Smitten by her blonde curls and still blissfully unaware of how cruel the world could be,  at the age of eleven I called my first crush on the phone fully confident it would end with the beginning of a lifelong romance.  Yes, I had watched many a friend go down in a flaming ball of fail in similar situations, watched them die slow deaths brought on by awkward pauses and fits of panic blanking the mind. But that wasn’t going to happen to me. I had learned from their trauma. There was no way anything could go wrong because I … had written a script that laid out every possible conversational scenario…

If you’re wondering how my pathetic little phone call went,  watch Laura Flanders’ sorry attempt (video here) to confront Andrew Breitbart. Methinks that the moment Flanders learned she would be on national television seated next to Breitbart, visions of liberal glory popped off in her fevered mind as she plotted to publicly demand he apologize to Shirley Sherrod.

Train meet wreck. Ooh, that left a mark. But the truth usually does.

I was in the audience last night (pretty sure that’s Alex Marlow and I clapping all by our lonesome at the 11:05 mark), and while the crowd (who took our solo applause in stride) was obviously on Flanders’ side politically, her humorlessness eventually cost her their sympathy. Throughout the night, she tossed out one wet blanket after another with her joyless left-wing talking points that violated the spirit of the conservation. Eventually, in the “Overtime” segment, Breitbart turned to her and said:

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An informative and intelligent discussion that desperately needed to be had outside the world of the news media and inside Maher’s world — the world of popular culture.

The most telling moment here is the audience reaction after Maher pulls no punches and says the following: 

“What it comes down to, is that there is one religion in the world that kills you when you disagree with them. And they say, ‘Look, we are a religion of peace, and if you disagree, we’ll cut your fucking head off.’”

The studio audience … applauds.

In the past, whenever Maher’s brought this truth up in this way, his audience has audibly gasped as the silent tension became thick and immediate. At this point, Maher was always on his own as his guests shifted uncomfortably in their chairs and the audience gulped for air to fight off a case of the PC vapors.

To his credit, though, Maher keeps on keeping on, keeps making this case and telling this truth as he sees it, and it appears now as though it’s finally penetrating.

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Jeff Poor at the Daily Caller:

Only a studio audience of HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” could give self-described “socialist” Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., the lion’s share of applause. But when it came to the issue of vacation time at the workplace, both Sanders and “Real Time” host Bill Maher were crowd favorites.

On Friday night’s “Real Time,” Maher expressed confusion over why the public might feel a sense of indignation toward government employees, who have their salaries and benefits paid for by taxpayers.

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“Let me ask about this because there’s this pitting in this country now of public workers versus private workers that I really don’t understand,” Maher said. “We saw what happened in Wisconsin the last couple of months. Now in Ohio, the governor there has also passed legislation this week that bars public workers from collective bargaining. And I heard the argument from the other side is that these public workers get six weeks [of] vacation. And this infuriates private workers. Why? Because America, unlike every other country in the world, gets almost no paid vacation and somehow instead of being mad at the corporations and saying, ‘You know what? We want six weeks’ vacation too, they rather drag other people –’”

Sanders agreed and noted how other industrialized societies, particularly European ones, handle vacation time.

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Transcript courtesy of Mediaite:

And when I say Westerner, I mean someone who believes in the values that Western people believe in that a lot of the Muslim world does not. Like separation of church and state. Like equality of the sexes. Like respect for minorities, free elections, free speech, freedom to gather. These things are not just different from cultures that don’t have them. … It’s better. … I would like to keep those values here.

We’re not sure anyone but Bill Maher could get away with telling these truths without losing their job due to a Soros-funded jihad launched by those blacklisters over at Media Matters. That’s what they did to Juan Williams, and we are curious as to why Eric Boehlert and the rest of his lotion boys have been so quiet over this.

Not to mention CAIR.

And what about Jon –meet my fatwa-loving pal Cat Stevens but can’t we all just get along — Stewart?

We don’t want to encourage any attacks on Maher, but consider this Exhibit 11,412 in the open and shut case proving their stunning but always predictable lack of principle.

While Jon Stewart puts on his safely PC Detached Irony Mock-Fest a little later today, keep this unexpected moment from last night’s Real Time with Bill Maher in mind. After noting that Mohammed is now the most popular name for newborns in Britain, Bill Maher stopped his panel and audience cold by asking, “Am I racist to feel alarmed by that? Because I am. And it’s not because of the race, it’s because of the religion. I don’t have to apologize, do I, for not wanting the Western world to be taken over by Islam in 300 years?”

Cut to: Awkward.

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This clip is an excellent representation of how insidious political correctness has become, we can’t even stand up for own culture anymore without a few hundred people acting as though Bill Maher just lit a cross on fire. Multiculturalism is now the highest value on the Left — the tolerating of intolerance in the name of racial sensitivity – which is why the slow creep of Sharia Law has gained a foothold in the Western world. A couple weeks ago, on the air, Maher scolded Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas over the title of his book “American Taliban,” by saying in effect, “I love you Markos, but we are not the Taliban.”

Maher’s wrong about most everything but he’s obviously right on this, and this is the fight of our time, no? Maher is also smart enough to know that this moment of pushing back against the very foundation of liberal orthodoxy would come with the price of temporarily becoming the bad guy, and he did so anyway. He deserves credit for that and so does Margaret Hoover for wanting to have a discussion. But shame on Lawrence O’Donnell, Reihan Salam, Zach Galifianakis and the audience — not for disagreeing, but for doing something worse: throwing off a very clear vibe that there was no way in hell this discussion was going to take place. (more…)

Bad history is bad history and Rob Reiner is a student of some seriously bad history. One would be pressed to find a case where bad history lead to good decisions concerning the present. Case in point: On Friday’s Real Time with Bill Maher Rob Reiner spewed his bad history as fact at the expense of smearing one of the largest political grassroots movements in our nation’s history. What’s even more disappointing is that Bill Maher agreed with Reiner multiple times during his factually-challenged rant. I realize Rob, that you probably weren’t a history major, but when you’re accusing the Tea Party of being like Hitler, please try to get your facts straight.

 

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Hitler promised health care, said that Germany’s business infrastructure needed a total government reform, and promised that all of the Germans would have jobs. Also, Hitler may have been elected by less than 40% of the people in Germany, but he was elected by 98.8% in Austria. After becoming Chancellor of Austria he took over the health care system, the car company (Austria had one major car manufacturing company at the time), and the business infrastructure.

Hitler did not sell fear and anger, he sold fundamental change of the nation’s infrastructure. He sold the hope of everyone having a job and that everyone had a right to be given medical treatment at the government’s provision.

That is definitely not what the Tea Party is selling. The Tea Party is selling a return to the constitutional principles that our country was founded upon. It is selling less government intrusion into our lives and that people can make better decisions for themselves than the government can. In other words, the Tea Party is selling the exact opposite of what Hitler promoted. (more…)

Looks as though the roundtable discussion will feature Dana Loesch with… Bill Maher, Obama-inspired musician John Legend, and Markos Moulitsas, founder of the Daily Kos.

Hrm. Dana Loesch all alone up against those three…

They’re gonna need more guys.

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REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER CONTINUES ITS EIGHTH SEASON

SEPT. 24, EXCLUSIVELY ON HBO;

ANDREW BREITBART, AMY HOLMES AND SETH MACFARLANE

ARE ROUNDTABLE GUESTS;

ANN DRUYAN AND RICHARD TILLMAN ARE INTERVIEW GUESTS

REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER continues its eighth season FRIDAY, SEPT. 24 (10:00-11:00 p.m. live ET/tape-delayed PT), exclusively on HBO, with an instant replay at 11:00 p.m., following the live presentation.  Allowing Maher to offer his unique perspective on contemporary issues, the show includes an opening monologue, roundtable discussions with panelists, and interviews with in-studio and satellite guests.

The roundtable guests this week are journalist Andrew Breitbart, radio host Amy Holmes and “Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane; Ann Druyan, creative director of NASA’s Voyager Interstellar Message Project, and Richard Tillman, brother of Pat Tillman, are interview guests.

Other HBO playdates:  Sept. 26 (1:00 p.m., 2:55 a.m.), 27 (8:00 p.m.) and 29 (11:00 p.m.) (more…)

The Michael Moore era appears to be over – or at least needs to prepare for its Last Rites. And the Oscar winning filmmaker seems to know it.

It’s one thing that his last two films (“Capitalism: A Love Story” and “Slacker Uprising”) failed to haul in big bucks or the critical raves usually afforded his propaganda films. Some critics even started to call him out on his shaky grasp of reality – better late than never, gang!

Now, it appears Moore will say just about anything to generate press – assuming it will get him back in the public eye.

This week on “Real Time with Bill Maher,” Moore told the HBO show’s crowd that the McDonald’s restaurant near Ground Zero had killed more people than the 9/11 terrorists who brought down the World Trade Center.

Did he really say something that stupid? Yawn.

The filmmaker also went on record recently in support of the mosque planned for a site two blocks from Ground Zero. Moore would rather the mosque be built ON Ground Zero. Nothing else will do for him, and the failure to build said mosque means America as he knows it is no more. He even offered to put up as much as $10,000 of his own money to support the mosque project. (more…)

A friend of mine sent a link to a website that advocates CBS firing late-night host David Letterman for his over-the-top jokes about Sarah Palin and her children. The site tells readers what they can do to help make this firing happen.

But should Letterman be fired?

His so-called jokes were crass and tasteless. Not only did he refer to Palin herself as being “slutty,” but he used a crude sexual reference to Palin’s 14-year-old daughter Willow, whose only sins are the fact that she is a Palin and she attended a Yankees game with her mother in NYC. (more…)

Here we go again. 

During his opening monologue on ‘Real Time’ Friday night, Bill Maher, couldn’t resist piling on to the David Letterman controversy and the sex jokes made by him earlier in the week regarding Sarah Palin’s daughter. 

In defending his friend, Maher thought Republicans had over reacted and this was just a case of ‘fake’ outrage. Much ado about nothing. He then went on talking about how Letterman had invited Sarah Palin and her young daughter, Willow, to appear as guests on his show but the Governor declined because she thought it would be wise to keep her daughter away from him. Said Maher, “…that’s right, he’s 62 years old, he’s gonna fuck her right there on stage…it would be very wise to keep her, very wise, yes. You know, I’d worry a little more about the 18-year old hockey players who knock up your daughters.” To which his audience of trained seals laughed and clapped and had a good old time.  (more…)

Question: What do you get when you cross an American icon such as Academy-award-winning director and former kid actor Ron Howard with the continent of Europe – and shake with double doses of celebrity idiocy?

Answer: A baguette-eating Celebutard.

Oh, Opie! From Mayberry to Hollywood. How did you stray?

Back when he went by the name Ronny Howard, the star gained fame and adoration by playing the ultimate American rural tyke, Opie Taylor. He was a kid so obnoxiously clean, he’d agree to go to bed without supper before he’d ever denigrate his country. (more…)

So in Eminem’s comeback video, there’s a scene featuring him in bed with a Sarah Palin clone, post-coital presumably – but here’s the real cool part: he breaks wind.

How edgy.

How in your face.

Way to speak truth to power – even if it came out your ass.

Seriously, this is not bad for a white, balding rapper quickly approaching forty and desperately clinging to a shred of relevance – not unlike his white, balding fans already over forty desperately clinging to jobs in telemarketing. I mean, is it any wonder he’s resorting to material reused and reheated from a year old episode of Bill Maher’s Real Time – which wasn’t even funny back then. (more…)

Aren’t comedians supposed to be funny?  

That’s the question I had after watching two interviews this week.  The first interview featured a buffoonish jackass interviewer who fancies himself a comedian because he smirks (Jon Stewart); the interview subject was a buffoonish jackass who fancies himself a militant financial analyst, and who is, in reality, a wimp (Jim Cramer).  

The second interview featured a buffoonish jackass interviewer who fancies himself a comedian because he once made someone laugh.  The interviewer, for some odd reason, also thinks he is a profound thinker on religion and politics; in reality, he’s more famous for dating porn stars than for his philosophical musings (Bill Maher).  The interview subjects were Michael Eric Dyson, the sort of faux intellectual beloved by the academy (Dyson teaches at Georgetown University), and our own Andrew Breitbart.  (more…)

To view video of Andrew Breitbart on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher,” taped Friday, March 13, 2009 click here.

This week’s Washington Times column:

Pretty much everyone I respect in media and politics recommended I not go on HBO’s “Real Time With Bill Maher.” But on Friday night, I defied that wisdom and had the time of my life.

I sparred with Mr. Maher, Georgetown professor Michael Eric Dyson and a MoveOn.org audience from hell that booed my sentences before they were completed. Unfortunately, my wife and in-laws, who watched from the green room, were not as enamored with the experience as I was.

Since the salad days of ABC’s “Politically Incorrect,” which minted countless right-wing pundits and best-selling authors, conservatives have rightly assessed the HBO version of the Maher show as R-rated and shockingly hostile to their worldview. So most opt out.

I totally see why. But I think that’s exactly the wrong strategy.

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Here’s the YouTube video from Andrew’s appearance last night on “Real Time” presented in three parts.

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More below the fold… (more…)

Big Hollywood’s own Andrew Breitbart is a guest tonight on HBO’s “Real Time With Bill Maher.” He’s joined by comedian Sarah Silverman, professor and author Michael Eric Dyson, and Steven Pearlstein of the Washington Post.

The show begins at 10pm ET/ 7pm PT. Those of you with HBO jump on in and tell us what you think. Those of you without can get the latest here.