landing gear not working, Maher supposedly quoted a crew member who said, “we could’ve fixed the problem if one of our passengers had had a pocket knife.” Observing the passing of activist Molly Yard, Maher said that “she died angrily in her sleep, and her last words were ‘That’s not funny’.” And, with the release of the “!00-minute Bible,” Maher noted that, “the Ten Commandments had been distilled down to ‘Avoid Tom Sizemore’.”

The first guest who appeared via satellite was Willie Nelson, and of course Maher asked him how he was faring with Hurricane Rita (the first question was “Is your stash dry?,” which was funny…even funnier to me was that Nelson answered yes with a straight face). Nelson said he thought people were a little more prepared for Rita after Katrina. In response to Maher’s question asking if “the good ole boys have a dysfunctional relationship with the Republicans, since, by voting for Republicans, they’re voting against their own interests” (a question every red stater should be asked as far as I’m concerned), Nelson more or less laughed and gave an answer along the lines of “you’d better not ask that question down here.” Nelson also noted that this is the 20th year of Farm Aid, and Maher asked him about the Chicago Tribune report that said that only 20 percent of the money had actually gone to the farmers and 80 percent went to other costs related to the concert, and Nelson said that those numbers were backwards. Nelson kept repeating that “we need to keep our raw producers (i.e., the family farmers) strong” in response to a question from Maher about why we should continue to subsidize them, with Nelson noting that we subsidize other industries, most notably energy (and fast food also). Maher finished by asking Nelson about use of alternative fuels, and Nelson noted that he has a van and a Mercedes that run completely on bio-diesel produced by our farmers, and we should be seriously looking at bio-diesel as an alternative energy source (amen, brother).

The next guest who appeared via satellite was Repug Rep. David Dreier of California, who supposedly was going to replace Tom DeLay after DeLay was indicted this week at long last. From what I read, however, Roy Blunt of Missouri, the Majority Whip, is going to become the Majority Leader instead, though you can bet DeLay will find a way to worm himself into everything even if he ends up in the slam, which he deserves (once again, Howard Dean turns out to be right, though once again, he opened his mouth way too early). I’ve also heard whispers that Dreier may have been cut out because he supposedly is gay; even if he is, that’s totally irrelevant to me one way or the other.

Anyway, in response to Maher’s question about Bush “putting everything on ‘the card’” in the way of managing (?) the federal budget, Dreier came up with some flaky statement that the current conservative economic policy “is being borrowed from JFK” (I find that to be a highly dubious assertion, though I honestly don’t have time to investigate it) and that the economy “is continuing to grow” (“for who,” I asked myself as I watched this). Also, Dreier took a shot at the Democrats for not joining the panel “investigating” Hurricane Katrina this week (the one, of course, where Mike “Heck Of A Job” Brown was so belligerent), saying that, “we told them they’d have subpoena power.” I was reminded later after Dreier said that that the reason why the Dems bailed was because they wanted an independent commission to look into the Katrina fallout, not some bunch of sympathetic pols creating some temporary headlines and then moving on and basically forgetting about the whole thing (of course, as we know, Dubya and the Repugs don’t like commissions unless they’re investigating alleged Democratic misdeeds…to digress, that’s what the poobahs in Harrisburg are trying to do now with the pay raise issue, stalling the bill to repeal the raise “in committee” and all that).

Dreier kept harping on “waste, fraud and abuse” in the budget, and Maher kept trying to point out, once again, the fact that these clowns were handed a surplus from Clinton and pissed it all away. Also, speaking for myself, I’m sick of hearing this idiotic posturing from these Repug clowns (read Paul Campos’ column this week to learn about true “pork” in Alaska, by the way, versus the poor New Orleans grandmother who was wrongly incarcerated for 17 days) when, among other things, they’re standing in the way of resurrecting something like a Truman Commission to look into waste, fraud and abuse spent in Iraq, and that runs into the BILLIONS!

Maher then introduced the panelists, who were news commentator Katty Kay, British MP George Galloway, and Vanity Fair columnist Christopher Hitchens. Maher immediately marveled at the fact that he had “three Brits” on the panel at once.

Maher started by asking everyone if Americans are viewed as selfish around the world because nobody wanted to give back the “pork” from recently passed legislation, and Katty Kay (who I think presented herself better than Hitchens or Galloway, though all were good) pointed out that Nancy Pelosi had given back about $70 million for hurricane relief. Hitchens said that, “well, Bush gave up bourbon for Jesus,” which was kind of funny, though I think the group was transitioning to another subject; Hitchens, as he did multiple times, snuck in plugs for Bush and the war, saying throughout that “coexistence with jihadists is impossible” (Hitchens is correct, but like all supporters of Dubya’s illegal war, he’s failing to acknowledge that we wouldn’t be dealing with jihadists in Iraq if we hadn’t blown the place all apart first). Galloway, later in the show, came back with this (having to do with religion): “Bush hasn’t found God, but he’s found ‘the party of God’.”

I should comment on both Hitchens and Galloway at this point. I was afraid Hitchens was going to come across as a typical Repug sympathizer and generally as a propagandist and a blowhard (like that obnoxious creep Dan Cenar the week before…oops, there I go with the names again: my bad), but he really didn’t, I thought. He is a man of formidable intellect and persuasion who, on this issue anyway, happens to be completely wrong.

After watching Galloway, I now know why he has a reputation for stagecraft. He even looked Californian with some kind of buzz cut, slick tan, and some kind of ‘80s-Don Johnson-ish white sport jacket look going (I wonder if he was wearing loafers with no socks also…couldn’t tell). I thought there were going to be dustups all over the place with him and Hitchens; Galloway was getting egged on, but he seemed to laugh off what Hitchens was saying, coming out at one point with, “I don’t know why he has such a personal interest in me. Isn’t it funny?” I could tell how serious Galloway was, though, because at one point, Hitchens made a crack and Maher leaned over to Galloway and said, “Hey, did you hear that? He made a joke,” and Galloway continued to sit there sober as a judge, which actually made the whole moment funnier.

I found myself agreeing with a lot of what Galloway said, though Galloway clearly supports the Palestinians over the Israelis, and as far as I’m concerned, a pox should be suffered by both of those houses. I don’t know how the Israelis could expect the Palestinians to be docile when they’re bulldozing Palestinian homes, but on the other hand, I don’t see Israeli suicide bombers blowing up school buses either. Also, while the Israelis were withdrawing a week or so ago, Hamas still lobbed a few bombs in their direction and killed them while they were trying to pull out (Hamas, and in both an actual and de facto way, the Palestinians also – some of whom cheered on 9/11 – don’t want coexistence with Israel, they want death to Israel…and how much do you want to bet that Dubya is pleading with Sharon not to strike back because our people in Iraq would suffer reprisals? Way to go, President Stupid Head!).

Maher asked the panelists a question I was wondering about for a little while (though I suspected the answer anyway), and that is this: could Bush be Prime Minister in Great Britain? Galloway said immediately that Bush couldn’t make it through “question time” in Parliament, though Hitchens noted that others wouldn’t make it either, with Clinton probably being the exception. Galloway pointed out that Margaret Thatcher handled “question time” better than anyone he’d even seen, but Bush couldn’t last five minutes (if you’ve never seen “question time” during a session of the British Parliament on C-SPAN, trust me…it’s a raucous exchange, and you have to be on your toes or you’ll get torn to shreds).

Maher also said, “you like smart leaders in your country, but we seem to be suspicious of them,” and Hitchens used that as an opportunity to sneak in a dig on Clinton. Maher quickly replied with, “What else did Clinton lie about besides a ‘BJ’, as opposed to Bush?” and Hitchens kept quiet on that.

Maher, again on Bush, said that The National Enquirer ran a story recently saying that Dubya is supposedly drinking again (what took him so long, I wonder?), and this led into some “photo funnies” or whatever they’re called on the show, with Bush’s face pasted onto a Nick Nolte mug shot, among other pix. The funniest one was a picture of Bush doing lines of cocaine off of Kate Moss’s naked butt cheek (lots of jokes about Kate Moss on this show), and Hitchens defended Bush for bowing to what was supposedly an ultimatum from Laura to give up boozing. If Dubya has stuck to that and substance abuse in general, then I definitely give him credit for that, but for absolutely nothing else.

Maher then interviewed Andrea Mitchell, NBC White House correspondent who was plugging a book, and Maher asked her if she agreed with Dan Rather’s recent statement that there is a “climate of fear” in newsrooms, and Mitchell did not agree.

(I have to back up here for a minute and note that I watched Mitchell on one of our local news stations here for years in the ‘70s and ‘80s, and I definitely respect her as a pro in the business. When asked by Maher if she thought the press had been backing down under Bush, Mitchell said no and pointed out the fine work by some correspondents during the Katrina disaster, including Anderson Cooper, and Mitchell mentioned that she had many run ins with former Philadelphia mayor and police chief Frank Rizzo, so much so that Rizzo had tried to get her fired, but her bosses stuck with her. Mitchell brought that up to point out that many news people do get backing from their management, but that goes largely underreported. Coming from her, I would give that statement more credence that I might if it came from someone else.)

The only statement Mitchell made where I took issue with her was when she said Clinton didn’t pay enough attention to bin Laden. I think Clinton did the best he could with that, though I think, when he ordered air strikes on response to the African embassy attacks, he was acting on outdated intelligence. Besides, ownership of the ‘bin Laden problem,’ if you can call it that, rests with Dubya as far as I’m concerned, and I don’t see him doing a thing.

Going back to the panel to talk about the war again, Maher asked, “Can we finally stop saying ‘we have to fight them over there or else fight them here’?”, and Hitchens brought up some anecdote (as he did a few times) about how a Muslim nation somewhere basically captured American and British sailors and said they’re prisoners around the 1800s or so because we consider them to be infidels (couldn’t quite get all of this…Hitchens has a thick accent), and Thomas Jefferson (who must have been President at that time) responded by attacking them, and ever since then, we’ve been fighting Muslims (I would argue that the antagonism between Christianity and Islam goes back much further than that to The Crusades, but what do I know?). Hitchens, of course, never bothered to address the fundamentally illegal way that we carried out the war in Iraq, though Galloway came closer to that, as you might expect.

Katty Kay responded to Hitchens by saying that, because of the recent bombings, “everyone in London feels that the attacks are coming to them.” Galloway, repeating himself a bit, correctly stated (I think) that, “ten thousand new bin Ladens have been created by the war.” Hitchens said that he thought bin Laden as a “one in ten thousand guy,” and Galloway said he hoped so. Then, Galloway pointed something out that you NEVER hear about in this country, and that is the fact that the Reagan Administration was responsible for training bin Laden in Afghanistan, but nobody seems to remember that. Then Galloway added that the Republicans tolerate people in Florida trying to carry out terrorist activity against Cuba (yep, I think he went off the deep end with that one a bit also).

There was one bit in particular in the “New Rules” segment that was great, and led to Maher’s hilarious closing remarks. Basically, Maher said that we should put the new New Orleans, when it is rebuilt, in the middle of Kansas (“Where else to dump The Big Easy but right smack dab in the middle of Bob Dole’s Viagra Farm?”). He also added, “Kansas could use some jazz, some blues…some blacks,” and “New Orleans needs a new home, and Kansas needs to get the stick out of its ass.” Here’s another line: “Don’t think of it as 100 million Creoles taking over. Think of it as the March Of The Penguins.”

(Now you know another reason why it took me so long to get to this.)

The show is off tonight and will return next Friday October 7th.