About a year and a half ago, I wrote a column on this website about comedian Bill Maher. It was in regard to an asinine comment he had recently made about then presidential candidate, Herman Cain. I made my opinion known, and decided afterwards that I wouldn't bother wasting any more of my time writing about Maher because the guy is an attention-hungry buffoon whose egotistical sense of self-importance isn't really deserving of any mindful analysis.
And let's face it... Maher's kind of a boring topic these days as well.
However, after reading online that he was on his HBO show last week, actually whining about how he's being over-taxed, the display of absolutely epic hypocrisy was so rich that I felt compelled to break my vow.
Speaking to the show's panel, Maher said, "You know what? Rich people – I'm sure you’d agree with this – actually do pay the freight in this country. I just saw these statistics, I mean, something like 70 percent. And here in California, I just want to say liberals – you could actually lose me. It's outrageous what we’re paying – over 50 percent. I'm willing to pay my share, but yeah, it's ridiculous."
I found the comments to be stunning, even for him.
First of all, the fact that Maher "just saw" a statistic that's been cited regularly on television and radio for nearly three years now is nothing short of pathetic. For a man who clearly considers himself an intellectual, that's pretty darned embarrassing.
More importantly, Maher has for years made it a personal mission to excoriate the Tea Party movement for spreading the exact same message that he apparently now endorses himself. For having the gall to believe that Americans are taxed enough already, he has branded the Tea Party as a group of ignorant racists who are deserving of our disdain. Except now, he agrees with them.
It doesn't get much dopier than that, folks!
I suppose this can all be explained away as one of those episodes of a liberal endorsing liberal policies only until they are the one being hurt by those policies. We see that kind of thing happen from time to time. But if that's the case, this truly has to be one of the most dramatic examples of it. Maher, after all, donated one million dollars to President Obama's Super PAC for the intended purpose of snuffing out the very policies that would have helped keep his overall taxes from going up. And now that they have gone up, he's warning liberals that they may lose him because of it?
Hopefully there's a psychologist on staff at the Playboy Mansion because Maher may very well need an evaluation.
Now, I don't believe for a second that the liberals will ever lose Bill Maher in any sense of the word, but if they did, the ramifications could be quite serious...
What would aging political hacks like Paul Begala do without a platform to behave like attention-starved adolescents on national television while a young, not-so-bright studio-audience mindlessly applauds everything they say? Who would fill the void of delivering sexually deviant jokes about Sarah Palin and Elisabeth Hasselbeck while escaping all criticism from the mainstream media and feminist organizations? Where would fans go to find their weekly fix of Pope/Nazi comparisons, or hear awkward fantasies about our president going 'gangsta'?
Hopefully, Maher will fall back in line soon, and this is just a temporary setback for the left. I'd hate for things to get messy, after all.