But even after his controversial comments cost him a cushy late-night gig hosting ABC's Politically Incorrect, comic Bill Maher has kept bringing his acerbic, in-your-face take on politics and society to the masses - most recently through his HBO series, Real Time With Bill Maher.
On air, he's a curious mix of cynic and idealist, suggesting that faux-White House reporter Jeff Gannon got scoops because "he had a boyfriend in the White House" in one show, and defending the academic freedom of University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill (who compared 9/11 victims to "little Eichmanns") in another.
Off air, he's a thoughtful and well-read commentator who has penned opinion columns published in the Los Angeles Times, Baltimore Sun, Hartford Courant and Boston Globe - pressing a point of view somewhere between liberal and libertarian while gilding his sometimes outrageous perspective with a healthy dose of comic attitude.
I caught up with Maher while the comic was preparing for a new show, quizzing him over the telephone about life as a consistent critic of President Bush at a time when the one of his biggest disagreements with the administration - the war in Iraq - has produced some rare good news.
How tough is it criticizing Bush these days - after he's won an election in the U.S. and pulled off an inspiring election in Iraq?
No one ever mistakes me as a fan of George Bush, but I've always said you can't work backwards from "I hate Bush." I just feel like you've got to work from the facts first, and I know my liberal Democratic friends don't always want to hear that. Some of my friends were calling me up the other day (saying), "Did you see what Bush said about Iran? That it was ridiculous that we would plan to attack them, but all options were on the table?" (But) that's the right thing to say. We've moved all of these men over to Iraq, 1,400 guys have lost their lives. . . . It would be kind of a waste to have done all that and not at least use it as a threat.
You've spoken in the past about how Republicans seem to be sore winners. Isn't it tough to give Bush his due when the GOP keeps acting like a persecuted minority?
There's been so much finger-pointing: "Don't you get it now, you liberals? Don't you get it?" (But) it's not that we don't get it; it's that we don't share it. I get what you're saying, I just don't believe in it. I don't think that the morals and values crowd understands what morals and values are. Morals and values, I was taught, are making choices . . . choices that have to do with how you treat people - principles. I think the morals and values crowd is very often talking about rituals, superstitions, beliefs, reciting things, praying, believing in Jesus, loyalty to people as opposed to principles. Those are not morals and values to me.
I think you can really quantify what a value is. In America, we don't seem to be able to count votes accurately. But . . . no one ever makes a mistake when we're counting money. I see the people at Diebold finally figured out a way to have a paper trail (from an electronic voting machine) - after the election. It's called a receipt. At the airports, we seem unable to have any kind of real security. And yet, ever walk into a casino in Las Vegas? There are cameras everywhere, there are plainclothes people making a good salary who know what to look for. Somehow, nothing ever escapes the security apparatus at the Bellagio. That's because we obviously value money more than we do life.
Particularly during the run-up to November's election, entertainer/pundits like The Daily Show's Jon Stewart seemed to capture the public's attention far better than traditional journalists. How do we leverage people's attention the way entertainers do?
I don't know how anyone in America gets anyone's attention, except by entertaining or distracting them. Even the presidential candidates now are looking for ways to present their ideas in a way that a) panders, b) promises something they probably can't deliver on and c) entertains. I don't think people listen any other way. When Politically Incorrect started in 1993 . . . for years afterward, people would say "Do you think you're contributing to the blurring of line between politics and entertainment?" Yeah, I guess I am. But society was heading that way, anyway. At least when I get politicians in my corner, I will ask them tough questions.
That's something you've criticized Stewart for in the past; not asking tough questions.
That's why John Kerry (appeared on The Daily Show and) didn't do my show and wouldn't do Hardball with Chris Matthews. You can't blame a politician for going where they're going to be treated softly. People wind up getting their impressions of the guy who is going to run the world from his interview with Jay Leno or somebody like that. A campaign ceases to be about ideas and just becomes, (adopts a dreamy, overly sincere tone) "What's he like? Does he hold his wife's hand in the movies? What's he eat?"
Given how the war of ideas turned out in the last election, what can liberals and the Democrats do next?
They need to go to their base, as opposed to trying to inch ever closer to the Republican side. You see Hillary Clinton positioning herself more to the right on the abortion issue. (And) once again, the folks in this country who believe in science and rationality as a means of governing over faith are left without a choice. Somehow, John Kerry, Al Gore, they all felt the need to buddy up to the red-state, NASCAR, gun-loving, beer-drinking culture. And I'm perfectly happy to live in a country where there is that culture. I just wish there was somebody to stand up for the other half of us. We have the Republicans and the people who are trying to be like Republicans. I wish we had a candidate who said, "You know what? My religion or whatever it is, is none of your business, and it doesn't really affect how I do the job of president and I'm going to promote science and rationality - how about that?"
And he or she would get about three votes.
I don't think so. 79-million people who could have voted didn't vote - that's an awful big pool to not be fishing in. Hillary Clinton, I like her a lot, but she's never going to convince the folks who vote Republican that she's anything but an insanely liberal East Coast elitist married to an adulterer. And they're never going to vote for her.
You've said you feel the Republican Party has been hijacked by the religious right. How has that changed the nation's political discourse?
I feel religion is a neurological disorder. That's my experience with religion. I was raised Catholic. The reason I refer to religion as a neurological disorder is because, it's obviously very irrational thinking and it's based on something that happened to you as a child. When I was a very young child, adults drilled into my head a lot of what as an adult I now realize is very silly stuff. When you become an adult, you can take measures to undo that kind of damage. I don't mean that as a put-down. You know how the religious people say about the gays: "Hate the sin but love the sinner?" It's the same thing here: I hate the neurological disorder, but I love the people who suffer from it, and I want to help them.
Given the country's shift to the right, what should serious journalists be writing about these days?
The environment. It got scant coverage in the election. Again, the Democratic candidate, the one who is supposed to stand up for the issues that the other party doesn't - John Kerry didn't do that. In the New York Times, they did a rather long article on chemical plants. There's more than 100 chemical plants in this country that, each one could cause the death of 1-million people if somebody threw a grenade in one. (And) that fits into the profile of how the terrorists attack us, which is that they use what we already have here against us. They don't have to sneak in a weapon. The chemical bomb is already here. And because the chemical companies are large contributors to the Bush presidential campaigns, the lobbying efforts of those chemical companies have been rather successful in thwarting attempts to increase security, because it would cost them more money.
But try making that point in a way that engages an audience weaned on reality TV and Access Hollywood.
Well, As I said to (60 Minutes correspondent) Lesley Stahl on the show: Journalism's goal, to me, is to make interesting what's important. And I know that's a tough job when it comes to a chemical plant. Yes, terrorism could get us, but the environment is getting us. It's just happening very slowly. We're in the 21st century now. We understand that very often, things we don't see can be deadly. Before we discovered germs and atoms, we didn't get that. We get that now.
What about changing Social Security? Is President Bush making his case to people in the right way?
I don't think Social Security reform is the worst idea in the world. Once again, they're presenting it in a very dishonest way. (Bush is) the morph master. When he ran for president, he morphed monogamy into integrity. He morphed bin Laden into Saddam Hussein. He morphed his National Guard service of 1968 into the National Guard service of today, which are two completely different things. It was a way to get out back then, and now it's a way to get in. And he's morphing the idea of private accounts - which is not a bad idea - with the notion that this is going to save Social Security . . . which it certainly isn't.
Does it feel a little disappointing that the election is over and viewers seem to have moved on to crucial news events such as the Michael Jackson trial?
Last season was an election year . . . (and) we were caught up in it, everybody was caught up in it. It was a passionate election, and that was nice. But it's also nice to get back to a little bit more normal way of doing a show. Now that the election's over, we can talk about Iran and Iraq and then we can talk about Michael Jackson and steroids in baseball. It's a broad menu.
Eric Deggans Published March 13, 2005 Real Time With Bill Maher airs at 11 p.m. Fridays on HBO. Eric Deggans is a Times editorial writer. He can be reached at 727 893-8521 or deggans@sptimes.com.
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