At the end of the “New Rules” segment on HBO’s Real Time With Bill Maher last night, Maher called out Republicans for being “neither fiscally conservative nor strong on defense,” adding “they have to tell us what exactly it is they’re good at.”
“How many Muslims does a black guy have to kill in one weekend before crackers climb down off his ass?” Maher asked, before offering a flashing “FACTS” light at the bottom of the screen so Fox “News” viewers would know to keep the sound turned down until it disappeared. He then went on to call out the GOP for, among other things, implementing policies over the past decade that revealed them to be anything but fiscally responsible.
“When Bill Clinton left office in 2001,” Maher said, “the Congressional Budget Office predicted that by the end of the decade, we would have paid off the deficit and have a 2 trillion dollar surplus. Instead, we have a 10 trillion dollar public debt, and the difference in those two numbers is mostly because the Republicans put tax cuts for the rich, free drugs for the elderly, and two wars on the layaway plan and then bailed on the check.”
Maher then criticized George W. Bush’s failure to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, after his admission that he “didn’t spend that much time on Osama, [and] that he was no longer concerned about him, just as he wasn’t before 9/11 when he blew off that mysterious, inscrutable memo entitled ‘Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the U.S.'”
“Why focus on the terrorists who reduced Wall Street to rubble, when you can help Wall Street reduce the whole country to rubble?” the satirist asked rhetorically.
Near the end of his “New Rule,” after eviscerating Republicans such as Bush for his “War on Terror” strategy, and Sen. John McCain for being “naive” in his criticism of Obama’s promise to focus on bin Laden during the 2008 Presidential election, Maher went on to declare President Obama “one efficient, steely-nerved, multitasking, black ninja gangsta President.” WATCH…
I try to like Bill Maher. I really do. But I just can’t. Maybe I just don’t have his sense of humor.
Does anyone out there think the Head Terrorist should have been captured and tried, rather than murdered?
Does anyone out there think that perhaps Obama felt it was better to have him assassinated and avoid a trial, not for the alleged security nightmare that would ensue, but for the PR nightmare that would ensue — much of it extremely negative toward our country? Just “take him out,” y’know? End of problem, and much quicker and cleaner than taking him alive.
Look, I’m glad he’s dead. But to glorify Obama for that? If you like your fascism smooth and sweet, go right ahead.
I think, Lora, Maher intended this to lampoon GWB and GOP hypocrisy more than to glorify BHO.
But you are right. It would have been one thing if there had been any truth in the claim that Osama was killed in a firefight, but like so many yarns spun by the Pentagon over the last decade–Jessica Lynch, Pat Tillman–this one was spun from whole cloth.
This was cold-blooded murder. Navy seals gunned down an unarmed man whom they could easily have captured and brought before the bar of justice, just as the Israelis once captured Adolph Eichmann in South America and brought him home for a very public trial.
The notion that the executive branch can play judge, jury and executioner poses as a grave threat to life and liberty everywhere.
Lora asked:
Yes.
Yes.
No. I think his interest in avoiding a trial was to avoid the PR nightmare he would have faced from Republicans, the corporate media they serve, and the Democrats who are too cowardly to go against either of them. (See the problems Obama faced in shutting down Gitmo and bringing those in it, such as KSM, to trial, as should have been done long ago.)
Brad @3 wrote:
Oh, what I would give for a real progressive President with the courage to use his/her office as a bully-pulpit from which he/she educated the American people not only on the rule of law but from which to expose lie behind hard right propaganda and its shills in the corporate media.
Obama gains nothing by cowering in the face of hard right propaganda, as occurred when he threw Van Jones and Shirley Sherrod under the bus. Instead, he simply demonstrates that he lacks the courage of his convictions–assuming, of course, that he ever had any.
His selection of Summers/Geithner, his continuation of the endless GWOT, his sophistries offered as an excuse not to prosecute past war crimes and his betrayal of single-payer all suggest that it is not just fear of the GOP spin machine that motivates the empty suit who currently occupies the White House.
Yes, Obama certainly is a Gangster and is the “Head Terrorist,” a position Lora seems confused about. The Head Terrorist said “justice was served,” which Chomsky pointed out Obama ought to have similar “justice” served to him.
This is what democrats, republicans, mainstream media, banks, and secrecy are doing.
VOTES IN
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1thcO_olHas
GARBAGE OUT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4bGsyaJWng
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMXvpWoHzeE
Ernie said @ 4
Please don’t forget to include ACORN — the 40-year old community organizing group who helpe legally register millions of legal voters, many of whom helped put Obama in office — among the list of folks that he has thrown under the bus over the past two years.
for those with a little more time…
MORE GARBAGE OUT
http://www.deceptionsusa.com/deceptions.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGAaPjqdbgQ
http://www.dutchsinse.com/blog/?p=660
Brad,
I have to agree that Obama did not want to face the GOP media circus that would result from bringing Osama to trial.
Karlof,
Sadly, I have to agree with you too, considering the amounts of death and destruction waged on innocent people.
There’s so much missing from the media’s commentary on bin Laden’s death.
Missing is the sense of history that connects the dots. It’s as if there were no dots. Forgotten is our recruitment of the man. That he was our precious ally when it served our purposes.
Missing is any even handed accounting of terrorism. Our state terrorism, which in terms of damage and death overwhelms bin Laden’s type of terrorism, is not acknowledged. It is not a part of our conversation though it seems to be very much a part of conversations throughout the Muslim world. This imbalance leads me to believe we are serious about applying to all people the standards in the Declaration of Independence we reputedly hold so dear only in theory. I believe this is not lost on the rest of the world.
Missing is ANY acknowledgment that Osama bin Laden has a point of view that needs to be considered if the goal really is understanding the causes of terrorism and how to stop to it.
I’d like to mention again Eqbal Ahmad’s brilliant lecture–Terrorism: Theirs and Ours. For me it’s still the definitive piece on terrorism.
Here’s a link to the transcript– http://www.sangam.org/ANALYSIS/Ahmad.htm
Here’s a link to the audio version– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VqgZf-DnZs
If you bother to check this out, you will see the problem of terrorism demystified. As Eqbal Ahmad lays it out, it’s really quite obvious and straightforward. The causes and the cures.
You will also notice that the mention of anything like his many salient points in the mainstream media approaches zero.
Sorry I didn’t put the links in comment #10 in properly so you can just click on them. I’m still mostly computer stupid.
Excellent point, David Lasagna–precisely the one I made in ‘Terrorism,’ ‘State Terrorism,’ and Point of View, which begins with a quote from Eqbal Ahmad’s lecture.
Ernest and Lasagna,
Nice to see your writing again. It does not take a genius (nor a conspiracy theorist) to recognize it all comes from the same consent manufacturers who profit at the expense of folk like Sibel Edmonds, Don Siegelman, Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson, Bob Baer, Pat Tillman, General Janis Karpinski,…..
With a little history and biography on folk like UBL, his family and their relationship with W and G herbert w Bush, it gets all too obvious.
Imagine what those guys on the ground in Pakistan felt with the complete lack of resistance they encountered. They had to have been given a directive. That execution could not possibly have come as a reaction to any credible threats to their own safety.
To be sure, those lads are all about doing their assigned task. And they probably have all had covert nasty tasks. They all know who their orders come from. They all have to know what the significance of those orders were too. Does anyone here believe BHO openly violated criminal codes as well as Geneva Conventions just to have an easier day of it with the GOP run media?
After all, he has the same war machine (oops state and defense departments) that the GOP uses. BHO has even promoted all of W’s favorites and rewarded the worst. Wonder how many flag rank officers are sitting around now talking over scotch saying stuff like “whew. sure am glad that nightmare with W and Cheney is over. now for some honest non-torturing leadership from a guy who only involves our forces in moral wars that we can win quickly. thank the Lord for BHO!”
If there ever was any doubt about this fascist wave, take a look at BHO’s oldest and strongest senate mentor – Honest Joe Lieberman. Studying up on Rahm Emmanuel’s history will not hurt either. Wonder if any other mayor in the US has ever served in a foreign army before. Let alone the IDF.
ps. thank you Lora too. all rocking good points.
now, now Renzo…let’s leave the IDF outta this. Next thing you know you’ll be talking about
Mossad’s role in the nine eleven production.
Can’t have that. OBL is a complete CIA creation plus he has been dead 8 or more years.
I really thought the intelligent folks around here had all that processed and digested by now.
Dear Renzo,
Here’s a great excerpt from a Smedley Butler speech on intervention.–
http://www.fas.org/man/smedley.htm —
At the time of his retirement Butler was the most decorated Marine in U.S. history. He asserts that he and other military men don’t have a thought of their own till they leave the service.
His opinion on that makes me question your claim that those Seals have to know the significance of their orders.
(Thanks for the kind words.)
Dear Camus,
From Eqbal Ahmad’s account it doesn’t sound to me like bin Laden was a complete CIA creation. But maybe I don’t know exactly what you mean when you say that. To me it looks like the CIA sure HELPED create him but it also sounds like he was his own guy doing his own thing. Ahmad was there. He met the man. His narrative makes more sense to me and seems more backed by facts.