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| Bill Maher on his old ABC TV show "Poltically Incorrect." When Maher suggested that the Muslims who "crashed airplanes" into the World Trade Center were "brave" his show was cancelled. He's been attacking Muslims ever since.—Ronald David Jackson (Screen capture from YouTube video) |
Like many others, of late I’ve been sharing in the surreal experience of watching Bill Maher transform from a mildly interesting, “edgy,” talk show host into a crude, overbearing demagogue. It hasn’t been pleasant viewing, but Maher really does appear to be in rare form these days. Between him sharing his fears about the terrifying number of babies today being named Muhammad, to complaining about Muslims in America who “bring that desert stuff into our world” — the first question that comes to mind is: this guy is a liberal?
Watching his increasingly outlandish public performances, one gets the sincere impression that Maher believes that since he smokes weed and supports gay marriage it’s impossible for him to be a bigot. Needless to say, it’s become glaringly obvious that self-awareness is not really his strong suit.
Maher last week got into a rather heated argument on his show with Ben Affleck over the broadly defined subject of Islam and Muslims. Maher, who became visibly scandalized by Affleck’s suggestion that most Muslims are normal people, launched into an indignant tirade about the Muslim world, alleging, among other things, that Islam “acts like the Mafia” comprised of people who will “fucking kill you” for trying to leave.
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Maher, for all his supposed liberalism, has in fact become the new poster-boy of the right-wing network. He’s even won the enthusiastic support of luminaries like Robert Spencer thanks to his zealous “liberal” chauvinism.
Maher’s Weird Unraveling
To anyone who has followed Maher’s career over the long-run, his bizarre unraveling over the past several years has been at times agonizing to watch. Maher’s favorite rhetorical targets now — women and minorities — are people who simply don’t have access to the same resources that he does to make their voices heard in society. This is how, improbably enough, Ben Affleck became an overnight hero to many Muslim people in America and around the world for using his voice to speak on their behalf during another one of Maher’s tirades. It was both a touching gesture and a sad reflection of what things have come to.
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