The Return of Real Time With Bill Maher - A Real Disappointment
Former lefty and now neocon Christopher Hitchens gave Bill Maher's audience the finger last night -- twice. The loud-mouthed neocon told the liberal audience to fuck-off.
In true arrogant neocon form, Hitchens behaved as if he was the only guest on the panel. (Hitchens has a drinking problem.) The neocon rudely interrupted the other guests so often that he dominated the conversation. It was a rare moment when Bill Maher paid attention to his other guests - Max Cleland and Vali Nasr. I would have liked to hear more from Max Cleland. Great way to treat your liberal guests, Bill!
And I waited how many months for this?
One solidly liberal hour a week of Bill Maher is not too much to ask.
I understand the purpose of having neocons on the show. The back and forth conversation is supposed to liven things up and create balance. But more often than not, the conservative guests are rude self-absorbed neanderthals who think conversation is a competitive sport and the object is to dominate. Apparently starved for attention and thinking their every thought is brilliant, they talk incessantly, even to the point of rudely interrupting the other guests. You have to be pretty damn arrogant to not understand that the audience would like to hear from all members of the panel. And Bill does a piss poor job of reining them in. This problem is even worse when the panel actually includes a woman.
The best Maher shows are the rare ones with a panel stacked with liberals and only liberals. Remarkably, liberal guests tend to take turns speaking, rather than rudely interrupting each other. That politeness explains why they so often get little speaking time when they are on a panel with rude boors such as Hitchens.
I'll say it again -- the best Maher shows are the rare ones with a panel stacked with liberals and only liberals. Gawd knows we hear more than enough from neocons on the other days of the week. If Bill Maher wants to turn his show over to the neocons, I may as well watch FOX News.
The highlight of the evening was the video appearance of Kos. But Bill did an extremely poor job of interviewing him and seemed to know precious little about blogging. In other words, he didn't do his homework. If this sounds harsh, it is also true that Maher can do much better. He also mispronounced Kos' name.
I sent this post to HBO; here's their contact form.
Update: Video at YouTube of Hitchens insulting the audience, then giving them the finger when they respond to the insult with boos.
Photo of Hitchens via the rightwing Newsbusters where they are celebrating Hitchens' rude behavior. Photo of Kos via Al Rodgers in the comments of this dkos thread.
Bill Maher Kos Politics Real Time Christopher Hitchens Liberals Neocons News Video
