HBO Real Time with Bill Maher #265 "It's the Facts, Stupid"

by Catherine Giordano

HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” episode #265, airing on November 2, 2012 was smart and funny as usual.  (Except when the Republicans are talking as usual; Bill had two of them this week.)

I’m naming this episode “It’s the Facts, Stupid.” It’s a take-off on the headline of Bloomberg Business Week. The cover of this magazine was shown on the show. In big red letters, the headline was “It’s Global Warming, Stupid.” Bill discussed how during the Republican National Convention Romney turned Obama’s words into a joke.  Romney, with his customary smirk on his face, quoted Obama as saying, “I will stop the rise of the seas and heal the planet.” Har! Har! Har! This is the “Not-So-Funny-Now-Is-It?” moment of the week. The rising seas inundated communities in New York and New Jersey and killed close to 100 people. As Bill said, “The rising seas” is not a laugh line.

While I’m talking about Romney’s smirk, take a close look at Romney when he is supposedly offering condolences to the victims of Sandy at his Victory Rally/Relief Event last Wednesday. It was a very brief statement. He followed it with his smirk and a nod of his head. It was as if he was saying, “There, that’s done. Now let’s get back to campaigning.”  And get back to campaigning is exactly what he did.  

Romney did this phony food drive. His aides went to WalMart the night before and bought canned goods. At the rally, the aides handed the cans to attendees who then marched in front of the cameras to give them to Romney. Obama is supervising FEMA and touring the destruction, and Romney is holding a fake relief rally. And here’s the kicker. The Red Cross will not accept food or clothing. They don’t have the resources to sort, store, and distribute. They want money so they can buy what is needed when and where it is needed. 

Mitt Romney, if you had one ounce of humanity, you would have gone to that rally and made a speech about how you were donating one million dollars (or five million or ten million) to the Red Cross. (You earn $20 million a year. You could easily have given a million.)  And then you could have said that you had asked all your billionaire and multimillionaire supporters to do likewise and told us how much you had raised from this.  And then you could have asked the attendees to give you checks made out to the Red Cross. That would have been a way to show compassion and to actually help. Instead, you bought canned goods with campaign money that the Red Cross doesn’t want and can’t use.  (I hope that stuff ends up in a food bank somewhere.)  Have you contributed even a dollar of your own money yet? Probably not. Too busy out on the campaign trail making empty gestures and telling lies. 

One more thing. The Red Cross needs blood. Why didn’t Romney have several bloodmobiles at his rally?  Why didn’t he roll up his sleeve in front of the cameras?  It’s what I would have done in his position. This was supposed to be a relief event, wasn’t it?  What exactly did he do at this rally to help anyone but himself.

 

Forgive the digression. I’m back to the show now and the funniest line in the monologue. Bill said Obama was getting bi-partisan support.  Even Fox News said, “Heck of a job, Brownie.” Second funniest line was about Mitt always being wrong—wrong about Bin Laden, wrong about letting Detroit going bankrupt, wrong about FEMA. Then he goes out and denies that he ever said those things. Bill said “Now he loves FEMA. If Mitt ever met anti-Mitt, his head would explode.” 

The interview was with James Balog, a photographer who has science credentials and who has just completed a documentary about the melting of the glaciers entitled “Chasing Ice.” He did a great job explaining global warming. Solar energy melts the ice that is needed to reflect that energy back into space; then the dark water that is exposed by the melting ice absorbs more energy. Less reflection; more absorption. This causes changes in the weather. Bill seems to be devoting a lot of time to this issue—it is discussed every week and he often has a guest who has expertise on the subject. Bravo to Bill for using his show to educate people about facts. 

The panel was Rob Reiner, actor/director and a strong Democrat; Margaret Hoover, a CNN contributor and an obvious Republican partisan; a Rick Lazio (a former Republican Congressman from NY who lost his bid for the Senate to Hillary Clinton).

 

BTW, was Margaret Hoover ever a beauty pageant contestant? She had this inane smile on her face constantly. She was so “girly,” how does anyone ever take her seriously?  Maybe they don’t.  

During a discussion about FEMA vis-a-vis Katrina under Bush and Sandy under Obama, Bill pointed out that “people who like government run it better.”Rob said privatizing FEMA (as Romney said he wants to do) is insane. Bill added, “When it is life and death you don’t want a private business in charge—“they put profit over human life.” 

How do we combat global warming? Lazio suggests that we don’t know if global warming caused the storm. He also suggests nuclear power as an alternative to carbon-based fuels. Bill tells him that there are better options. I agree. Just because solar alone, wind alone, hydro-power alone, bio-fuels alone can’t do the job, doesn’t mean that they all can’t be a bigger part of the mix. We may also have to build off-shore barriers. Bill said it would be too hard and too expensive.  I say that just because it is hard and expensive doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it. And the sooner we start, the more lives (and property) we will save.  

Bill said that Obama’s biggest endorsement was from Chris Christie, governor of New Jersey. (It was a tacit endorsement because Christie only praised Obama’s response to the storm, but he, nonetheless, praised him effusively.) Bill pointed out that the Salt Lake City Tribune endorsed Obama. Romney is a Mormon and Utah has a very large Mormon population, yet the Utah paper endorsed Obama over Romney. Bill pointed out in the places where “they know Romney best, they don’t like him.”  (In Massachusetts where Romney was a one- term governor, Obama leads by over 20 points.)   

Bill showed a mock ad jokingly claiming that it should be Obama’s response to Romney’s false ads about Chrysler sending American jobs overseas--an ad that is condemned as false by everyone except rabid Romney-ites. (Even Chrysler has denied Romney’s claims.) Bill’s satirical commercial was about Romney’s experience running the 2002 Olympics in Utah.. It was very funny.  The ad said that Romney gave jobs to foreigners from Iran and Russia taking jobs away from American athletes, Arab terrorists killed 11 Jews (that was a different Olympics, but we are not going to let facts intrude are we?) while Romney stood idly by, then the Olympics went to China (again another Olympics) and ended with “Romney ran the Olympics and so did Hitler.” 

Mathew Segal was the last guest. He is the young (only 27) president and co-founder of “Our Time”, an organization that represents young people.  He said young people vote ideals, not parties. He also pointed out, as so many others have, that there are not two sides to every issue; there are not “two sides to facts.” I’d like to see more of him. 

On the economy, Matt said he learned in his economics classes that it takes 10 years for an economy to recover, and that Obama has had less than four years. The Republicans tried to deny that economists say this. Bill said that there have been 1.9 million new jobs in 2012. Over the almost four years (including the first few months when America was losing jobs due to the continuation of the trend from the Bush administration), there has been a net gain of 562,00 jobs. He also pointed out the Congressional Research Service (a non-partisan organization) reported that tax cuts for the 1% do not create jobs. The Republicans, true to form, protested--unsuccessfully.  It’s the facts, stupid! 

Hoover and Lazio seeing that they were losing the argument do what Republicans so often do. Talk louder, talk faster, talk over everyone else in the room. Further, It sounded to me like they raised the pitch of their voices—My ears hurt. I was ready to turn off the TV. (I didn’t because I have to do this review.) Hoover said that she tries to reform the Republican party. Perhaps there is some hope for her—at least she realizes that the Republican party needs reform. Nonetheless, she continued to deny facts and defend Republicans.   

Bill had some good zingers in “New Rules.”  Here’s a few of them. 

“The 2012 election might be remembered as the election where one candidate was suspected of not being born in America, and the other candidate was suspected of not being born on Earth.” 

“How did we get the shameless weathervane from the Planet Kolub? The other choices were Rick Perry, Santorum, the mom from Carrie (Michelle Bachman) and the black guy from Ghostbusters (Herman Cain).” 

“Clint Eastwood was not their first choice for a celebrity speaker at the Republican National Convention.  Honey Boo Boo refused to dumb it down.” 

“There is only time for five more reincarnations of Mitt Romney.  By Tuesday, he’ll be saying he is a staunchly pro-gay Unitarian who hates corporations and has is proud of his Latino heritage who doesn’t want old white men telling him what he can’t do with his vagina.”  

Bill concluded by saying that the election is win-win for him.  “If Obama wins, America wins.  If Romney wins, comedy wins.” 

Nate Silver, the statistician who crunches poll numbers, and almost exactly predicted the number of electoral votes for Obama in 2004, has reported that Obama now has an 81% probability of winning. And that was before he got the endorsement of Chris Christie. 

 
I pray that America votes based on facts. I pray that America wins on Tuesday.

Please share this review by tweeting, "liking" on facebook, and "+1 ing" on google circles.

Please ""follow" so you don't miss any of my reviews. 

HBO Real Time with Bill Maher "The Great Debate" #261

HBO  Real Time with Bill Maher 10/05/12 #261

“Real Time with Bill Maher” #261, airing on October 5, 2012 on HBO deserves the title “The Great Debate.”  I’m naming it “The Great Debate” because, naturally, a big topic for the night was the presidential debate, but also because a lot of issues were debated last night.  Yes, I mean there was an actual debate. No one attempted to dominate the show, and no one went on foaming-at-the-mouth rants. 

Bill Maher discussed  the first presidential Mitt Romney vs. Barack Obama debate of 2012 with in his opening monologue. Like just about everyone else on the planet , he thought that Mitt Romney “won.”  Bill joked, “Obama looked so dead that Romney tried to baptize him.”

The question everyone has is “how could this have happened?”  How could Obama have lost to Romney? Romney—the man who sticks his foot in his mouth just about every time he opens it.

Bill put forth the theory that it was “anniversary sex.”  October 3^rd was Barack and Michelle’s 20^th wedding anniversary, so perhaps he had sex before the debate and it left him drained and passionless for the debate. I don’t buy that.

First, any reasonable person knows you save the sex for after the debate. There’s nothing like coming off a big win to fuel the energies of passion.

My theory is that Obama was just plain tired.  Physically tired, but emotionally tired too.  He has the hardest job in the world, being not just the president of the United States, but also the leader of the free world. Then in addition to his day job, he has to go running around the country campaigning.

His opening statement at the beginning of the debate when he spoke about his anniversary gave me the impression that he was a little bit resentful. He would have liked to have spent the evening quietly celebrating with Michelle instead of standing on a stage with Mitt Romney. 

I also think he resents having to defend his record day after day. His remark later in the evening when he said, “I have not been a perfect man and I have not been a perfect president, but I have fought for Americans every day.” indicated both his weariness and resentment. He has done the best job that anyone could reasonably expect and he has to defend his record day after day. I think he especially resents the outrageous lies and vicious personal attacks hurled at him day after day. Maybe some days, he wishes he could just chuck it all, go back to being a law professor, and have a quiet happy life.  Maybe October 3^rd was one of those days.

But Mr. President, please:

I know it is a lot to ask, but you cannot give in to human frailties.  We are depending on you to save us from another eight years like the Bush years. Please, I know it is hard, but bring your A game.

Where was the charm that bowls me over every time?  When you flash that smile, hearts melt. We could have used a little more of that smile on Wednesday night.  I guess it was a “play-it-safe strategy,” and a “don’t-look-like- an-angry-black –man” strategy and a “don’t- be-condescending” strategy.  (That last one had to be really hard to follow.)

My feeling was that you either had to rebut Romney’s lies (27 lies in 38 minutes is the final tally) or mostly ignore him and talk directly to the American people.

 

You can use the “zingers” as long as you flash that smile afterwards. But maybe I’m wrong. The dials in the focus group rooms all went negative when you did the one zinger of the night about Romney suddenly transforming from an extreme conservative to a compassionate moderate on the debate stage. You said his position was “Never mind.”  (I thought that was a rather mild zinger, I would have said much worse.)

BTW, all the pre-debate talk was about how Romney was going to use zingers. He only tried one, and it fell flat. “He said, “As president you can have your own plane and you can have your own house, but you can’t have your own facts.”  (A man with no sense of humor should never try to tell a joke. Further this was especially lame because Obama does not have the reputation of being a liar--that “honor” goes to Romney.) I wonder what happened to the focus group meters on that one.

 

Later in the show, Bill talked about “the smirk” on Romney’s face throughout the debate.  He called it “condescending.”  I interpret it slightly differently. I see it a self-satisfied, smug smirk. It made me think he was trying not to smile, or trying not to deliver a war whoop, a-look-at- me-I-sure-told-him self-congratulatory cheer.

(Also did you notice that the little laugh that Romney uses when he is lying or trying to sound like a human being was gone.)
 

Bill also touched upon the subject of why Romney wants to be president. Just as John Kennedy was the first Irish Catholic president, and Obama was the first black president, Romney want s to be the first Mormon president. He wants Mormons to have the prestige that will come when one of their number is president.

In the monologue, Bill also talked about the new employment numbers just released.  Unemployment was at 7.8%, just a bit below the symbolic 8% level. (Obama promised to reduce unemployment to below 8%. Promise kept.)  Republicans were apoplectic and desperate to explain it away. They decided that Democrats lied about having a job just to make Obama look good. That made me laugh out loud. What about this—maybe Republicans have been lying and saying that they didn’t have a job just to make Obama look bad.   

Bill joked that unemployment was up because of the expanding industry of Mitt Romney fact checkers. Now that is a zinger.  A zinger only stings if there is some truth to it.

The interview was with Frank Luntz, the Republican pollster and strategist. He is known for his focus groups which help him determine how to “frame the debate.”  What words will best win the debate. (For instance, don’t say “inheritance tax”, say “death tax;” don’t say “‘privatization of social security”, say “personal social security accounts.”)

Bill called him “evil,” but he said it in a good natured way. I think Luntz actually liked being called “evil.”  Bill explained that Luntz was evil because “You think of words to make stupid people vote Republican.”

Luntz said that he believes Obama will win the election. Luntz also said “Romney is honest.”  Everyone roared with laughter. Nice try Luntz.

The panel was Will Cain, a conservative from CNN’s “Talking Points”, Mark Foley, the former Republican congressman forced to resign because of a scandal concerning him soliciting underage male interns for sex, and Kerry Washington, an actress on the TV show “Scandal.” Kerry may have be only an actress, but she held her own against the politically experienced.  It was good to have her on the show. She represented the viewpoint of “ordinary Americans.”

The special guest tonight did not come from the entertainment world. The guest was Bill McKibben, a noted environmentalist. I liked him a lot. He was soft-spoken, calmly stating his position, using a dash of humor to get his point across. He talked about how so many so-called leaders are in denial—they refuse to accept the evidence.  McKibben said, “Imagine a world with 40% fewer calories,” “We can’t move Iowa to Siberia,” and “We have to protect what we can’t adapt to.” Maher pointed out that some in Congress say there will not be an environmental disaster because God said so—after “The Flood”, he promised to never again try to wipe out mankind.  (I don’t think that is what the Bible says exactly, but never mind.)

In “New Rules”, Bill took on the economy. He pointed out that all you have to do is go to a mall to see that Obama has not ruined America. People are out shopping. Also the Dow has doubled since Obama took office. These are great achievements considering that the world was on the brink of financial collapse when Obama took office. He then gave us the “this-is-over-the-top-but-nonetheless-apt-analogy” moment of the week.  He said, “You have to blame Bush for the bad economy the way you blame rats for the plague.” 

Bill ended the show with another analogy saying, “If you don’t like how the stewardess landed the plane after the werewolves ate the flight crew, stop electing werewolves.”  Stop electing Republicans!.

End of debate.

Real Time with Bill Maher September 21, 2012 #260

I enjoyed episode #260 (September 21, 2012) of the Bill Maher show.  It rolled along at a good clip with some humor and some serious discussion.  “I’m naming it “You Make Me Sick.” 

I chose that name because of a joke Bill did in his opening monologue. The video of Romney dismissing the 47% of the people in this country who don’t pay income taxes led Bill to joke, “Romney’s new campaign slogan should be “Get out of my sight , America. You make me sick.”  But when Bill was being serious he said, “Romney is doing something very stupid. He’s expressing the core beliefs of the Republican party publically.” Thank you, Bill Maher. For a week all the talking heads are talking, talking, talking, about this video, and you summed it all up in two sentences.

Another good joke. Bill commented on Tim Pawlenty resigning as co-chair of the Romney campaign. “Tim Pawlenty is afraid Romney will make him look like a loser.  (Get it. Tim Pawlenty is such a big loser that his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination was over right after Iowa. And now Pawlenty is worried that Romney’s loser cooties will rub off on him, the losingest loser of the Republican primary.)

The interview was with Eugene Jarecki, a documentary filmmaker whose film “The House I Live In” is now in theaters. He talked about how the “war on drugs” was just Jim Crow in another form. It is all about keeping black progress down. They are down to begin with and then get pushed down further. It reminds me of those parents who when their child is crying, yell at the child, “Stop crying or I’ll give you something to really cry about.” It’s a vicious, nasty, abuse of power in both cases.

Chris Matthews, the host of MSNBC’s “Hardball with Chris Matthews,” was on the panel, complete with his signature derisive “Ha!”  When he thinks somebody is really reaching and/or stretching the truth, he says “Ha!” It’s a one-syllable take-down. He did it a few times on this show. Usually it is the conservative on the panel sucking up all the air in the room, but Chris Mathews took on that role on this show. I’m OK with that because at least Chris makes sense when he talks.

That being said, I’m not giving the conservative a free pass. The conservative seat was taken by Roger Hedgecock, described as a radio talk show host. I had never heard of him before. He’s a tall thin man who reminded of a line from Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar, “Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look.”  He looked dangerous to me, like he could spit daggers out of his mouth. What actually did come out of his mouth was the usual Republican mantras—lies, exaggerations, evasiveness, false analogies, etc.  For instance, during overtime, the group is having a perfectly reasonable discussion about whether or not regulating business helps or hinders the economy.  Roger pipes up about some little girl who had her lemonade stand closed down because she didn’t have a permit. For goodness sake, Roger, if that is all you can add to the discussion, shut up and let the grown-ups talk.

The “expert” seat on the panel went to Rana Foroohar, an editor and columnist for economics at Time Magazine. She was definitely the grown up in the room. She had the facts and presented them fairly and calmly. She reported that Romney’s ideas are George W. Bush’s ideas, the ideas that have been a disaster for the American economy. She pointed out that Obama has done good things for the economy; for instance, the stock market has doubled in value, and the unemployment rate is falling as new jobs are created every month. I wish people who complain about Obama would realize that without Obama the economy would be much sicker than it is. When he came into office the economy was heading for a death spiral.  And if the Republicans had not blocked just about every jobs bill, the economy would most likely be much better.

Bill pointed out that the 47% who are not paying income taxes is mainly composed of the elderly, the veterans and the working poor.  He then summed that up in a pithy remark, “They raised you, they defended you, and they did the work that allowed you [Romney and the other 1-percenters] to have your cushy life.”  It makes me sick that the rich whiners cannot see that.

Bill also pointed out that Romney is not the problem, he is the symptom. He said, “The Republican party doesn’t need new people, it needs new ideas.” Bill was appalled by the people in the room to whom Romney was speaking during that video.  The questions they asked were sick. They have so much, but they are whining and complaining because they can’t have even more. (By the way, the people in the room paid $50,000 each to be there—more than the average working American earns in a year.)

The comedy break on this show was very pointed satire. It focused on the new iPhone 5.  Bill joked that the “personal assistant,” Siri, is now Romni.

·         If you tell Romni to call home, he responds, “which home, the summer home, the winter home, the lake home….?”

·         If you ask to find a pizza restaurant, Romni responds, “Buy it, load it up with debt, and sell it off.”

·         If you ask for Starbucks, Romni responds “Coffee is forbidden by Scriptures.”

·         If you ask what 15% of the restaurant bill is so you can leave a tip for the wait staff, Romni responds, “I’m not telling.”  If you persist, Romni starts to sing “Oh beautiful for spacious skies…”  

The special guest was Salmon Rushdie, the author who had to go into hiding because he was perceived to have insulted the prophet Mohammed. The mullahs had issued a fatwah calling for his death. He said his life was turned into something out of a spy novel. What’s worse, he said, “I don’t like spy novels.” 

This gave Bill his opening to talk about religion.  He said, “All religions are not alike. No. Islam is different.”  He was referring to the very militant attitude of Islam. My take on this is that present day Catholics will excommunicate you for heresy; but present day Muslims will kill you for it.

“New Rules” was very funny.  Bill ended the segment with a riff on “undecided voters.”  If you are an “undecided voter” it could be bad for your health to get in a room with Bill. He called the undecided ignorant and said “They just don’t give a shit.”  It’s clear he is sick and tired of watching these focus groups with undecideds. He said, “The dial should be hooked up to their foreheads to see if it can detect any brain activity.” He concluded with, “If I want to listen to a bunch of ignorant jackasses bullshitting about the election, I’ll watch Fox and Friends.” Toche! The-two-birds-with-one- stone moment of the week.

This was a very good episode. Watch it, learn something, and laugh.  Remember, laughter is the best medicine. When politics starts to make you feel sick, Bill Maher is the cure for what ails you.

This picture is from HBO.com

Note:  No Bill Maher next week, 9/28/12, but the show is back the following week,10/5/12.  

HBO Real Time with Bill Maher #257 'The Empty Chair"

“Real Time with Bill Maher” is a talk show/comedy show so the “episodes” are not given a name. I’m taking the liberty of naming  my recap and review of this episode, “The Empty Chair.”

The name, of course, refers to Clint Eastwood’s performance at the Republican National Convention on the night before where he gave a speech which wasn’t a speech. It was a stand-up comedy act according to Bill. 

Clint addressed an empty chair pretending that Obama was sitting in it. He lectured and chastised the empty chair and pretended to respond to vulgarities uttered by the chair.  

Bill gave Clint props saying he did a great improvised stand -up comedy act that was right on target for his audience who ate it up. Bill may be right; if so, Clint was portraying the angry old man (like he did in Gran Torino) so the stuttering and rambling must have been part of the act.

But, and it is a big but, Clint wasn’t there to do a stand-up comedy act.  He was there to lend his support to Mitt Romney. Network TV gives only one hour each night to live coverage of the convention, and the Republicans squandered 15 minutes of it on a comedy act. On Friday, what was everyone talking about?  Senator Rubio’s speech?  Governor Romney’s speech?  No!  All anyone can talk about is the empty chair.

Did anybody on the campaign staff ask the speakers what they were going to talk about?  Apparently not.  Except for Ann Romney, all the speakers I heard spent most of their time talking about themselves. (It looked like they were setting themselves up for 2016.) They were supposed to be there to tell us how great Romney is and they barely mentioned his name. If this is how badly Romney runs his campaign, do we really want to put him in charge of the whole country?

In his opening monologue Bill mentioned another problem with the convention speakers--the huge number of blatant lies in the speeches. V.P. nominee, Paul Ryan, was especially guilty. Bill said that when Ryan heard that the consensus of opinion was that his speech held the record for “the greatest number of lies in a single speech,” Ryan said “Game on!”

Bill’s interview was with Dinesh D’Souza, a so-called journalist who has a so-called documentary in theaters right now. The film makes the most bizarre accusations against President Obama. This isn’t just my opinion, it is the opinion expressed in every review of the film I have seen. Bill and the panel said that D’Souza was practicing the “Big Lie” a theory popularized by the Hitler regime. Make the lie so outrageous that people will believe it just because they can’t believe that anyone would make such a preposterous thing up. 
  

D‘Souza came on the Real Time to promote his film. I don’t think he will be back. Bill was clearly on a mission to take D’Souza down. First he ripped into him for the nutty claims in the film, and then it got personal. Several years ago, Bill had another TV show, “Politically Correct.”  He lost that show because he said that the 9/11 terrorists were not cowards. He said that it takes a lot of courage to smash a plane into a building when you are on the plane.

It turns out D’Souza was a guest on the show that night, and Bill was only agreeing with a similar comment D’souza made. Bill was angry that D’souza just laid low as Bill was widely castigated for his remark. He felt that D’souza should have spoken up.

The conservative guest last night was Ron Christie, Republican political strategist.  I have seen him all over cable TV as a guest on talk shows making ridiculous statements. He did the same tonight. At one point, Bill lowered his head to the table in exasperation during a conversation about global warming. Bill said that it was impossible to have a conversation with Ron because Ron has his own “facts” as well as his own opinions.  Bill said, “We can disagree about how to handle it, but not on whether it exists.The fact that global warming is real is now beyond dispute.

I will say one thing for Ron. He was a gentleman last night. Unlike most of the conservatives on Bill’s show he spoke calmly and did not raise his voice, cut off the other guests, or talk on top of them.

I can’t help but wonder—do he and D ‘Souza and the others of his ilk actually believe the things they say. These are intelligent educated men!  I can only think that they have found this niche for themselves, they earn a good living from it, so the truth be damned.

It’s like Mitt Romney claiming that he no longer believes everything he appeared to believe his whole life—his whole life until he started running for president. Or was he lying before in order to get elected as governor of Massachusetts. Only he knows the answer to that. I think it doesn’t really matter what he personally believes, if he is elected the radical right would have their way with him.

The other panelist were Soledad O’Brien (CNN news anchor) and Jason Alexander (actor and director). The final guest was Walter Kirn (writer and ex-Mormon) who was there because Bill wanted to discuss Mormonism. Since Romney’s faith is a big part of who he is (by his own admission), we can understand Romney better if we understand Mormonism. Although Kirn is an ex-Mormon, he is not critical of the faith. He did a good job of explaining how some of Romney’s positions may have been shaped by his religion.

At the end of the show, Bill returned to discussing the Republican National Convention.  He said that although G.W.Bush and Dick Cheney were the most recent president and V.P, they were not present, and their names were almost never mentioned. He said, It was like having a Star Trek Convention without inviting William Shatner.”  

Perhaps the real empty chairs at the convention were the ones that Bush and Cheny should have been sitting in.

I found this picture at www.mediaite.com.  It's not from the 8/31/12 show, but it suits this post very well.