Bill Maher’s Ridiculous Cheney Comment
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Media, Partisan Hacks
Now, Maher doesn’t come right out and say that he wishes Cheney had gotten killed in Afghanistan, but Coulter didn’t come right out and say Edwards was a faggot either.
John Ridley, Joe Scaraborough and Barney Frank are the guests for the show (video). Here’s a transcript from NewsBusters:
Ridley: It’s one thing to say you hate Dick Cheney, which applies to his politics. It’s another thing to say, “I’m sorry he didn’t die in an explosion.” And I think, you know…Maher: But you should be able to say it. And by the way…
Frank: Excuse me, Bill, but can I ask you a question? Do you decide what the topics are for this show?
Maher: Yeah, I decide the topics, they don’t go there.
Frank: But you exercise control over the show the way that she does over her blog.
Maher: But I have zero doubt that if Dick Cheney was not in power, people wouldn’t be dying needlessly tomorrow. (applause)
Scarborough: If someone on this panel said that they wished that Dick Cheney had been blown up, and you didn’t say…
Frank: I think he did.
Scarborough: Okay. Did you say…
Maher: No, no. I quoted that.
Frank: You don’t believe that?
Maher: I’m just saying if he did die, other people, more people would live. That’s a fact.
No Bill, that’s hack speculation, and you should know better.
I think the Gun Toting Liberal says it best…
Professing disappointment that Mr. Cheney is still alive after an attempt on his life is not funny; it’s not humor.In fact, Mr. Maher, it’s downright indecent. And you owe us all an apology.
By the way, anybody know who the guy with Maher is? They’re two peas in a pod now. Sorry folks. The original pic got protected after I used it. Weird. It was of Bill Maher and Ward Churchill.
UPDATE:
Well, I took a look further into the clip, and John Ridley recants his views about not wanting Cheney to die. Why? He learns that the VP flies around in a plane called “The Spirit of Strom Thurmond.”
Now John Ridley is an African American, so I understand the animosity towards the deceased Strom, but to shift that over to Cheney? Pretty serious, no? And that means that two guys on the same talk show panel expressed their desire for Cheney to die for different reasons!
That’s America right now, divided we stand.
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March 4th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
The comment by Maher was simply a statement that if Cheney’s Iraq war had not been forced on the Nation by Cheney and continued by Cheney, brave young men and woman would not continue to die. I do not know how that man or our President sleep at night with the Iraq war blood on their shoulders.
March 4th, 2007 at 5:43 pm
[...] Justin Gardner riffs on Bill Maher’s death wish for VP Cheney. [...]
March 4th, 2007 at 7:32 pm
Three hours, & no Hawk, Al, or Egbert, or any other wingnuts. The least you could do is say,”Thank you, Justin, for being evenhanded”. I think it was overly so. If you view the clip from the show (which I did), Maher made it very plain he was quoting from some libtards’ abusive comments from a blog which were removed from that blog. Not the same thing as someone using a word which is a slut no matter how it is used.
Regardless, Kevin’s final point is right on: Divided we stand…
Divided we are. It is the hate speech coming from both sides that makes it so. Or so this “muddle-it” thinks anyway.
March 4th, 2007 at 8:25 pm
Bill Maher is a comedienne, he is not a political pundit. There really is no comparing him to a known political pundit, one who had sold millions of books world wide in that genre. The fact that political blogs actually even bother noting what is said on his show us disturbing. And from the stand point of what was really said, Mr Pleat has it right.
I think that there are more important things for blogs who specifically cover politics to cover than either Coulter or Maher.
Shame on them.
March 4th, 2007 at 10:40 pm
Um…..were you watching the same show I was? I”m fairly conservative but you have to be pretty dense to think that Bill Maher said anything of the sort. Also…if you compare the context of what Maher and the panel were talking about..and the context in which Ann Coulter called Edwards a “faggot” only a blind person can’t see the difference.
Sorry my conservative friends but this is simply a case of Ann Coulter calling someone names…period. For what reason? Only she knows.
March 5th, 2007 at 12:24 am
Cheney is still touting the war. The war kills people. I can almost see the point Maher was trying to make. Still, wishing someone dead is bad form. I have to agree with that. I don’t think, though, that an apology is needed.
Sorry folks. The original pic got protected after I used it. Weird. It was of Bill Maher and Ward Churchill.
Were you hotlinking to the photo- as is the case with the one currently posted? That would probably be a good reason why it suddenly became protected. My advice regarding that would be to download it and then upload it to your own server (thus saving the bandwidth of the site you’re hotlinking from). Just my 2¢.
March 5th, 2007 at 1:15 am
People, you can interpret it anyway you wish. To me Maher was saying that the hypothetical death of a VP would have a virtuous outcome. I do not believe he was talking about pre-Iraq war.
And let’s not forget Ridley’s comments later on in the show. Yeah, somebody should get blown up in a suicide bomb attack because they fly on a plane with Strom Thurmond’s name on it. Give me a break!
And to bob, Maher quoted something and THEN he made the assertion I have a problem with. Just look at the transcript…
In fact, he even one upped the quote, because his quote was about Cheney simply not being in power. So, sorry, but he wasn’t quoting anything. He was making an assertion, and a incredibly faulty one at that.
Frankly, I don’t care if people think I’m being evenhanded. I would have posted about Maher’s comments regardless of Coulter’s comments. They just happened to fall on the same weekend.
March 5th, 2007 at 3:25 am
i didn’t even see the darn show, but you need to be an absolute dolt to not see/hear the nice neat package that Military Industrial machine has set up over there. hey. It only cost the middle-to-lower/mid-to-lower classes about 3,300 living, breathing representatives. hell. how many jobs can walmart offer at one time? Cheney’s..Oops. I mean Haliburton’s no-bid “reconstruction” contract actually didn’t go “rebuild” squwat..Most of that ungodly sum of jack went toward building secret mega-bases(sounds too much like mega-churches to me) like the legal yet marred with constantly bad p.r. Phillipines base. When i say baseS i’m talking 4 or 5 Gi-normous monolithic, supposedly inpenetrable, and completely isolated from the Iraqi locales that we’ve been so concerned with liberating. C’mon you(s). If there isn’t a middle-to-Left person out there that hasn’t a least wondered why some nutjob hasn’t put Dick or Dub in his/her crosshairs then you’re seriously diluted. And following that up with the “bodycount would be diminished greatly” instead of “we’d all be a whole lot better off” is like doing rudimentary math equations..1-1=0, 3300-0=3300. So Billy boy ain’t reachin’ or going out on a limb or heaven forbid being unp.c..He just got his mathematics minor @ Thinking f’ing sanely University. “Wake up (White People)” -KKKlansman on Stern radio. Peace. wms07
March 5th, 2007 at 7:04 am
Did you actually see the video of this? If you did then you may have noted that Ridley’s comment was a joke. Dark humor perhaps, but it obviously was not meant to be taken seriously.
March 5th, 2007 at 9:58 am
Eric…come on. I don’t care if it is dark humor. As if that somehow excuses it? None of this “nudge nudge, don’t you wish this person was dead” stuff is funny. At least to me.
March 5th, 2007 at 10:35 am
H. L. Mencken on Franklin D. Roosevelt
“If he became convinced tomorrow that coming out for cannibalism would get him the votes he sorely needs, he would begin fattening a missionary in the White House backyard come Wednesday.”
THAT S.O.B. ACCUSED FDR OF SUPPORTING CANNIBALISM IF IT WOULD GET HIM VOTES! MY GOD! NOT FUNNY, NOT FUNNY AT ALL, ANTI-FUNNY, THE OPPOSITE OF FUNNY, IF FUNNY WERE WATER THAT STATEMENT WOULD BE OIL.
Well, these are the days we live in, I think I might cry…
March 5th, 2007 at 1:30 pm
Come on, Maher’s just saying something that is obviously true. Cheney is by far the biggest war monger in Bush’s cabinet, and his absence would in all probability mean a slightly less violent Bush administration. Meaning more people would live.
Maher’s not saying this means Cheney SHOULD be assassinated. He’s just pointing out that it would mean fewer people killed as a result of Bush administration policy.
Now, maybe you think that particular counterfactual isn’t true - i.e., maybe you think the Bush administration would be just as violent without Cheney. I disagree, but it’s reasonable to question whether Maher was actually correct about this point. I don’t think that’s what’s motivating the outrage here, though. It’s the implication that Cheney is responsible for many, many deaths - even though that is uncontroversially true.
Note that many similar remarks were made about Saddam in the run up to the invasion of Iraq. It was a central tenet of the pro-war cause that killing Saddam would be justified because it would save lives. So why are we not allowed to apply the same analysis to a U.S. leader?
March 5th, 2007 at 4:19 pm
If it is just freedom of speech that Maher can hint around that Cheney should die then who cares if Coulter called Edwards a faggot. It’s just the left again justifying their actions while pointing the finger at someone else. So Ann Coulter has a sense of humor too. Anyway I got a hoot out of it because after all the name calling from the left, they deserve it.
March 5th, 2007 at 4:57 pm
WOW. Did anyone actually watch “Real Time” that night? Not only did Bill Maher repeatedly say that he did NOT share the sentiments of the postings on HuffingtonPost, but his other panelists vehemently opposed the postings. Rather, Maher simply stated his opinion on what might have happened if Dick Cheney had died: other lives would be saved. Without Cheney, a main promotor/creator of the war in Iraq, it is doubtful whether (surge or not) the war would continue in its present state, and it is more possible that troops would start to come home. Whether or not you agree with Maher’s statement, it is both unfair and inaccurate transform his statements into a “wish” that Dick Cheney had died (as FoxNews and other conservative news outlets have done). Rather, Maher (and his panel) were extrapolating on what might happen if the Veep were to die.
March 5th, 2007 at 6:04 pm
I find it disturbing that people are actually saying that Cheney dying would result in fewer dead overall. Don’t you think that an equally likely scenario is we step up troop involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq and more innocents die? Don’t you think that terrorists killing our VP in a suicide bombing would galvanize many in this country FOR the war effort?
And superstar…I have the video linked. Maher’s comments felt like a wish to me because he stated that fewer people would die as a result, so that obviously poses the question, who wouldn’t want fewer people to die?
This is not a left or right issue. This is an issue of somebody sharing an opinion about future events and purporting it to be a fact. That’s dumb, regardless of party affiliation.
Lastly, this comment just floored me…
And he’s not kidding. Wow.
March 5th, 2007 at 10:48 pm
Harp Harp Harp on Maher…. Cover for Coulter! Did anyone notice what Coulter implied was an outright lie? If we are going to harp on Maher’s accuracy… well… what about Coulter’s accuracy?
John Edwards married his wife in 1977, going on 30 years of marriage and has fathered 4 children. This sound like a “faggot” to you?
Dick Cheney LIED to the American People. He lied about Iraq’s weapons, he lied about Iraq’s involvement with al Qaeda, he lied about the strength of the insurgency and he has lied about his war profiteering.
This war has weakened our military, costs us trillions of dollars (oh yes, it will be trillions by the time the tab is paid), made the US look like a bunch of idiots, cost us decades of respect and hampered our ability to protect ourselves.
Check the latest from the Washington Post:
“Nearly 90 percent of Army National Guard units in the United States are rated “not ready” — largely as a result of shortfalls in billions of dollars’ worth of equipment — jeopardizing their capability to respond to crises at home and abroad, according to a congressional commission that released a preliminary report yesterday on the state of U.S. military reserve forces.”
Now you want to cry about “They wished Cheney dead” well… He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword.
Frankly… I think the man should be charged with treason, tried, convicted and punished. (feel free to look up the punishment for treason)
And if you want to continue to support bigots like Ann Coulter enjoy being the minority for the rest of your lives. Most true Americans know what makes America great is its diversity. The fact all lifestyles are welcomed in the US is what makes this country great!
Personally… I can’t stand bigots And I think the majority of true Americans will agree.
March 11th, 2007 at 3:53 am
Charles you are the Goddam man. I haven’t heard/read such eloquence since Pat Tillman’s brother’s truthdigg article…that was almost like reading a poem. Your lil blurb while poignant (and so f’ing true) was hardly poetic…prophetic? One can only hope. Gonna’ have to wake up pretty early in the morning to catch W though. I hear tell dem f’ing Bushes just bought a huge plot a land down there in South America…finally he’s got an exit strategy. A’hole!
March 12th, 2007 at 1:04 pm
[...] Next was Bill Maher intimating that Dick Cheney might be more revered posthumously than while still wasting perfectly good oxygen, and the Fox News right wing media machine went into full “gotcha” mode. Again, tasteless and rude, but it was a JOKE. Maher wasn’t inciting anyone to actually attack our highly respected Vice President, anymore than Coulter was implying that John Edwards really had more than a passing interest in New York bath houses. [...]