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Bill Maher On Countdown: ‘There Are No Republicans On The Moderate Side’

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Because Real Time is on hiatus until January 14, Bill Maher has some time to kill. Before setting off on a nationwide comedy tour—which is taking him to cities like Peoria and Tulsa in the next few weeks—he stopped by Countdown tonight to trade barbs about Conservatives with Keith Olbermann.

Unsurprisingly, Maher’s railing against the Right was unrelenting. He started out by calling Tea Partiers “the nuts that fell out of the nut bag,” then took aim at Sharron Angle—though Harry Reid, Maher said, is a charisma vacuum, his senatorial opponent was like “crazy lady with 20 dead cats in the basement.” Eventually, Maher got a bit more serious, bemoaning President Obama‘s quixotic, stubborn pledge to encourage bipartisanship. “Bipartisanship is one of those things that is so highly overrated,” Maher told Olbermann.

Olbermann then asked Maher if it would be fair to say that Republicans are better at achieving their governmental goals than Democrats. Maher answered that Republicans are indeed “way better,” because today’s Democrats don’t “twist arms” the way progressives in FDR and LBJ‘s administrations did.

He followed that with a statement that will seem like a truism to some and a radical distortion to others: “There are no Republicans on the moderate side. … At some point, the left moved into the center. The right moved into a mental hospital.” The middle, according to Maher, has accordingly become right-of-center. Whether you believe his assessment, of course, will depend on your political beliefs.

Watch video of Maher’s Countdown appearance below.

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  • LeviCoult

    Maher is god.

  • TristramShandy

    Maher seems like such a nice guy, and then he open up his mouth and all this garbage spills out.

  • Arkansas Steve

    Maybe a moderate Democrat can make that statement, but not Bill Maher.

  • The_Reasonable_Lib

    Maher left out Kennedy’s administration. Robert Kennedy was notorious for arm-twisting and also as the only attorney general to keep Hoover in line.
    Remember what Republicans did afterwards? Anti-nepotism laws. Seems like everytime Republicans get their asses handed to them they have to change the law.

  • Sean68

    I applaud Maher for not including in this interview that he likes to get high or what a high-scoring international playa he is.

  • http://politicsofdestruction.com/ Bobomatic

    Two flew over the cuckoos nest….

  • dummy123

    “Gangsta”
    Maher always goes jive/ghetto when talking about Obama.
    He is a racist!

  • Harry Flashman

    More vocal spasms from the factually challenged, psuedo-intellectual Maher. He and Olbermann make a good team.

    I see them as two old men sitting side by side in their rockers, damning the right with spittle flecked hatred, passing the MD 20/20 back and forth, wiping the foam from their lips with their Obama/Biden ’08 napkins.

    Sigh.

    Oh, and even then, Maher will still be a punk.

  • Sean68

    dummy123 said:
    “Gangsta”Maher always goes jive/ghetto when talking about Obama.He is a racist!

    Yeah. Who gave him his ghetto-card? Just because he’s fucked a couple of black star-fucking bimbos (one of whom said he was a racist)?

  • equaljustice4u

    I really enjoys those years when I didn’t hear from Bill, I hope they’ll return very soon………he isn’t needed.

  • the real john t

    Sean68 said:
    Yeah. Who gave him his ghetto-card? Just because he’s fucked a couple of black star-fucking bimbos (one of whom said he was a racist)?

    Maybe Ann Coulter, he used to date her.

  • Kird

    the real john t said:
    Maybe Ann Coulter, he used to date her.

    No it was Olbermann, not maher,who dated Coulter.

  • Sean68

    Kird said:
    No it was Olbermann, not maher,who dated Coulter.

    Really? Not terribly gentlemanly, then, of Olbermann to make sexist jokes about her appearance and femininity. But then I think we all knew what a caddish piece of shit he must be. Not unlike Maher.

  • the real john t

    Kird said:
    No it was Olbermann, not maher,who dated Coulter.

    Go do some reasearch before spouting off.

    http://www.nndb.com/people/474/000022408/

  • Rusty Shackelford

    About 10 years ago I saw Maher get knocked on his ass at a club called the Shoe Box on First Ave. in Seattle.
    He was trying to play the star thing with a couple women,who were actually making shit of him and I guess he said the magic word so some guy with them punched him right in his nose….he went ass over tea cups right onto his backside.He got up and made a hasty exit with some other guy.

  • Kird

    the real john t said:
    Go do some reasearch before spouting off.

    http://www.nndb.com/people/474/000022408/

    I heard different; perhaps your source is in error or I am. Either way, you don’t have be rude. I wasn’t rude to you.

  • Kird

    For the record, I got her and Laura Ingraham confused. There are a lot of feisty conservative blondes out there. A lot of reactionaries too.

  • the real john t

    Kird said:
    Either way, you don’t have be rude.

    What? Telling you to do some reasearch is being rude. I apologize, I didn’t know you were so thin skinned. I’ve been told and called a lot worse than that on here.

  • Kird

    the real john t said:
    What? Telling you to do some reasearch is being rude. I apologize, I didn’t know you were so thin skinned.

    Using the phrase “spouting off” comes off as being rude. I ain’t thin-skinned (somebody told me to go kill myself over here earlier and I laughed), but .. .

    I’ve been told and called a lot worse than that on here.

    I’ve seen that, but I know you give as good as you get, even without provocation. Also, I don’t remember the topic, but we exchanged posts before, and it was civil. Whatever.

  • Sean68

    Rusty Shackelford said:
    About 10 years ago I saw Maher get knocked on his ass at a club called the Shoe Box on First Ave. in Seattle.He was trying to play the star thing with a couple women,who were actually making shit of him and I guess he said the magic word so some guy with them punched him right in his nose….he went ass over tea cups right onto his backside.He got up and made a hasty exit with some other guy.

    I’ll bet that wasn’t the first time he got knocked out.

  • tws258

    the real john t said:
    Go do some reasearch before spouting off.
    http://www.nndb.com/people/474/000022408/

    Horses mouth trumps gossip site .

    “And Ann and I understand that about each other. We have a great time, we’re not dating. People want to always put the sex factor in everything. No, it’s not about that. It’s about acceptance. It’s about OK, I don’t agree with everything you say, you don’t agree with everything I believe, but we accept each other. ”

    http://archives.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0307/31/lkl.00.html

  • Harry Flashman

    Rusty said:

    “About 10 years ago I saw Maher get knocked on his ass at a club called the Shoe Box on First Ave. in Seattle.
    He was trying to play the star thing with a couple women,who were actually making shit of him and I guess he said the magic word so some guy with them punched him right in his nose….he went ass over tea cups right onto his backside.He got up and made a hasty exit with some other guy.”

    Heh. There is a Santa Claus.

    By the way, are you the same Rusty from Jawa or a Rusty wannabe?

  • ganymede

    What a bunch of deadbeats on this blog. I doubt whether most of you who have commented on the Maher/Olbermann interview even bothered to watch it. I don’t watch much TV and very much appreciate Mediaite’s showing a lot of these TV clips, some of them like this one are extraordinary. What the usually bombastic Olbermann and the usually overly acerbic Maher did was break down the whole current political scene and castigate the Democrats for being idiotic losers and the Republicans for being crazy extremists. It was funny and brilliant stuff. The type of programming totally alien to the FOX world. It’s interesting that the conservative media (NBC, MSNBC, CNN, CBS, HBO) is getting more liberal and the rightwing media which is just FOX might have to move to the left. The reason the numbers are so high for FOX is simply because rightwingers have nowhere else to go. If their formula for success were so great there’d be more outlets, etc. Fox is boxed in media.

  • LeviCoult

    ganymede said:
    What a bunch of deadbeats on this blog. I doubt whether most of you who have commented on the Maher/Olbermann interview even bothered to watch it. I don’t watch much TV and very much appreciate Mediaite’s showing a lot of these TV clips, some of them like this one are extraordinary. What the usually bombastic Olbermann and the usually overly acerbic Maher did was break down the whole current political scene and castigate the Democrats for being idiotic losers and the Republicans for being crazy extremists. It was funny and brilliant stuff. The type of programming totally alien to the FOX world. It’s interesting that the conservative media (NBC, MSNBC, CNN, CBS, HBO) is getting more liberal and the rightwing media which is just FOX might have to move to the left. The reason the numbers are so high for FOX is simply because rightwingers have nowhere else to go. If their formula for success were so great there’d be more outlets, etc. Fox is boxed in media.

    Excellent analysis.

  • Harry Flashman

    ganymede said:

    ” What the usually bombastic Olbermann and the usually overly acerbic Maher did was break down the whole current political scene and castigate the Democrats for being idiotic losers”

    Doesn’t change anything. Maher is still a punk.

  • the real john t

    Harry Flashman said:
    Doesn’t change anything. Maher is still a punk.

    And you’re still a nobody.

  • the real john t

    tws258 said:
    And Ann and I understand that about each other. We have a great time, we’re not dating

    Oh! So that proves they’ve never dated?

  • TCinAZ

    There are No Republicans on the moderate side – says the Donkey-Faced Wannabe Huckster whose Party is gonna Crush Heath Shuler like a Grape at Stretch Pelosi’s Family Winery?

    … “Now it’s our Party: We bought it, We own it, and We’re going to take it back.” Can You Say Flunkie Of The Proprietor Of The Democrat Party, George Soros?

    Oh, and Btw, how MANY times is Maher gonna Use that Same Line? That the Left has gone to the center (LOL!) but that Repubs have gone into a Mental Hospital (or sometimes it’s a Mental Institution)? Because he Recently said the Same on O’Reilly, and on Leno… I mean, he’s been using that Same Line since 2009. Using it everywhere he Goes. So get some New Material, Bildo, because you’re Not Funny. You’re just an Angry, Big-Mouthed Punk with Lil’ Man’s Syndrome, because you’re “Famous”. That’s all. Dwarf.

  • skyfet

    Used to be John Mccain, then came the Tea Partiers!

  • cjd ohio 1

    the conservative media( nbc, msnbc,cnn,cbs, hbo) what? lol

  • notsofast

    Poor Billyboy- all those “stupid” people threw your ass out!

    Hahahah

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Dronetek-Bulk-Vanderhuge/100000918732763 Dronetek

    So all the moderates are liberals yet the Dmeocrats lost handily in the election because moderates left them? This is another glaring example of left wingers manufacturing their own reality when the real one doesn’t suit their delusions.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Dronetek-Bulk-Vanderhuge/100000918732763 Dronetek

    ganymede said:
    What a bunch of deadbeats on this blog. I doubt whether most of you who have commented on the Maher/Olbermann interview even bothered to watch it. I don’t watch much TV and very much appreciate Mediaite’s showing a lot of these TV clips, some of them like this one are extraordinary. What the usually bombastic Olbermann and the usually overly acerbic Maher did was break down the whole current political scene and castigate the Democrats for being idiotic losers and the Republicans for being crazy extremists. It was funny and brilliant stuff. The type of programming totally alien to the FOX world. It’s interesting that the conservative media (NBC, MSNBC, CNN, CBS, HBO) is getting more liberal and the rightwing media which is just FOX might have to move to the left. The reason the numbers are so high for FOX is simply because rightwingers have nowhere else to go. If their formula for success were so great there’d be more outlets, etc. Fox is boxed in media.

    Much like the Democrats, you seem to blame your delusions on everyone else.

  • njoy-d-ride

    ganymede said:
    What a bunch of deadbeats on this blog. I doubt whether most of you who have commented on the Maher/Olbermann interview even bothered to watch it. I don’t watch much TV and very much appreciate Mediaite’s showing a lot of these TV clips, some of them like this one are extraordinary. What the usually bombastic Olbermann and the usually overly acerbic Maher did was break down the whole current political scene and castigate the Democrats for being idiotic losers and the Republicans for being crazy extremists. It was funny and brilliant stuff. The type of programming totally alien to the FOX world. It’s interesting that the conservative media (NBC, MSNBC, CNN, CBS, HBO) is getting more liberal and the rightwing media which is just FOX might have to move to the left. The reason the numbers are so high for FOX is simply because rightwingers have nowhere else to go. If their formula for success were so great there’d be more outlets, etc. Fox is boxed in media.

    Sorr, ganymede, I don’t know where you live, but from what I’m hearing you and LeviCoult are still orbiting Jupiter!

  • Upon Further Review

    Wow, so Bill Maher was on Keith Olbermann’s show?

    I’ll bet more people have watched it on this Web site than the number who actually tuned in to MSNBC.

  • http://www.libertarianism.com/ Jack Burns

    Republican = moving to the right. Destination…. Corporate rule
    Democrat = moving to the left. Destination… Government rule
    Moderates= a little of both. Destination… Nowhere
    Libertarianism = moving forward. . Destination…. “We the people rule…”

  • Scott_in_MI

    Dronetek said:
    So all the moderates are liberals yet the Dmeocrats lost handily in the election because moderates left them? This is another glaring example of left wingers manufacturing their own reality when the real one doesn’t suit their delusions.

    Delusional is the perfect word to describe the Dem Party these days. JFK (the original tea party backer) must be rolling in his grave. They actually believe they are the Moderate party? (despite moderates fleeing in droves in the last election.) Obama is a far cry from Billy Clinton and as BHO’s poll numbers continue to fall- and he decides not to seek another term as President- idiots like Maher, Maddow and Olbermann can continue to hold on to their Dems=moderate idea.

  • Some_Dude

    Well, as a point of simple observation, all republicans are in lock-step with the party line. And that line is drawn on the far right. Democrats exist on the other side of that line. So in essence Maher is correct.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Mark-Caplinger/1530802200 Mark Caplinger

    It really says alot about liberals that they consider this moron to even be relevant. He constantly bashes the USA and everything we stand for….. but always seems to keep that evil American money that he makes.

    Someone please give me 15 minutes in the octagon with this guy…. he’ll come out a Christian conservative.

  • Nachi

    There never have been any. Too busy sorthing thru dumpsters, trying to find a brain or a soul.

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