This is why Bill Maher is smarter than the vast majority of the talking heads that infect TV news. Maybe it's not even that he's smarter, perhaps he just has the balls to speak the truth and doesn't twist himself into a partisan pretzel.
And he's absolutely right about all of it. Obama is trying too hard to please the Republicans... screw the Republicans! They had their chance, they broke America and left it for someone else to fix. That someone else is our current president and he'd be better suited ignoring these nimrods than trying to get us all to come together and "compromise," that's code for "do what the Republicans want."
And don't take this as me being partisan, watch: screw the Democrats too! The Democrats are so obsessed with becoming Republican Lite due to this myth of America being a "center-right" country, all they're doing is just slowing progress. As Maher said, we have no progressive party in this country, any true liberal politicians are looked at as jokes and our lazy media is too busy worrying about the latest adventures of Governor Avon Lady to do anything about it.
Since Maher brought up Sarah Palin in that interview, let's make fun of her. I wanted to write a blog about her "feud" with David Letterman, but then the thing just got so ridiculous that I wouldn't be able to write anything without putting my fist through my monitor. If you're curious about my feelings, here's a quick summary that will keep my blood pressure down:
-The joke was funny and every other late night host has told similar ones.
-John McCain - Palin's runningmate - once called Chelsea Clinton "ugly."
-If Sarah Palin wasn't such a shitty parent, the joke wouldn't have been made in the first place. These jokes aren't about making fun of the children, they're about making fun of the Governor for being a hypocrite.
-Palin once again exploits her children for political gain.
-Palin made accusations about Letterman that were far more offensive than his joke.
-Shame on David Letterman for apologizing.
-Palin should stay in Alaska and do her damn job... or at least only come to "Real" America.
-Sarah Palin is a friggin' moron.
That about sums it up. I'm surprised I made it through that without using the c-word.
So yeah... President Obama, show us a little more Candidate Obama and don't worry about the Republicans, they're too busy killing their party from within. And put Sarah Palin on some kind of no-fly list while you're at it. It'll be good for America and the wildlife she shoots from her helicopter.
12 comments:
Maher is not very intelligent.
What more do you want? We're bankrupting the country through trillion dollar plus deficits, nationalizing industries, growing government programs, rolling back welfare reform, some of the highest taxed states in the country are swimming in mountains of debt and will soon be asking for bailouts, talking about single payer healthcare...
I don't know, but it sounds pretty "progressive" to me. This time period should be a statists/liberal dream. Government is growing at rates we've never seen before...
I don't get what your gripe is.
In what areas would you like to see Democrats become more "progressive"? In my view, they're as liberal as they've ever been. And they're certainly not Republican light.
Minus the healthcare part, a lot of that could be said of Bush Jr. too. Guess he was more "progressive" than I realized.
Because increased deficits are suddenly new. Anyway:
Weak health care plan
Weak stance on gay rights
Weak stance on climate change initiatives
Wishy-washy on troop withdrawal from Iraq
Continuing the failed Drug War
Favoritism towards the financial sector
Increased military spending
Letting war crimes go unpunished
Picking a moderate for a heavily conservative Supreme Court
That's just the stuff off the top of my head. But hey, if he keeps it up, he may just be the best Republican president we've had since Bill Clinton!
I meant "interesting" not "intelligent" on Bill Maher...
Anyway, that's interesting. I think you're off base on a few of those though.
Health care plan is "weak" because most people don't want a government takeover of healthcare. I'm against any public plan whatsoever, and so are most conservatives I know. So obviously, that's not a conservative plan.
Gay rights...True he's against gay marriage, but so is most of the country. He's not going to take on too many controversial issues when he's already doing things economically people aren't comfortable with.
Troop withdrawal from Iraq...Of course he's not going to just pull troops out of there without taking notice of the conditions on the ground. Have we not learned anything from Vietnman? Being "anti war" is lovely and all, but there's consequences to your actions..
Drug War...I'm against it as well, but a majority of the country is against drug legalization, so no suprise there...
Financial sector...Shouldn't be a suprise. Look at who donated to his campaign! Lots of money from wall stret...
Military spending...Not much of an increase there...And I expct it will go down in the future.
War crimes...What war crimes?
Supreme Court...I don't know that she's a moderate. Seems rather liberal from what I've gathered so far.
And Obama is not even remotely similar to Bill Clinton. Clinton tried the same type of things for the 1st two years, and his approval numbers tanked. Newt came in, and then he (Clinton) focused on more moderate proposals...
I certainly wouldn't call Obama a moderate.
Why are "conservatives" against all Americans having health care? They didn't seem to mind marching into Iraq, which is looking to cost us about $3 trillion when it's all said and done, but the health and well-being of our nation's citizens is just too much?
Doesn't matter if "most" of the country is against gay marriage or gays in the military or gay rights in general... "most" of the country was for segregation at one point too.
Apparently we didn't learn anything from Vietnam or else we wouldn't have been in Iraq in the first place.
And Obama could be doing more to educate the country about why the drug war has failed and how the legalization of marijuana would HELP the economy. But instead, he laughs off the idea.
No surprise about the financial sector is right. Obama is pro-corporate interest... just like every national politician in the last 30 years.
Let's hope military spending goes down. We pay more on defense than the next 50 countries on the list COMBINED.
Torture is a war crime last time I checked.
Sotomayor is hardly liberal. She's certainly not as far left as Scalia and Thomas are far right.
Clinton's approval numbers tanked because of a well-orchestrated smear campaign from right-wing talk radio and clowns like Newt... man, Obama's got more in common than Clinton than I thought!
Well, both parties were in favor of going into Iraq.
And conservatives are generally against government interferring into private sector matters. Not to mention the costs, and tax increases that go along with it. These things don't pay for themselves...
That's true. But changes on social issues happen gradually. You're getting more from Obama than Bush on that issue, so you should be happy with it.
I agree on that, but a lot of people are stuck in their old way of thinking on the drug issue.
Military spending will go down after we're not fighting two wars....
I don't view Scalia and Thomas as "far right". They're originalists...Sotomayor seems pretty reasonable...Not as bad as I thought at first.
His approval ratings tanked because he was making a lot of mistakes...
Anyway, I think you should be happy with Obama. He's more left than center. And there's not many issues where he'll be with Republicans and conservatives.
He's not going to be super duper liberal on EVERY issue. He's president of all citizens, not just the 21% who identify as liberals.
Presidents are never as far right or left as the "bases" of the party would like, IMO...
I'm not even asking for him to go far left, I'm asking for the country to be pulled back into reality after 8 years of ultra far-right influenced politics.
I strongly disagree that Obama is more left than centrist, but we'll never convince each other otherwise anyway, so I'll just let it go.
What was "far right" about Bush?
NCLB, Immigration reform, privatized social security accounts hardly sound like far right policies. More like reforms.
Medicare Part D is another one. I think Bush wasn't as far right as you believe...
Look at the climate and culture that oozed out of Bush's post-9/11 America: Preemptive war, stifling free speech, "God" told him to go to war, he could "see" Putin's soul, proselytizing within the military, Donald Rumsfeld putting Bible quotes in memos, trying to amend the Constitution to ban gay marriage, tax cuts for the rich, ignoring the environment, blocking stem cell research, abstinence-only education, torture, this whole idea of "good vs. evil" when it comes to foreign policy, "with us or against us" chest-thumping...
Aside from coming right out and saying he wanted to turn America into a theocracy (ya know, like Mike Huckabee did), Bush took this country about as far to the right as possible, especially on social issues.
Rummy isn't the first person to use bible quotes on memos....
Everyone got a tax cut, not just "the rich" (aka people who work for a living and who pay most of the taxes).
The Putin thing was overstated, as was the "God told me to go to war" deal. If religion wasn't so looked down upon by some people in our present society, it wouldn't be a big deal. It certainly wouldn't have been a big deal a few decades ago.
But Bush definately made some mistakes. I just wouldn't classify him "far right" at all.
Nothing changed on abortion policy, and more states have moved towards gay marriage than before Bush. It's just a natural progression in society.
What did Bush prevent from happening? Abortion is still legal, and gay marriage seems to be becoming more acceptable...
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