Originally Posted by stripersnipr
It's funny that Coulters comments spark more outrage than this.
There He Goes Again
Posted Mar 5th 2007 1:17AM by Dinesh D'Souza
Filed under: Scandal, TV
Bill Maher is in hot water again. The last time, which was right after 9/11, I had something to do with it. Maher was then the host of "Politically Incorrect," which aired on ABC. On his first show after 9/11, Maher's guests were Arianna Huffington and me. There was also an empty chair for Barbara Olson, who was on her way to do Maher's show when she was killed in the 9/11 attacks.
Early in the discussion Maher asked me whether I considered the terrorists to be "cowards," as President Bush had suggested. I said no. The terrorists were willing to go to their deaths for their cause. I saw them as soldiers in a new kind of war. Maher enthusiastically agreed, and then went further. The real cowards, he said, were the folks in the U.S. military who sat in their comfortable offices in Washington D.C. while they fired bombs at people thousands of miles away.
This really set off the talk radio circuit and the veterans groups, and the ensuing uproar resulted in Maher's contract not being renewed by ABC. Maher then got a new show "Real Time" on HBO.
On Friday, Maher lit another fuse by suggesting that it was a pity that the Taliban's recent assassination attempt on Vice President #^&#^&#^&#^& Cheney failed. "I'm just saying if he did die, other people, more people, would live. That's a fact." While I defended Maher the first time around, mainly on free speech grounds, I'm not going to this time. Then he was imprudent. Emotions were running high after 9/11, and Maher was being his outrageous self, forgetting that the American tribe had come together in the wake of 9/11 and was not in the mood to hear a smart-alecky jibe at the U.S. military.
But Maher's latest statement is way over the line, much worse than his earlier gaffe. Yes, critics of Cheney are welcome to believe that his policies are costing lives, but it's something else to suggest that killing him would save lives. It is a very short stop from believing this and saying it to actually advocating the assassination of the vice president.
Maher seems to believe that free speech means the right to say anything and not be held accountable for it. He should apologize, failing which the big boys at HBO might want to call him in for a little chat.
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