Mediaite » HBO

Meghan McCain On Game Change: ‘Republican Voters Don’t Watch HBO. Are You Kidding?’

Alex Alvarez — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:01:34 +0000

Meghan McCain stopped by MSNBC to chat with Thomas Roberts about, among other things, Game Change, the upcoming HBO movie based on a book that professes to offer a deeper look behind the scenes of the 2008 McCain / Palin campaign.

“Oh my Lord have mercy, Game Change!” said the younger McCain. “Who at HBO got my address and invited me to the premiere of Game Change?”

“You need a date?” Roberts offered.

“You know, I didn’t like this book, I didn’t like this movie,” she said. She is flattered, however, that they cast a pretty actress to play her. Almost as nice as the time I was played by Bill Murray in the television movie Mother, May I Sleep With Mediaite?

But will the movie’s portrayal of Sarah Palin and John McCain have an impact on their political legacy?

“Oh, Republican voters don’t watch HBO,” she said, breezily. “Are you kidding? They don’t care.”

Have a look, via MSNBC:

The Trailer For HBO’s Game Change Depicts Sarah Palin ‘On The Verge Of A Complete Mental Breakdown’

Jon Bershad — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 22:33:31 +0000

Last month, when HBO debuted the teaser trailer for their adaptation of John Heilemann and Mark Halperin’s best seller, Game Change, it became clear why they chose to cut out about two thirds of the book and only focus on the McCain/Palin half of the campaign. Clearly they decided that they’d rather do a Frankenstein-esque story about McCain’s staffers coming to regret the choice they made in bringing a little-known governor into the limelight instead of the epic battle of wills that made up the book’s Obama vs. Clinton sections. The full trailer, which aired on Sunday, continues the same theme and gives us even more famous actors getting their turn to stare in horror at the “monster” they’ve created.

It also gives us more chance to see Julianne Moore’s take on Sarah Palin. I compared the teaser’s approach to the character to that of Jaws‘ treatment of the shark, but here we really get to see the performance. We get to see her trying on clothes, we get to see her infamous “I can see Russia” moment, and you even see her have what one character calls “a complete mental meltdown.” We’re assuming he doesn’t mean the fun kind like Kristen Bell. And, when the trailer ended with Palin whispering through gritted teeth, “We have to win this, I really don’t want to go back to Alaska,” I had to agree with I’m With Kanye in suggesting that Moore can clear off the Emmy space on her mantle now.

Seriously, for anyone who hates Palin, it’s clear that HBO has made the perfect piece of horror/comedy/porn for you.

Watch the trailer from HBO below:

‘Real Time’ Panel Goes Nuts Trying To Convince Bill Maher Obama Is Anti-Military

Frances Martel — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 22:28:39 +0000

Bill Maher tried to capture what he saw as the Republican reaction to President Obama’s State of the Union address this week with words, calling Republicans “sourpusses” and describing their reaction as “unprecedented.” But he only truly captured what he was trying to say by making this face– at once childish and elderly– as his panel descended into disarray, with Rep. Dana Rohrabacher trying to explain his party’s attitude and Kennedy making the point that parties don’t matter, while a mum Martin Bashir looked on.

Wouldn’t it be in your self-interest to fake it?” Maher noted, suggesting Republicans should at least smile through uncontroversial points in the speech, like the fact that the American auto industry was doing slightly better. Rep. Rohrabacher tried to explain that the President “talked about every issue you can imagine, and he was on every side of every issue.” This ignited a crosstalk-off with Kennedy, into which, once in a while, Maher would try to jump by suggesting the use of “facts.” It went on this way for some time until the Congressman asked if he could “get a word in,” which Maher used as an opportunity to let Bashir talk.

He did, but the debate continued shortly thereafter, this time about President Obama’s military spending. Rep. Rohrabacher argued that the President wanted to reduce military spending, even if he didn’t, and Maher insisted that he factually did not reduce it. That took up most of the rest of the segment– Kennedy calling both parties “goddamn liars,” Maher calling anyone who thought President Obama was out to cut military spending was “paranoid,” and Rohrabacher complaining he wasn’t being let finish his points.

Kennedy jumped in one more time to end on a conciliatory note, though, so not all was lost: “it doesn’t matter if it’s this president or the next one– they’re all figurehead douchebags.”

The segment via HBO below:

Bill Maher And Herman Cain Hit It Off: ‘I Don’t Agree With A Word You Say, But I Like You!’

Frances Martel — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 22:32:34 +0000

Chalk this one up to a case of “opposites attract,” or perhaps things can be so vastly different that they circle back around to being near identical. Bill Maher had former Republican Presidential candidate Herman Cain on his program last night, and not only did the candidate not say “999″ or quote Pokémon (that we know of), the two laughed and chatted like old friends. Maybe the world won’t end in 2012 after all.

“I haven’t seen you with a bow tie– you haven’t joined the Farrakhans have you?” Maher joked by way of introduction. Cain joked that he wouldn’t be allowed in the Farrakhans because of the dots on his tie, and the two got down to business. “Too many people are hung up on whether you are Democrat, Republican, conservative, liberal… I would make fun of those labels– American needs not to be so uptight about everything!” If you’re having trouble figuring out who said that, it was Herman Cain, but Maher agreed 100%. This, for the most part, was the tenor of the conversation.

“I noticed you are standing in front of a billboard that says ‘Runaway Slave,’” Maher noted, to which the crowd laughed uproariously. Cain explained that he was at a movie premiere for a film about big government. “Slavery is being enslaved in your mind and believing that the government is the answer to your future and your issues,” Cain argued, which Maher didn’t seem to agree with, but he had more important things to ask about, like Romney’s victory: “Does it bother you that the least black candidate won?”

“I’m not about color– I’m about solutions,” Cain replied, continuing to argue that the job creators were being hampered. “I don’t agree with a word you say, but I like you a lot, I really do!” Maher replied, not bothering to get into the substance of the response. “You’re one of those people, like Reagan.” But Maher did press him on one comment that really bothered him– the “I’m a leader, not a reader” quip.” “Is it good to attack readers when you’re trying to sell a book? Why are these things mutually exclusive? Is your party anti-intellectual?” he asked. Cain replied that he was not going to attempt to defend his entire party, but that most who attacked him on that front were nitpicking.

Then there was one more order of business: Mark Block‘s “smoking man” ad. “What was that about?” A confused Maher asked. “We had a saying… let Herman by Herman, let Mark be Mark, and let people be people.”

No 999, no Pokémon, but at least one “Let Mark Block by Mark Block,” for old times sake.

The wonderful conversation via HBO below:

Leave To Tebow What is Tebow’s: Pundits Should Leave The Player Out Of Politics

Frances Martel — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 17:04:23 +0000

Politics is a name game. It is about who you know– at least in the sense that knowing who the players are in this elaborate dance that defines how we govern ourselves is critical to successful analysis. There are many names, repeated ad nauseum as their character arcs develop in national politics and elevate them far beyond household name to A-block-on-every-show status. Most of these people are public servants, journalists, thinkers, or somehow or another sensible to be at the core of national political dialogue. And then there are anomalies like Tim Tebow, black holes of cable news time and energy that, through no fault of their own, become fault lines along our political geography.

Having to know and care about a young football player who is either good or bad, depending on what you read, was something of a shock when Tebow began to headline what feels like at least one segment an hour on most cable news channels, or popping up in headlines across blogs typically tailored to political media tastes. While the media’s Captains Obvious collectively began to ask things like “Why do we care about Tim Tebow’s religion?” I will readily admit I was still trying to figure out whether he was a freshman Tea Party Congressman or a controversial author, or maybe a Kardashian of some sort. By the time it became clear– whether I wanted it to be or not– who Tebow was and why sports fans got so excited about him from osmosis, it was still a complete mystery why he appeared to have taken over both Fox News and Bill Maher‘s Twitter account simultaneously, and why people kept abruptly kneeling to pray in videos and photos all over the place.

But he had. Suddenly, Fox News was all over the harrowing tale of how some obnoxious teenagers were suspended from high school for “Tebowing” en masse instead of not crowding the hallway. The aforementioned Maher apparently spent his vacation time climbing up onto trees and Tebowing himself, perhaps to prove that God would not smite him for doing so after “joking” on Christmas Eve about Tebow’s defeat. Rick Perry declared himself the “Tim Tebow of the Iowa caucuses;” others argued that it was maybe Rep. Ron Paul, or Rep. Michele Bachmann (here is a chart to one can use to determine whether one is the “Tim Tebow of” something). “It’s hard to not see a bit of Sarah Palin in Tebow,” The Nation‘s David Zirin wrote on one of the many occasions he has gone after the quarterback. On another, he argued:

The right-wing strain of evangelical Christianity to which his family subscribes bleeds seamlessly into politics. Tebow proudly appeared, during the Super Bowl, in an anti-abortion commercial sponsored by Focus on the Family. FOF is an organization that believes in gay reparative therapy, ending women’s reproductive health, and organizing the far-right fringe of American politics.

The mockery of Tebow’s larger-than-life status on shows like SNL is natural and of a different breed than the attacks or exploitative praise coming from pundits. This is America and we have no sacred cows, with the exceptions of, maybe, Julia Roberts and Jon Stewart. That is why Hustler v. Falwell exists. And the more people believe in you– and people really believe in Tim Tebow– the larger the target on your back. But it is the artificial politicization of the player that appears on both sides of the political aisle to be hysterical and unfair. Tebow is a cultural icon, a pop confection– a symbol of the American “culture wars,” some may argue. But a political figure he is not.

NEXT PAGE: No, The Focus On The Family Ad Was Not Political

HBO’s Trailer For Game Change Finally Reveals Julianne Moore’s Sarah Palin

Jon Bershad — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 22:45:24 +0000

When HBO first announced their movie adaptation of John Heilemann and Mark Halperin’s best seller Game Change about the 2008 election, many were puzzled. The movie would apparently only follow the John McCain/Sarah Palin side of the campaign which really only made up a third of the book. Everyone could imagine what the reason was. As fascinating as the Barack Obama vs. the Clintons side was, people just love them some Palin impressions. Well, now a teaser trailer has been released and that was clearly HBO’s thinking too. The clip is edited to treat Julianne Moore’s Palin basically like the shark in Jaws.

Seriously, the only way this thing could be more on the nose would be if they played a record scratch right before she started talking and showed a dog reaction shot right after. Seriously, Woody Harrelson even gets in a “Spielberg face” look of awed horror when he glimpses the candidate.

I mean, we’re still gonna watch the hell out of this thing when it comes out but you’d think HBO would try to make it just a little less obvious who the audience for this is.

Watch the video from HBO below:

(h/t The Hollywood Reporter)

Something You Might Have Missed: The Wire Was Quietly Added To HBO On Demand On Monday

Nando Di Fino — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 21:12:45 +0000

For years, the only way to watch HBO’s The Wire was either on DVD or through HBO’s scarcely-available HBO GO online platform. On Monday, this all changed. HBO quietly added the first four episodes of The Wire to its slate of offerings on HBO On Demand. This explains the joyful renditions of “The Farmer in the Dell” you’ve heard whistled at work today.

Four episodes of a television show that only netted two Emmy nominations during its five-season run (for writing, in 2005 and 2008) may not seem like a lot to the uninitiated, but the show has an insanely rabid following, and an even more-passionate group of proselytizers who urge everyone they know to watch the show. There’s good reason for this. On review aggregation site Metacritic.com, the show has an average user rating of 9.64 (out of 10). Tim Goodman of The San Francisco Chronicle called it, “an astonishing display of writing, acting and storytelling that must be considered alongside the best literature and filmmaking in the modern era.” Grantland‘s Bill Simmons wrote that The Wire is, “the most important television show of all-time.”

This isn’t meant to be another fluff piece about how awesome the show is, but it had, up until Monday, required some degree of effort to watch — borrowing DVDs from friends, hooking up the laptop to the TV to watch it on HBO GO, mailing back envelopes to Netflix to get new episodes. Part of the frustration for The Wire devotees was that it wasn’t available on demand or via Netflix streaming, whereas other HBO favorites like The Sopranos felt like they’d been floating inside the On Demand universe since they went off the air.

An HBO spokesperson wasn’t available to comment on the release schedule going forward, or why it took so long to put the show on the On Demand slate. And, for now, just the first third of the first season is available to watch at the press of a button (with more likely on the way over the next several months, assuming it follows the path of other HBO On Demand releases). But the fact that HBO did this at all is noteworthy. Fans of the show can now go back and watch an episode on a whim, while those who have been meaning to start watching once the show gets to the top of their Netflix DVD queues can now use that space for The I.T. Crowd instead.

At long last, The Wire has been put on demand. We will gladly consider this our holiday gift from HBO.

Maher’s Holiday Goodbye: ‘[Republicans] Hate Everything About Christmas’

Frances Martel — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 22:27:05 +0000

Last night marked the end of the season for Real Time, at least for the rest of the year. So given that Bill Maher wont be around for the holidays, he delivered his Christmas message early: a reminder to Republicans that Ebenezer Scrooge was actually supposed to be the bad guy in A Christmas Carol, not a role model.

In his “New Rule” segment last night, Maher argued that Republicans “hate everything about Christmas,” that charity and brotherhood “makes their skin crawl.” He noted there was a part in the book in which Scrooge “suggests that if the poor don’t want to go to the work house, they should get on with dying as a service to population control– if Herman Cain said that at a Republican debate he would get a standing ovation.”

He then turned to his other problem the Republican arguments, not that they were anti-Christian, but rather lazy to him. “I find it ironic that Republicans have such disdain for the lazy, and yet their solution to every problem is ‘do nothing,’” he argued, “for a group of people so head over heels about self-reliance, they sure to recommend a lot of sitting on their ass.”

Maher then returned to the matter at hand– A Christmas Carol– and told the tale from the perspective of a Republican: “the hero, Scrooge, a blameless job creator, is turned into a socialist through the corrupting influence of Tiny Tim.” And that they seemed to continue on the path away from charity, to Maher, meant “that’s where this party is, it has no bottom– except Marcus Bachmann.”

The segment via HBO below:

Bill Maher Challenges Rep. Issa: That Your District Likes You ‘Is Part Of The Problem’

Frances Martel — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 21:10:58 +0000

Whenever Bill Maher has a certified Republican on his panel, the conversation usually gets heated quickly, and yesterday was no exception. In fact, yesterday he had Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, the chair of the House Investigations Committee, on the program, and got to ask him about that bizarre “In God We Trust” vote, demanding, rhetorically, “and you wonder why Congress’s approval rating is at 8%?”

Maher started the panel off– Rep. Issa was joined by former New York Governor David Patterson and Huffington Post writer Alex Wagner– with the other political scandal of the week, the Rick Perry speech that made everyone ask, “is Rick Perry on something?” Between Perry and Cain, Maher argued, it was hard to take Republicans seriously when they claimed President Barack Obama was “in over his head.” “Herman Cain and this clown, and Obama is the one who is in over his head? Can you even imagine Herman Cain dealing with this Greek crisis?”

While rhetorical, Rep. Issa responded that, yes, he could see Cain dealing with it, while the President was employing the wrong tactic. “Leading from behind is not a strategy,” Rep. Issa declared, a serious comment Maher complimented him for, as the latter took it to be a gay joke.

Maher then turned to what Congress was up to lately, which was to turn down the Obama jobs plan and vote to reaffirm “In God We Trust” as the state motto. “America has an official motto, like we’re a bowling team,” Maher joked. Rep. Issa noted that the House was busy with plenty of other things and the vote didn’t take that much time, but Maher didn’t really buy it. As to his reminder that everyone hates Congress, Rep. Issa replied, “in my own district, I’m well above 8%,” a fact Maher quickly labeled “part of the problem,” though he didn’t mean it as a personal insult, but rather that gerrymandering had hurt the democratic process. Rep. Issa agreed, but only because California had a new independent commission for redistricting– “we have someone do our gerrymandering for us,” he joked.

After the fairly heated exchanges between Rep. Issa and Maher, the panel does return to Cain, however, as Maher has a few old “campaign posters” to show the audience that really should have tipped them off to his problems– posters like “Change… Into Something More Comfortable” and “It’s Morning In America (So I Took The Liberty Of Making Breakfast).”

The segment via HBO below:

Bill Maher’s New Rule: Republicans Have To Stop Calling OWS Protestors ‘Hippies’

James Crugnale — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 20:08:09 +0000

On Real Time‘s New Rules tonight, Bill Maher said that “Republicans have to stop calling the Occupy Wall Street protesters ‘hippies’.” “Yes, they’re peeing outdoors and having sex in sleeping bags– or as Bristol Palin calls it, dating,” Maher explained. “[But] these people down there– they’re not the counter-culture, they’re the culture. They don’t want free love, they want paid employment. They don’t hate capitalism, they hate what’s been done to it.”

Maher mentioned he had visited Occupy DC’s protest and contrary to press reports, he was not offered a “marijuana cigarette”– and was “a little insulted.” He had a revelation that conservatives were living in the past in their negative perception of the demonstration.

“There’s not going to be a repeat of the last time the hippies were in the streets,” Maher argued. “Those hard hats that you’re depending on — here’s what they’re doing now. They’re cheering them on; because now the hard hats are just as broke as everybody else.”

Watch Maher’s new rule on Occupy Wall Street below via HBO:

Bill Maher, Rachel Maddow And Touré Point And Laugh At Herman Cain Candidacy

James Crugnale — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 04:25:19 +0000

Bill Maher, Touré and Rachel Maddow were all in agreement that Herman Cain was in over his head intellectually in his run for the Republican nomination. “I think people have been reluctant to call Herman Cain dumb and an idiot like Sarah Palin, because they’re afraid that people will say ‘it’s because you’re racist,’” Maher surmised. “I’m not racist, I think he’s dumb; I think he’s really dumb!”

“I think he didn’t anticipate that if he was running for president that people would ask him questions about stuff,” Maher added.

“He’s totally ridiculous!” exclaimed Touré. “I mean like intellectually ridiculous.”

Maher backed up his assertion by providing astounding footage from John Stossel‘s Fox Business program where Cain gave such an flabbergastingly inconsistent response on abortion that a guest was visibly mouth-gapingly stupefied.

“I love the way he cops an attitude, like ‘Is my completely contradictory position too hard for you to understand?’” Maher snarked.

“He’s not a serious thinker,” Touré continued. “The real problem is that he’s hijacking the process for his brand — to sell some books, to maybe get a job on Fox…it shouldn’t be right to do that.”

Maher disputed Touré’s notion that the former Godfather Pizza CEO was running for president just for fame and money.

“But then why doesn’t he have any staff in Iowa or New Hampshire?!” Maddow incredulously observed.

“Because he’s not that bright!” responded Maher.

Bloomberg Businessweek’s Joshua Green defended Cain, saying he was great at packaging and conceptualizing ideas. “The fact that 9-9-9 is the dominant idea in the Republican campaign so far is testament to his skills.” Touré did not share Green’s glowing assessment of the pizza king.

“If you’re racist, you’re like–why can’t they all be like him!” Touré zinged.

Watch Maher’s panel criticize Cain below, via HBO:

Bill Maher On GOP: They Are All Like The Banks – They Won’t Give A Black Man Credit

James Crugnale — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 03:24:24 +0000

Bill Maher opened tonight’s Real Time by dedicating much of his monologue to calling out Republicans for not giving President Obama credit for helping kill Muammar Gaddafi. “They’re like the banks, they will not give a black man credit!” Maher zinged.

Maher’s audience greeted the start of the program with raucous applause. “For a liberal crowd, you get all fired up when we kill an Arab!” exclaimed Maher. “Our badass black ninja president did it again. Don’t fuck with this guy!”

Maher tabulated the laundry list of “bad guys” that Obama has brought down.

“So far this year he’s killed Somali pirates, he killed Bin Laden, he killed al-Awlaki, now he killed Gadaffi, our only threat to our way of life now is from Bank of America,” Maher joked.

Maher lamented the fact that even with that formidable body count, Republicans still would not give credit where credit was due.

“They gave credit to the rebels! And to the British! And to the French! But they would not mention the president. It’s like they were on a game show and the password was ‘Obama’”

“In their world, Gaddafi died of natural causes, Bin Laden was shot in the face by the free market,” Maher fussed. “You should’ve heard them, we went in too strong, everything they could’ve said that he did wrong. It’s like there’s some kind of hidden Republican clitoris, that they won’t let Obama find, and whenever he tries, they’re like ‘that’s not it!’”

Watch the segment from Real Time below via HBO:

Alan Grayson Gets Standing Ovation While Bill Maher Panel Mocks Occupy Wall Street ‘Hippies’

Frances Martel — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 19:55:48 +0000

One would think that the anti-corporatist ideals of the Occupy Wall Street movement would receive some safe harbor on Real Time with Bill Maher, and one would be correct that their ideology gelled entirely with the audience. But before Alan Grayson passionately stood up as a spokesman for their cause, the panel spent a fair amount of time mocking the group ruthlessly, for their “bongo drums,” disorganization, and incoherence.

“The don’t really have a coherent message,” Maher noted, with P.J. O’Rourke laughing beside him through an Occupy Wall Street bashing session about how useless their bongo drums are and how they don’t have bathrooms (that latter complaint from panelist Nicolle Wallace, who noted that it was “the logistics of the protest that bother me”). Maher, on his end, was just dismayed at the lack of marketing ability– “the Teabaggers named themselves after a gay sex act,” he joked, “but at least that was catchy.”

Grayson, on his end, found the complaints of the protesters compelling (incidentally, Grayson is planning a comeback to Congress once the Republican who replaced him is up for reelection). “Wall Street has iron control over the economic policies of this party,” he began, interrupted in his rant only by O’Rourke, who shouted “get the man a bongo drum!” Grayson then gave a bit of a monologue on the evils of corporatism and the Federal Reserve, and how the money in politics needed to be separated from the actual governing, and by the time he was done, the crowd was on their feet. O’Rourke, on his end, completely overlooked the potential for a Congressional run: “there may be room [for you] on the Democratic side of the Presidential election.”

The segment via HBO below:

Branching Out: Glenn Beck Compares Just Launched GBTV To HBO And ESPN

Jon Bershad — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 15:24:26 +0000

Much has been made about just what Glenn Beck’s plan has been in moving to the Internet from Fox News. Due to some of his own comments, it seemed like maybe Beck was merely trying to go younger. However, during a set tour yesterday with other reporters, it became clear that the real plan was to go bigger. Never was that more clear than listening to Beck compare his brand new network to such cable big boys as HBO and ESPN.

Note than neither of those networks are Fox News. Or MSNBC. Or any other news network for that matter. Because that’s not what they’re going for.

“What would make anyone think that boxing, movies, Bill Maher all go together?” Beck asked. “Why do people go to HBO? Quality. That’s what we want to do here.”

A few months ago Beck was talking up everything from cartoons to graphic novels, and now it definitely seems like the goal is to create a real network, one that could live on its own without its namesake. Beck pointed out that he originally didn’t want to have his name in the title and Chris Balfe, Mercury Radio Arts president, added that it would be interesting if, 10 years down the line, those “GB” initials were as inconsequential as the letters in “ESPN.”

And, really, it’s these other shows and projects that people in the media seem most interested in. We already know Beck can do his own show and it seems like the subscribers are there. It’s not yet clear if he can sustain it for the full two hours of the new run time but, worst case scenario, they can always cut that back or diversify it by pulling in more contributors. However, will they be able to make these other series, shows that we assume won’t have anything to do with Woodrow Wilson bashing, work?

To start off there is an educational children’s show and a comedy show currently coming up. The comedy show, Brian Sack’s B. S. of A. is of particular interest to me. For the past couple of days, GBTV has been previewing and introducing Sack by having him host the last ten minutes of Glenn Beck. The show, pitched as a right of center Daily Show but one Sack promises will be an equal opportunity offender, seems promising but, sitting in the studio last night, I couldn’t help but think this format of introduction was doing it a disservice.

Last night, Beck opened his show by discussing the verdict in the trial of a man accused of killing an entire Israeli family and then segued into 110 minutes of warning his audience that the world was going to collapse and capitalists would be scapegoated. Not exactly the perfect material for a comedian to follow. Having interned on a televised comedy talk show before, I know just how much thought is put into audience warm up and, despite Sack having a couple of very devoted fans in the Beck’s small studio audience, I wondered if this was really the best way to preview the show.

Of course, this crystallizes what makes the whole endeavor so fascinating. Right now, in most people’s eyes, GBTV is still, literally, “Glenn Beck Television.” And, while they clearly have a number of plans for the network’s centerpiece show (Beck spent a lot of time talking up a number of upcoming technological innovations dealing with host/audience interactivity), perhaps the biggest thing to watch for is whether or not they can successfully launch these disparate shows.

Going by Balfe’s ESPN comparison, it’s interesting that the best possible thing right now for Beck would be for him to fade into the background.

Most Trusted Name In News: CNN Announces New Reality Series, 24/7 Mayweather/Ortiz

Alex Alvarez — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 17:56:13 +0000

Beginning on August 27th, CNN will air HBO’s Emmy-winning, four-part reality series 24/7 Mayweather/Ortiz. The series offers a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the lives of professional boxers Floyd Mayweather and Victor Ortiz, all leading up to HBO’s September 17th pay-per-view match against the two.

The first episode will air on HBO on Saturday, August 27 at 10 pm ET/PT, followed by CNN’s airing at midnight.

Wait… what? While documentary-style reality shows are pretty much always a sure bet, (and the series is narrated by Liev Schreiber, who is handsome) we have to admit that this seems like a rather odd choice of programming for CNN, particularly since it essentially leads up to a big event on another network. CNN is viewed as the arbiter of news (Its slogans include “The Worldwide Leader in News,” “CNN = Politics,” “The Best Political Team on Television,” “CNN = Money”, and “Go Beyond Borders”) and, now, a network that always takes the high road is airing a documentary leading up to a pay-per-view fight? As a result, the network’s mission comes across as… confused.

We asked CNN, you know, “Hey, so why this show?” This is what a network spokesperson told us:

It’s compelling story-telling and we are pleased to have the opportunity to share it with our audience.

Here’s a teaser for the series (which, again, will air on both HBO and CNN) to whet your appetite:

Bill Maher Makes His Own ‘It Gets Better’ Spot To Get Americans To ‘Come Out’ For Socialism

Frances Martel — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 16:46:34 +0000

Last night, a monologue on the virtues of socialism and the shame of not openly embracing it was received with hearty applause, exuberant cheers and the kind of laughter so loud it makes you wonder if its source is producing it at gunpoint. I wish I could tell you it’s from Hugo Chavez‘s weekly variety hour Aló, Presidente. It’s not. It’s Bill Maher‘s “New Rules” segment, where he attempts to convince Americans they’re actually really into this socialism thing, whether they know it or not.

On last night’s Real Time, Maher exhorted Americans to “just come out of the closet” about their “love of socialism.” He argued that, while the word “socialism” was “as popular as Casey Anthony at a Chuck E Cheese” these days, Americans didn’t know what they were talking about, as polls showed support for some social programs and health care benefits funded by the government. “What we really say to socialism,” he argued, when Americans decry it, “is ‘I can’t quit you.’”

To fill his weekly quota of unnecessary vulgarity, he added, “it’s like a guy who says ‘sure, I gargle with a guy’s balls once in a while, and there’s nothing I like more than ass play with other men, but you know who I can’t stand? Fags.’” To fill his weekly non sequitur insults at conservatives, he made sure to call Rep. Michele Bachmann and her husband Marcus “America’s indoor Palins” and joke that Marcus Bachmann “hates government employees because sailors are so rough.” He did have a serious point on the latter joke, however– that the Bachmanns do take farm and business subsidies for their private endeavors, which to Maher count as “socialism.”

Proclaiming, laughably, that “the difference between American socialism and European socialism is that European socialism works,” he began an “It Gets Better” speech about how there were many socialists in Europe, “just like you,” and there was no shame in socialism. Political TV characters make their careers off of often misguided, ill-informed statements, but Maher’s naivete at best (willful ignorance of history at worst) in this clip is beyond the pale.

“There are few words more toxic in America than socialist,” Maher marvels at the beginning of this clip, as if no harm has been done in the name of redistribution of wealth. As pleasant as the reverie of equality may be for those who can’t or don’t want to find a niche in which to excel, ignoring the thousands of imprisoned and dead for opposing (or being suspected of opposing) socialism in socialist countries cannot be ignored. The toxicity Maher accurately identifies in the word is the blood that stains it– from the “agrarian socialism” of Pol Pot to the enthusiasm of Argentine butcher-cum-pop-art-trinket Che Guevara for “intransigent hatred for the enemy that takes one beyond the natural limitations of a human being and converts one into an effective, violent, selective, cold killing machine.”

Some will argue that the violent, evil state behavior described above is actually the result of communism, and not the economic system. Those who do so ignore at their own peril that the two have been inextricable for most of history. “Socialism or death” is the chant schoolchildren are forced to recite in communist classrooms– long ago did socialism become much more than an economic euphemism for the state apparatus. There are exceptions, of course, which Maher eagerly tries to turn into rules: Sweden, Canada, the Social Contract ideal of small European villages where people look out for each other. But to make those nations– a tiny, wealthy, Caucasian slice of humanity that looks a lot more like Bill Maher than most of humanity– the face of socialism is to do a disservice to the majority of socialist states on the planet that happen to not be comfortably underpopulated frozen paradises: Cuba, Venezuela, Cambodia, Angola, et al., and renders his entire argument moot.

Needless to say, for anyone who has had any practical experience with socialism the way most of history has known it, the following clip is simplistic to the point of insult. The segment via HBO below:

Bill Maher Steps Up ‘MILFs Of The Republican Right’ Mockery With New Palin Pregnancy

Frances Martel — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 17:01:10 +0000

Bill Maher got a fairly hearty media lashing for a program riddled with crass jokes at the expense of Sarah Palin and Rep. Michele Bachmann last week, so naturally he opened this week’s show with… crass jokes at the expense of Sarah Palin and Rep. Michele Bachmann. While the latter got off easy for her migranes, Maher spent a good deal of his monologue mocking the Palins for welcoming a new grandchild, quipping, “I think they think abstinence is Latin for ‘no anal.’”

Maher began his monologue with a Rep. Bachmann migraine joke, and a fairly mild one at that. Sometimes, she is incapacitated as much as once a week, reports say, but Maher added– “Even scarier news– sometimes she’s perfectly fine.” He then added a pretend good-natured “I kid the MILFs of the Republican right” before going after Palin for her son Track‘s new child.

“Sarah Palin in the news this week– became a grandmother again, or for the first time, who knows?” he joked, likely a reference to the conspiracy theories surrounding the birth of her fifth son Trig, though if alluding to that, this would be Palin’s “third” grandchild, so the joke didn’t exactly make sense. He clarified that the child was not Bristol‘s, and then added exasperatedly, “do they not have condoms up there? When they say ‘don’t retreat, reload,’ they are not fucking around.” And, as no Palin bashing is complete without an intellect joke, he concluded, “If Bristol Palin really wanted to teach her family about abstinence, maybe the place to put that information wasn’t a book.”

The segment via HBO below:

Reason‘s Nick Gillespie Rails Against Taxes To An Irritated Bill Maher Panel

Frances Martel — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 14:48:11 +0000

It became apparent the moment guests started speculating about the Bachmanns’ sex life that last week’s Real Time would be hard to top– and this week’s edition was certainly more substantive than the last, with an extensive debate on how Congress should balance the budget and the elusiveness of compromise. But it had its tense moments, too, as one panelist, a Pennsylvania mayor, (jokingly?) offered to “take it outside” after being sarcastically told to be proud of his town’s poverty.

Perhaps the reason this week’s panel was much more in control than the last was due to the general lack of agreement among the panelists. Beyond the fact that something should be done to balance the nation’s budget, Bill Maher and his three guests didn’t agree on much, though far and away the furthest from agreeing with anyone was Reason.com‘s Nick Gillespie, who at some point even argued defaulting on the American debt wouldn’t be all that bad, or at least argued that the last time Republicans refused to compromise with a Democratic President– the 1990s government shutdown– that “led to negotiations that led to a balanced budget.” His obstinate opposition to raising taxes also got him an earful from Maher and the other two panelists: ABC News’ Donna Brazile and Braddock, PA Mayor John Fetterman.

Fetterman delivered one of the funnier images of the night, mocking Rep. Eric Cantor as thinking of himself as “King Leonidas and the freshman are the 200 Spartans” and comparing the debt debate to the Terri Schiavo controversy, though not entirely elaborating on that analogy. Brazile, meanwhile, came up with an analogy of her own to explain what defaulting on the national debt would be like: “it’s like we both went out to eat, and we had a delicious meal– of course it was creole, we’re not going to get into why it was creole– and at the dessert, bread pudding, you walk out.” Maher jumped on the analogy: “it’s paying the bills for money that has already been spent– this is a meal you already ordered.” Gillespie dismissed this as “junkie logic,” that would lead to no one kicking the spending habit, and while he stopped short of expressing acceptance of a debt default, he got close enough to irritate the panel into further argument about what message the world would receive from such a default (Maher’s answer? “that we’re deadbeats who don’t pay our bills”).

And then there was the most legitimately contentious moment of the debate, prompted by an aside by Mayor Fetterman– “I am the mayor of the poorest town in Pennsylvania.” “Well, you must be very proud,” Gillespie muttered audibly, to which Fetterman replied, “We’ll take it outside.” It was delivered as a joke, of course, but in a way that indicated that the offer wasn’t 100% off the table. It didn’t take long for Maher to step in, as Gillespie reacquired a pen he had been unconsciously brandishing at Maher earlier, just in case.

The panel discussion via HBO below:

Sean Hannity: Bill Maher Is An ‘Angry, Bitter Liberal’ Pushing An ‘Obama Ass-Kissing Agenda’

Frances Martel — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 03:33:42 +0000

Sean Hannity is making it abundantly clear he is not covering Bill Maher‘s transgression on Real Time last weekend just to have something to talk about. Hannity dedicated a second segment on his program today to Maher’s comments about Sarah Palin and Rep. Michele Bachmann last Friday, noting that he had contacted the National Organization for Women and they were prepared to respond. But in the meantime, Hannity had a bone to pick with “angry, bitter” Bill Maher.

Hannity began the segment asking why there were no cries for boycotting Maher or outrage on the left against his “shockingly offensive rhetoric,” and a recap of the comments in question. To comment, Hannity invited Penny Nance, head of the group Concerned Women for America, who agreed with Hannity that the comments were way out of line. Unlike last night, Nance, Hannity, and contributor Tamara Holder kept their argument strong by avoid personal attacks, only going as far as to call him hateful. Nance argued that “the only being [Maher] hates more than conservative women is God” and that “he never apologized for it… and at some point he has to be held accountable for it.” Holder countered that Maher was “a comedian” and “an educated man” looking for a joke, and scoffed that Hannity and Nance were “acting like calling someone a nincompoop is so offensive.”

Hannity countered with the argument that Maher was the beneficiary of a double-standard that had stung Don Imus but, furthermore, that he was not a comedian. “He’s an angry, bitter liberal who is advancing his liberal commentary,” Hannity argued, alternatively calling that commentary an “Obama ass-kissing agenda.” Given how committed Hannity seems to have gotten to this story, expect a statement by the National Organization for Women to only spur another tirade against Maher and his over-the-top rhetoric.

The segment via Fox News below:

Critics Trash Bill Maher’s Sex Life To Defend Sarah Palin, But Cede Moral Highground

Frances Martel — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 20:46:46 +0000

Bill Maher has found himself in a familiar place. Hosting a program that routinely indulges in off-color political humor and taunts the lines of decency in our public discourse, Real Time may have crossed its own lines. The highlights of the program are already well-known: calling Sarah Palin‘s family “inbred weirdos,” speculating as to what Rep. Michele Bachmann‘s sex life is like, wishing Congressional Republicans dead. Yet sad as it is, Maher can count at least one battle won in the war for vulgarity, as some on Fox News have taken to speculating about his sex life in retaliation.

Last Friday’s Real Time has already etched a place for itself in modern media history as something akin to the famous “Happy Birthday, Trig Palin!” Wonkette post, and its contents well-known to anyone following political media, but it’s worth repeating them: Maher called the Palin family a bunch of “inbred weirdos”—a comment listeners were quick to equate to Trig Palin’s Down Syndrome. His panelists discussed what Marcus Bachmann was like in the bedroom– with Michele, of course– hoping the “repressed anger” did them some good (Rick Santorum got in on this conversation somehow, too). Oh, and lest we forget, Dan Savage admitted to wanting all Congressional Republicans dead, but by then the discussion was so far off the rails that it didn’t sound quite as jarring as it should have. It was not, to put it mildly, Real Time’s finest moment.

Most of the backlash has been on the mark. Greg Gutfeld’s monologue on The Five yesterday took care to attack Maher stridently for his hate, but kept his sharpest language for his audience—“cowards… an echo chamber, an effusive slophouse of flapping, approval-seeking seals.” On last night’s Red Eye, Ann Coulter—a recurring guest on Real Time—lamented that the audience appeared to be rewarding the program simply for it’s faux-edgy profanity. Online, Big Hollywood’s John Nolte even went so far as to consider the comments against the Bachmanns and Sarah Palin herself borderline acceptable, as they “were directed at adults perfectly capable of defending themselves,” and targeted the “inbred weirdos” comment specifically as “astonishingly obscene.” The character judgments were left unspoken, as, to most, the words did all of the talking.

Unfortunately, in handling such noxious language, some have not been able to resist the temptation of fighting fire with fire. During that same discussion with Gutfeld on The Five, for example, panelist Dana Perino could not hold back her disgust, spitting out an HBO-style word off-microphone and proceeding to attack Maher as a sniveling, hideous nerd. “I don’t know who stuffed this guy in a locker in high school, but this guy is such a loser,” she railed, going on about how she “couldn’t imagine any woman” being interested in him, making the clear implication that his inability to seduce ladies was directly correlated to his attention-grabbing, unacceptable screeds. She was not alone, however– possibly topped by another high school reference later yesterday on Hannity.

In a segment discussing the same program, Andrea Tantaros– who, during the same discussion on The Five kept to the rhetoric– also took the liberty to speculate as to Maher’s private life. ” “I think it goes a lot deeper than politics,” she quipped. “He talks about sex all the time, you wonder… is this guy frustrated about something else? Did some woman in high school, or now, that looks like Sarah Palin completely blow him off?” Hannity partook more mildly in the same: “He hates God, hates religion, he smokes pot, he wants to be Hugh Hefner– hes not hard to figure out.” That exchange below:

The visceral, personal reaction is entirely understandable and very difficult to avoid– lie down with dogs, get up with fleas, as the aphorism goes. It’s acting on impulse, scratching an itch to do something about the atrocious insults on the screen. It comes from a good place. It is the sort of behavior that is perfectly acceptable for anyone sitting in their armchairs watching at home, or anyone sitting on Bill Maher’s armchairs watching themselves in the camera. It does nothing but strengthen the corrosive power of his discourse to use it against him. That’s not to say that the commentary on Fox News was morally on par with Maher’s– obviously talking about someone’s high school frustrations is not akin to going after a toddler with Down Syndrome. But the sentiment behind the statements– the desire to disparage someone’s private or sex life because they have said things that offend– is precisely the sort of unproductive, lowest-common-denominator raving that has made Maher a millionaire, its continued presence in venues other than Real Time an homage to his life’s work.

Bill Maher To Chaz Bono: ‘We Have Cars That Park Themselves… How Are They Doing With Dicks?’

Frances Martel — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 18:23:19 +0000

Last night’s incredibly zany social salad on Real Time included a number of people who would have otherwise likely never been in a room together– Bill Maher included with Ann Coulter, Chris Hayes, and Chaz Bono, which of course let Maher explore some of his curiosities. For example, he asked Bono– who completed the physical process of becoming male– if, given how advanced car parking technology is, “how are they doing with dicks?”

Maher didn’t seem to mean any harm, but in his interview with Bono he managed to say a number of fairly uncomfortable things to Bono. For one, “you’re a straight white man, high five!” With Coulter giggling in the background, Bono had to politely decline high-fiving his entry into such an elite group. He did answer, though, that he was very happy “having the way I look reflect the way I feel on the inside” for the first time in his life.

Maher then went on to ask about how artificial penises work: “we have artificial limbs, artificial hearts… cars that can park themselves… how are they doing with dicks?”

Given the way the question was framed (for maximum shock value), Bono replied rather calmly, answering that it isn’t going as well as expected because there just isn’t that much money to be made from it. “There’s a lot more money in your iPod parking your car than there is making a functioning penis for a transgendered man.” This Maher blamed on the “fucking Republicans,” just to make Coulter angry (she just laughed it off). Awkward as the conversation was, however, Bono did respond seriously to Maher’s actual questions, concluding that “there are not a lot of us and most people don’t understand us to begin with so it’s kind of a hard issue.”

Two highlights from the conversation via HBO below:

Must-See HBO Documentary Exposes Myths Behind ‘Hot Coffee’ Lawsuit And Tort Reform

Tommy Christopher — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 19:03:53 +0000

Every time you purchase a cup of coffee that carries the warning “Coffee is Hot,” you probably think about Stella Liebeck without even knowing it. She’s the woman whose lawsuit against McDonald’s has become the go-to parable for proponents of “tort reform.”

The new must-see documentary Hot Coffee powerfully exposes the myths behind Stella’s case, and tackles “tort reform” through the compelling stories of alleged rape victim Jamie Leigh Jones, persecuted state Supreme Court Justice Oliver Diaz, and brain-damaged infant Colin Gourley.

The McDonald’s coffee lawsuit has become pop folklore since the 1992 incident that started it all, but unlike most folk tales, Stella Liebeck’s story began to be distorted immediately, and it wasn’t through repetition, but by design. Everyone has probably made, or laughed at, a “hot coffee is hot!” joke at one time or another, but after you see this movie, you’ll never laugh about it again. I don’t want to spoil the film, so I will just say this: when the narrator asks people on the street if they’ve ever seen the extent of Stella’s injuries, get your kids out of the room.

Hot Coffee also examines the story of Colin Gourley, who suffered significant brain damage at birth due to several medical errors, and whose parents were unable to collect what the jury awarded them for his care because of a legislative cap on damages. It goes on to tell the story of Oliver Diaz, a then-Mississippi Supreme Court Justice who was inundated with attack ads from outside groups, then removed from the bench, for three years, by federal corruption charges of which he was eventually cleared.

Finally, the film tells the compelling tale of Jamie Leigh Jones, the Halliburton/KBR employee who alleges she was drugged and brutally gang-raped by colleagues in Iraq, then imprisoned by armed KBR guards in a cargo container. For years, Halliburton invoked a mandatory arbitration clause in her contract to keep the case out of court. After you watch the film, read about the start of Jamie Leigh’s long-delayed day in court, which began late last month.

Hot Coffee is more than just a compelling film. The issue of tort reform is something that I have been engaged with for a long time, dating back to my years as a health insurance consultant, but this film illuminates the subject in ways that were completely new to me. While some will dismiss the personal stories in the film as “manipulative,” they serve to illustrate the true consequences behind pithy catch-phrases like “jackpot justice.”

They also demonstrate the folly of cost arguments (that are factually unfounded, anyway) in restricting the rights of the people to seek civil redress. The campaign to demonize litigation has been so successful that people have forgotten that the civil courts are as integral to their protection as criminal courts, perhaps even more so. A single undeterred criminal is arguably not as dangerous as an undeterred reckless corporation, or an undeterred, careless doctor.

Whether you support tort reform or not (or even if you think it has something to do with fixing a pie), watch this film. Even if you think civil courts need to be reformed, this film will inform how you think that should be accomplished. There’s also a bonus appearance by Mediaite founder Dan Abrams, for good measure.

It’s airing on HBO, and is available On Demand. Here’s the film’s trailer:

Big Journalism Defends Glenn Beck’s Retard Minstrel Show

Tommy Christopher — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 01:44:15 +0000

Earlier this week, outgoing Fox News host Glenn Beck illustrated David Carr‘s criticism of Midwesterners as “neanderthals” by doing an offensive caricature of a mentally disabled person. Mediaite’s Frances Martel wrote a relatively mild critique of Beck’s performance, given the level of offense, and for her trouble, conservative website Big Journalism has accused Martel of anti-disabled bigotry, and defended Beck’s vile minstrelsy by (I’m not kidding) asserting that those offended are mentally deficient.

New York Times media reporter David Carr started the fun with a remark, on a web-only segment of HBO’s Real Time,about people in the “middle places” with “the low-sloping foreheads.” (Carr later apologized for the remark on Twitter.)

Beck then reacted on his radio show by flashing his laminated Godwin’s Law Platinum card on his radio show, then followed up by sarcastically enacting Carr’s vision of mid-westerners as cavemen… by doing the kind of spitting retard character you’d see at a bad open mic night. In fact, it’s the kind of impression you might have seen in former Wonkette editor Jack Stuef‘s stand-up act, before he saw the light about mocking the mentally disabled.

Maybe I’m just being sensitive, though. You tell me if you’ve ever seen a caveman impression like this:

When I saw the clip here on Mediaite, I saw red, and to be completely honest, I was a little pissed off that Frances had let Beck off so easily. That’s not a knock on Frances; most of the writers on this site are considerably cooler-tempered than I am. Frances even took the time to deconstruct Beck’s larger point, but noted that the “nuance of (Beck’s) joke was entirely lost, to the point where it would be perfectly valid for those with handicaps and their loved ones, or anyone with a sense of decency about how the disabled should be treated in our society, to be offended by this conduct.”

Many members of our staff have written candidly about how mental disabilities have touched their own lives and loved-ones. I bring this up not to give us any additional moral authority on this issue, but to illustrate that for us, this is not about scoring points, political or otherwise. Glenn Beck has consistently lauded this site for its fairness, even when we’ve been critical of him. The social estrangement of the mentally disabled knows no partisan or ideological boundaries.

In fairness to Beck, it was probably not his intent to mock the mentally disabled. That’s kind of the point, people do it without even thinking about it. President Obama probably didn’t intend offense with his “Special Olympics” crack (for which he later apologized), just as Rahm Emanuel probably meant only to insult liberals when he called some of them “retarded,” just as Keith Olbermann intended only to slam John McCain by showing the then-candidate for president on a Special Ed “short bus.”

So maybe the best way to deal with this, except in extreme cases, is to try to illuminate, rather than excoriate. If that’s the case, Frances is probably the better person in this case.

Which makes Big Journalism‘s reaction all the more confusing. They accuse Frances, in their headline and elsewhere, of “compar(ing) the mentally disabled to neanderthals.”

This is the familiar defense of bigots everywhere, the notion that the person who notices the bigotry is actually the bigot. You know the drill. If you’re offended by a photoshop of a watermelon patch at the White House, it’s because you associate black people with watermelons, not because racists have cultivated that stereotype, and many others, for generations. If Glenn Beck’s impression of a caveman is exactly like the caricature that has been used for decades to mock the mentally disabled, you’re the bigot for noticing.

In their zeal to slam Frances, Big Journalism goes head first into the irony rabbit hole, essentially calling her mentally disabled, saying that “Anyone with the listening comprehension of a third-grader could deduce that Beck was personifying Carr’s prejudice (sic) stereotype of Midwesterners.”

It’s entirely possible that the “Big Journalism Editorial Panel” really does think that Frances Martel is some kind of anti-disabled bigot, but I doubt it. This post reeks of disingenuous score-settling. Fair enough. I’m sure there were many Beck detractors who jumped all over this with two feet, not because they give a rat’s ass about the disabled, but because they don’t like Beck.

While my initial reaction to this kind of pissing match is anger at the exploitation of this issue to score cheap points, the wiser, more productive course is to ask people to walk a mile in the shoes of a disabled person, or their loved ones, and to offer understanding in return. There are probably very few of us who have never made a “retard” joke, even those of us who were later touched by those same disabilities. That includes me.

About fifteen years ago, I was at a playground with my kids, and I was gratified to see that my oldest, who has Asperger Syndrome, had found another child to play with. At the time, he wasn’t able to communicate verbally, only echoing some of what people said to him. As I was getting ready to leave, I walked over to them, but they didn’t see me. I watched them for a minute, my son smiling down at his playmate from atop the jungle gym. Then, I noticed that the kid was staring intently at my son, smirking, and whispering “Asshole,” obviously amused that my son couldn’t understand him.

The episode made me angry and sad at first (and glad, for that moment, that my son didn’t understand), but it also made me realize that such behavior isn’t the result of evil (the child was younger than my son, maybe six years old), but of a weakness in human nature, one that extends well beyond treatment of the disabled.

Yes, people like Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Keith Olbermann, and Jack Stuef are free to make whatever jokes they like, and we’re all free to laugh at them, but we’re also free to stop and think about what that says about us.

Glenn Beck Acts Mentally Disabled To Further Mock David Carr’s Comments On Real Time

Frances Martel — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 01:40:04 +0000

Glenn Beck seemed to have reached the pinnacle of potential shock value to be had out of The New York Times‘s David Carr making a bad joke comparing Middle Americans to neanderthals on his radio show this morning, calling it the sort of comment “that leads to mass death.” He managed to top himself on his television program today, however, imitating a disabled person to give viewers a sense of what he thinks Carr believes people in the middle of the country are like.

Mocking the President for being “a brilliant Harvard pragmatist”– with these kinds of insults, who needs compliments?– Beck turned the conversation from the “alleged” education of the President to the “alleged” ignorance of those in the middle of the country who oppose him, as described by Carr. This time, however, he refrained from evoking the horrors of early 20th century euthanasia projects and death camps, instead opting to behave like “those people with the low-sloping foreheads, the Neanderthals,” as Carr called them on Real Time with Bill Maher.

Except Beck’s imitation of Neanderthal wasn’t so much ape-like but downright… disabled. He was fairly plainly, amid the twitching and bizarre facial expressions, behaving like someone with a serious mental deficiency– which, in some sense, made his point. Beck claims that, according to Carr and other “elitists” (read: people who are respected for knowing things about politics), the Johnny-come-latelys who have never participated in government until the Tea Party came around are to be treated as if their ideas are the product of some sort of mental illness– as if they themselves are mentally disabled. In the process, though, Beck stopped making fun of Carr and very visibly made fun of the mentally disabled.

The nuance of his joke was entirely lost, to the point where it would be perfectly valid for those with handicaps and their loved ones, or anyone with a sense of decency about how the disabled should be treated in our society, to be offended by this conduct. Beck’s transgression into offensive territory is certainly not new in political media– plenty of people on the left and right have had the internet equivalent of rotten tomatoes thrown at them for similar mockery, as is appropriate to maintain civil discourse. But that he isn’t the first (and, unfortunately, probably not the last) to pick on the weakest in our society to gain political points with his audience is no excuse to do so, reprehensible comments from what to Beck are “the bad guys” notwithstanding.

The segment via Fox News below (and below that, Carr’s comment on Real Time this weekend):

Bill Maher Invites Obama Impersonator Reggie Brown To Finish Controversial Act

Frances Martel — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 18:16:00 +0000

Last week, Obama impersonator Reggie Brown stole the post-Weinergate spotlight by telling jokes so scathing to Republicans that he was yanked mid-routine from the Republican leadership conference. Never a fan of censorship, Brown caught Bill Maher‘s eye, and the comedian invited Brown onto his program last night to finish the act he started a week ago.

Maher, of course, had strong words for the “white douchebag” that removed Brown from his podium while doing his act, explaining to his audience how Brown had “started talking about Republicans and the sandman came out” (organizers also cited the racially sensitive nature of the act as a reason for removing him). Then he had Brown come out again, and begin where he left off.

Now… as I was saying,” Brown began his act, as if a week and some controversy had not transpired between now and the last time he gave this same speech, “Michele Bachmann. And you thought black women were scary.” The speech didn’t get much more PC after that, with jokes about nearly everyone in the Republican field, from Herman Cain (“he’s one of my undercover ACORN volunteers”) to Mitt Romney (“he is what people who hate white people think of when they think of white people”). Getting off relatively easy was Jon Huntsman, who served as the set-up to a “self” (self being Barack Obama)-deprecating religious joke: “they said they wouldn’t elect a Mormon president, but they said the same about Muslims and look at me.” One wonders whether this was Brown’s act all along or if he sharped the jokes up a bit now that he had been censored.

The segment via HBO below:

Amid Weiner And Palin Talk, Janeane Garofalo Baffles Bill Maher Panel With Fake 2012 ‘Fox Candidate’

Frances Martel — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 21:37:07 +0000

There are so many Republicans potentially courting the presidency in 2012, officially or unofficially so, that it’s quite easy to get mixed up as to who is a serious candidate and who isn’t. On last night’s Real Time, however, actress Janeane Garofalo stumped Bill Maher and his panel with the bizarre, unsourced news that Ohio governor (and former Fox News commentator) John Kasich was “Fox’s candidate” in 2012.

Maher’s panel last night, which included Glee‘s Jane Lynch (who graciously provided a dramatic reading of the Weinergate chat logs), The Atlantic‘s Joshua Green, Garofalo and The Wrap‘s Sharon Waxman, took an extensive trip around the main topics of political conversation of the week, beginning with Rep. Anthony Weiner and ending with the 2012 elections. Unsurprisingly, most of the panel did not believe that Rep. Weiner should resign (note: the segment was filmed before police began investigating his interactions with an underaged girl). The odd man out on this topic was Green, who believed that his extended tenure would cause people to lose faith in government. “If you want to protect the social safety net,” he argued, “you can’t have an American populace with no faith in government.” He did add the caveat that Republicans “don’t care, they hate government,” and that only Democrats would suffer from his stay.

Maher, on his part, was too busy being shocked by the indecency of the MTV Movie Awards to bother with Rep. Weiner– a startling position in which to find the liberal comedian. Noting that he wasn’t “a prude,” he was still uncomfortable with the content of the program because “this is a kid’s show,” and that “if you’re the parent of a 12-year-old and this is okay with you, shut up about Anthony Weiner.” The “this” in question was Justin Timberlake inappropriately grabbing Mila Kunis, which Maher also somehow turned into a race issue because Timberlake had, a decade ago, also groped Janet Jackson.

The topic then turned to Sarah Palin, and Green gave her the spirited defense his long-form piece on her gubernatorial tenure allowed her. Maher believed that the “bar was a lot lower for her” because she was a “pretty girl,” which may give her a shot in the 2012 elections– an organic transition into the 2012 race. When the question of whether Palin could win without Fox News and Roger Ailes supporting her, Garofalo piped up to say, “John Kasich is Fox’s candidate,” receiving a chorus of blank stares. “He’s not even in the race,” Maher added, while Green tried to help by suggesting maybe she meant Texas governor Rick Perry. “No, not Rick Perry, John Kasich,” she insisted, at the confusion of everyone else at the table. Awkward, but in a world where Donald Trump is still a possible presidential candidate, Herman Cain is an actual frontrunner in the race, and Alec Baldwin has any sort of political clout at all, can you blame her for being a bit confused?

The extended Real Time discussion via HBO below:

After A Shot Of ‘Heroin’, Zach Galifianakis Joins Bill Maher’s Panel For Sex Scandal Talk

Frances Martel — Sat, 21 May 2011 20:41:13 +0000

The last time Zach Galifianakis visited Bill Maher, the two bonded over their liberal approach to drug laws and, well, their liberal approach to drug usage. But when the last outrageous antic done on live air was to smoke “marijuana,” how do you outdo yourself this time? Luckily, Maher had a heroin kit handy, which Galifianakis was more than happy to use. He didn’t talk all that much after that.

Galifianakis was on Real Time last night to promote his new movie, though he appreciated the irony since it comes out next week, and today is the last day of the history of the world. With that in mind, heroin probably didn’t seem like such a bad idea, and Maher, who had a needle ready with “heroin” “like the cooking shows,” gladly shot him up. And that was only the beginning of the panel. Acting “high” after the “heroin,” Galifianakis was a bit slow on the uptake with several questions thrown at him, including “would you work with Arnold Schwarzenegger?” (“As his maid?” Galifianakis replied), and “what do you think about when you masturbate?” He was mostly quiet for the rest of the segment, which was a crash course in sex scandals beginning with Schwarzenegger’s and ending on the pedophilia scandals in the Catholic church.

Maher acknowledged that, as bad as Schwarzenegger’s case was, “the French are more rapey than we are,” though he attributed the Dominique Strauss-Kahn scandal to some misused Cialis (some on the panel were even more flexible than that– MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan argued that “when there’s a woman in the room, a man wants to have sex with her,” which made co-panelist Gillian Tett a bit uneasy). Where the panel seemed to have no leniency whatsoever was with the Catholic Church for its investigative findings showing that the 1960s were mostly responsible for their scandals– panelist Reza Aslan pointed out that this happened to be the era of Vatican II, which Pope Benedict XVI had never been too great a fan of.

The segment via HBO below:

Bill Maher Narrows Down 2012 GOP Field To Charlie Sheen, Ted Nugent, And ‘Face-Ripper Monkey’

Frances Martel — Sat, 21 May 2011 17:51:36 +0000

With the 2012 Republican presidential race thinning out, Bill Maher is becoming increasingly irritated with the quirkiness factor of the field, but can’t see a way out. “The crazier the contestants, the more the voters like it,” he argued on last night’s Real Time, and the search was on to find “a candidate meaner than [Donald] Trump and dumber than [Sarah] Palin.” To that end, Maher decided to help out with a few suggestions, only half of which were fully human.

To find the perfect candidate, Maher narrowed down the requirements demanded from Republican voters to three major issues: “never compromise on anything or ever work with the Democrats,” “always treat Obama like he’s some mysterious black guy who turned up uninvited at your country club,” and “never admit the government is useful for anything.” Apparently no one on the current field sufficiently met those requirements, so he found some better candidates: Charlie Sheen, Ted Nugent (the only actual Tea Party member on the list), Andrew Dice Clay, the Norse god Thor, Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s penis, and, finally, “Face-Ripper Monkey.”

Obviously, Maher was most excited by Face-Ripper Monkey, and actually didn’t give in to the temptation of obvious race jokes with this one. Face-Ripper Monkey, he explained, was the perfect candidate because “his very existence disproves evolution” and he proposed “direct common sense solutions– like ripping off people’s faces.” But how would he reconcile these views with the fact that, given the choice, voters seem to prefer “Generic Republican” to any actual candidates? Well, “face-ripper monkey can accept not being on top of the ticket.”

The segment via HBO below:

Bill Maher: Gingrich Is An ‘Idiot Who Has Always Been Wrong About Everything’

Frances Martel — Sat, 14 May 2011 22:21:50 +0000

With a critical mass of GOP candidates now confirmed for 2012, Bill Maher leapt at the opportunity to judge them. After a few incorrect assessments on who is in and who isn’t confirmed (Gary Johnson isn’t confirmed, but Mike Huckabee is?), Maher specifically went after Newt Gingrich‘s record, challenging his reputation as an “ideas guy” and instead arguing that “he’s an idiot who has always been wrong about every single thing he has ever talked about.”

“Do you think the American public could stand looking at these people?” Maher concluded his round-up of potential and current candidates. No one on his panel seemed to envy Republican voters, with Andrew Ross Sorkin betting the GOP winds up with “old people that have run before,” and the other two panelists– Michelle Bernard and Reihan Salam– surprisingly warming up to Gingrich. Bernard gave him “a lot of credit for negotiating with Bill Clinton,” a position Salam supported, adding that his moderate record explained much of his extreme rhetoric in 2011: “he has to live down a lot of moderate positions.”

Maher, however, wasn’t convinced. “What I find really scary about Gingrich is his certitude, which is the hallmark of unbright people,” he noted. Sorkin, who mostly stayed away from the Gingrich talk, instead was trying to figure out a candidate the Republicans could run that would stand a chance, settling finally on New Jersey governor Chris Christie, until Maher pointed out that he had somehow made evolution a significant issue in his governorship. “Oh, okay, I take it back,” Sorkin quickly responded.

It’s not shocking that the Real Time panel would have a hard time with Gingrich, but it is somewhat telling that half the panelists suspected his Achilles’ heel to be a moderate record, and not an extreme one.

The discussion via HBO below:

Bill Maher: ‘There Is One Religion In The World That Kills You When You Disagree With Them’

Frances Martel — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 20:47:36 +0000

From his film work to commentary on his talk show, Bill Maher has made a career attacking religion. But he made clear last night that, to him, some religions are more equal than others, detouring from the conversation about the Florida pastor who burned a Koran to question why radical Islam, to him, seems to get a pass on violence, particularly in light of the Afghanistan killings prompted by said pastor.

Maher began the segment by condemning “Reverend Yosemite Sam” for his Koran burnings, but then noting that he was “very disturbed” by the way the situation in Afghanistan was handled. He respectfully disagreed with General David Petraeus‘s statements distancing most Americans from the pastor, accusing him of “blaming the victim.” “All this talk about people who burn the Koran and nothing about the people who reacted so stupidly,” he noted.

Guest Eliot Spitzer interjected to add Afghan President Hamid Karzai to the list of people with blood on their hands, as it was a speech by Karzai through which the Islamic extremists that attacked those UN workers found out about the little-known pastor in the first place. Despite upon whose shoulders lay the most blame, however, Maher was adamant to point out those with blood on their hands were, first and foremost, the killers with literal blood on their hands.

He also expressed concern about comments by Sen. Lindsey Graham that “free speech is a great idea, but we’re in a war,” which panelist Andrew Sullivan noted was, to him, a dangerous response to three ambiguous warfronts. “It comes down to blasphemy,” he concluded– a point Maher jumped off of. “What it comes down to,” he concluded, “is that tere is one religion in the world that kills you when you disagree with them. And they say, ‘Look, we are a religion of peace, and if you disagree, we’ll cut your fucking head off.’”

The segment from last night’s Real Time via HBO below: