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| Hillary Clinton gives her book, Hard Choices, to Mr. Squirrel |
by Catherine Giordano
The bad boys came out to play on
"Real Time with Bill Maher", episode 322, which aired on 6/20/2014.
Bill Maher, who is always a bad
boy, had a few comments in his monologue about some bad boys. He mentioned the Isis
group in Iraq who took the Iraqi city of Baiji and robbed a bank in the
process. Maher said “When they do it they are terrorists; when we do it we are
venture capitalists.
Maher also blasted the Republicans
who got it all wrong when they urged the U.S. to go to war with Iraq—Dick Cheney,
John McCain, Bill Kristol (to name a few) all over the TV now complaining that
Obama is not handling the ISIS insurgency correctly. He called them “Satan’s
V.I.P. list for Hell.” The bad-est of these bad boys is Cheney-- Maher joked
that Cheney said, “My thoughts and prayers go out to our oil.”
Later in a discussion about
foreign policy, Maher reported that even Fox News was buying it anymore. Megan Kelly, A Fox-News host grilled Cheney
during a TV interview saying “All your predictions were wrong.” Kristen Soltis
Anderson, a Republican pollster for the
company, Echelon Insights, and a columnist for The Daily Beast reported
that “There is a wide spectrum of opinion on that by Republicans.” Well perhaps.
There is Rand Paul vs. all the other Republicans.)
The pope is now on Maher’s list
of bad boys. Maher said, “The honeymoon
is over between me and Pope Frank.” It seems the Pope called drugs and alcohol
evil and said there can be no compromise with evil. Maher added that this was
coming from someone “who never drinks anything stronger than the blood of
Christ.” A wicked bad quip.
The interview was with Ta-Nehisi Coates who is a national
correspondent at The Atlantic, which recently published his much talked
about article in The Atlantic magazine,
“The
Case for Reparations.” He is also the author of the
memoir. The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and
an Unlikely Road to Manhood. Coates said that black people in America are
in a constant state of “unfreedom.” He talked
about Jim Crow, debt peonage (share cropping) segregation and more making the
case for reparations. Maher asked his if he agreed with Martin Luther King who
said (repeating words first used by Theodore parker, a Unitarian minister and
abolitionist) “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards
justice.” Coates responded saying “oh, nooo,” drawing out the word “no” and
sadly shaking his head. The he added “It’s an arc of injustice.”
Two of the panelists, both bad
boys got into a bad screaming match. Paul Reickhoff is a veteran of the United States Army and the Iraq War and founder
and Executive Director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, and author
of Chasing
Ghosts: Failures and Facades in Iraq: A Soldier’s Perspective. Reickoff
is passionate about advocating for soldiers and veterans. His opponent in this
fight was Glenn Greenwald, a lawyer, Pulitzer Prize
winning journalist, author I of several books. His most recent book is No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and
the U.S. Surveillance State. Greenwald is a passionate advocate
for Edward Snowden and more transparency in government.
They strongly disagreed
about whether Snowden was a traitor for revealing state secrets (Reickhoff’s
position) or a hero for exposing excessive
government surveillance (Greenwald’s position). Greenwald made an excellent point when he said
that Snowden did not reveal anything. He
only turned the files over to newspapers and asked them to vet it
carefully. It may be splitting hairs,
but Greenwald is a lawyer, and a defense can turn on how hairs were split.
Maher had to break up the fight
before it came to blows by interrupting and changing the subject to the Flip–A-District
campaign.
Maher then moved on to a news
story about Dr. Oz touting green coffee extract as a “miracle” and “magic” weight
loss aid. (When a doctor uses words like “miracle” and “magic” you know he has
sold out.) Maher then held up a Time
magazine showing the cover story about weight-loss titled, “Eat More Butter.” Maher
claimed this was all about telling people what they want to hear, and he had a
few magazine cover story ideas of his own. Here’s a few of them:
Boys
Life: If All the Scouts
are Doing It, It is Not Really Gay
Sports
Illustrated: Video Gamers: The Real
Athletes
AARP: That Smell Isn’t Really Coming
from You
Hustler: Masturbation Prevents
Cancer
Modern Parenting: How to Raise a
Genius by Sticking Your Toddler in Front of the TV All Day
The mid-show guest was, Mike Shinoda a musician,
record producer, and artist. He is best known as the rapper, principal
songwriter, keyboardist, rhythm guitarist and one of the two vocalists of the
rock band Linkin Park which has had
more number one hits than any other band. His newest album is The
Hunting Party. Shinoda is also the author (with Shepherd Fairey) of Glorious
Excess.
Shinoda talked about how the
band has moved from themes of teen-aged angst to songs about social issues over
the years. Shinoda is now very involved with social issues like relief efforts for
major natural disasters causes like climate change.
In New Rules, Maher mocked “Co-dependence Day.” He said “Broken nations are like broken
people. You can’t fix them,” adding, “Maybe America needs Dr. Phil to ask, 'How’s
that nation-building thing working out for you?’”
Maher said that the United States went into Iraq thinking (My
interjection: Or at least saying,
because we all know the real reason was oil) we would liberate the country from
a dictator, install a democracy, and then that democracy would be a model for
the whole Mid-east. He brought the point home by finishing with “and then after
lunch …” He said the United States was like a woman who thinks she can fix the
bad boys.
Have you seen that big bad orange squirrel on TV—the one
that is following Hillary Clinton around. (Actually, it’s a person in a
squirrel costume, and the squirrel looks cute and cuddly.) It’s leftover from
the campaign against Obama and it was meant to associate Obama with the group,
Acorn. Maher pointed out that since
Acorn has been defunct for many years now, the prop no longer makes sense. Unless, as Maher said, as he held up a
picture of the 2012 Republican contenders on the debate stage, it makes sense
because “Republicans like to gather all their nuts in the fall.”
The whole squirrel thing is not working at all. I saw a clip on TV where Hillary approached “Mr.
Squirrel”, as she called him, shook his hand, and gave him a copy of her book, Hard
Choices. Mr.
Squirrel looked delighted as he hugged the book to his chest and gave Hillary a thumbs-up sign. (My guess is that the
person inside that squirrel costume no longer has a job as a squirrel
impersonator.) CLICK HERE to see video.
The bad boys are not going to change, whether they are your
boyfriends, or your leaders, or your leaders, or even your
comedians. I wish they would, except for Bill Maher—Bill, you keep on being your
bad funny self. Keep that political and social satire coming. Our country needs
it bad.
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Please use the links if you wish to purchase.
Bill
Maher’s Guests, #322, June 6, 2014
Paul Reickhoff: Writer, veteran of the United States Army and the Iraq War, founder and Executive Director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, and author of Chasing Ghosts: Failures and Facades in Iraq: A Soldier’s Perspective
Ta-Nehisi Coates: National correspondent at The Atlantic, which recently published his much talked about article, "The Case for Reparations." He is also the author of a memoir. The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood.
Glenn Greenwald: American lawyer, journalist, author I of several
books. His most recent book is No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and
the U.S. Surveillance State
Kristen Soltis Anderson:
Republican pollster for the firm, Echelon Insights, columnist for The
Daily Beast.
Mike Shinoda: Musician,
record producer, and artist. He is best known as the rapper, principal
songwriter, keyboardist, rhythm guitarist and one of the two vocalists of the
rock band Linkin
Park. His newest album is "The Hunting
Party." He is the author (with Shepherd
Fairey) of Glorious
Excess.
Please like, share, and tweet.
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