All posts tagged "Maher"

On "Real Time With Bill Maher" Friday night, Maher and his panel tackled both the GOP's War on Women and its first friendly-fire casualty, former RIAA president-cum-Democratic-strategist Hilary Rosen. Maher first noted that former Governor Mitt Romney (R-MA), the presumptive GOP nominee, is less popular with women in polls than the GOP's last presidential contender, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), but suggested that the media was stupid for falling all over itself to cover Rosengate: "Perhaps America is a society that lives to find stupid, inconsequential, meaningless controversies and this is the new one."

Years after 'trackers' permeated campaigns, Colorado politicians still tripping over them

Bill Maher is someone I have a touch and go opinion of. He's not as smart as he thinks he is, and when he's on any subject regarding sex or women, he's a complete ass who can't hide his sexism. But he's always been a stalwart and hilarious critic of religion, and I was stoked to see him tackle it in "Religulous". And in most ways, he did a much better job than I could have ever anticipated. He avoids engaging in his trite sexist sexual joshing. The jokes hit hard and there's a ton of huge laughs. (The Holy Spirit enema thing might be the hugest laugh I've had at a movie in awhile, though to be fair, it's not Maher's joke.) His many years as a talk show host have made him an astute interviewer, it turns out. Since the point of the movie is to expose religion as a fraud, and not so much attack believers (like most thoughtful anti-religious people, Maher tends to view believers as victims of their own ideologies at worst, well-meaning but misguided people at best), it was critical that the person interviewing the believers be able to drill them hard about their beliefs without insulting or aggravating them. Maher is perfect for the job. He has a pose of innocuous curiosity with most of his interview subjects, and doesn't really need to beat them over the head to show what they believe is ridiculous. He just needs to ask the taboo questions, and he does. Over and over again, believers strongly state a belief only to have Maher's patient, skeptical questions get them confused.