http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21392624/

You can watch the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzrUD-5hf1A

I love Bill Maher!!

I had fallen asleep to that show then awoke to it happening live.

I loved the " Yeah don't be gentle with him. Ass kicking is what's called for."

Bill Maher should do a show, just one, in which he takes questions from the audience. A kind of Town Hall thing. I'd like to see a full hour of that with him. Just once.

The other thing I admire about Maher is that he RARELY interrupts ANYONE. Even those loon jobs in the crowd got to complete their brief statement and he actually responded to it. Ever seen him on Scarborough or O Reilly? The only time I can recall him interrupting someone is when someone is putting words into his mouth and has to correct them before they can continue. It's not when he disagrees - it's when someone who can't make a point using actual quotes and then they summarize in JUST enough of a tweeked way that supports their point, and the quote is wrong, that he'll make them stop saying it before they can finish. Even then though, they can't complete the thought or point because he takes away their power to spin the quote in their favor.

I like that.

I miss my HBO. (Just couldn't afford it anymore)
Bill Maher is one of the specific reasons why. However one of the deciding factors in cancelling was the decline in quality original programming. When HBO canccelled Deadwood that is when I started thinking about it and would have cacelled in protest at that point but Soprano's had not wrapped up yet.

For a very long time HBO was King when it came to great original programming.

Let's see we had

Soprano's
Six Feet Under
The Wire
Deadwood
Sex and the City
Cathouse
Autopsy
America Undercover

What do they got now that is any good?
What is coming that is antcipated to be good?

Here is an idea for Bill Maher. How about an invitation only debate where he could invite only the compelling, admirable long-shots, and little known third party canidates.

Imagine the Libertarian party canidate, Dennis Kuchinich, Ron Paul, Steve Colbert, and some unknown extreme right wing conservative even too wacko for the GOP canidate. Again town hall style with Maher as the moderator.

Could be interesting

I think Bill Maher is funny, smart, and engaging. He tells it like it is and supports his views very well. We decided to keep HBO mostly for his show. I love sipping on a Maker's Mark on the rocks and catching his show late Friday.

Mmmmm Makers Mark ...

Yep, just opened a fresh 1.75L big guy last night.

Last time I watched Bill Maher, was on Larry King, the day Mr Bob Hope died, and when King asked Maher about Mr Hopes legacy, all he could do was accuse him of fooling around with all the female stars on his many trips. Not one shred of proof, but he said he had to be doing it.

I love that show! Good for him

Sayyy Vitalogy ... you wouldn't wanna share would ya? I could use some smooooooooth sippin' ...

Speaking of adult beverages, it sure is quiet over in the DarkShades Camp...Is he still recuperating? Shhhhhh! Keep it down!

Makers Mark is always the first choice at my house.

Has anyone tried Booker's? (not Brooker's btw yuck!)

My wife buys me a bottle of Booker's for Christmas every year. Great treat!

That Booker's is some damned expensive stuff not to mention the proof on the stuff (110) I think. Its gotta be tasty and smooth as hell though.

Showtime has the best shows as of late. You get Californication, Weeds, and Dexter. All really cool shows.

Anyone who watches Maher's show knows he doesn't put up with that crap. You can applaud what someone says, but you don't shout. The Deanes and Herbs of the world would like to have us think it's a show where "that left wing commmie" brings conservatives on the show and then he and his audience runs them into the ground. The joke is, Maher is really a libertarian, the REAL conservative. I really have a lot of respect for the program he puts on.

Lets not forget, Bill Maher called terrorists that killed 3,000 Americans heros.

Actually, I believe he said they're "not cowards". There's a big, big difference. Anyone who flies a jetliner into a building because of a cause they believe in is a lot of things, but not really a coward. It was a horrible, despicable action committed by the terrorists, but it took courage and faith to follow through with it, just not the kind of courage we usually talk about (the kind that benefits society). I hope I'm not misunderstood here. I'm actually a fairly conservative guy, and of course the 9/11 terrorists were psychopathic ass holes, but I'm a stickler for correct use of the English language. I don't think they were cowards. I think they were actually brave, but horrible people.

Your an idiot if you can't see the fact that Bill Maher was shafted and scapegoated after those comments. Nothing he said on the ABC show was wrong or incorrect. Its sad when Americans are persecuted for speaking the gods honest truth.

"That Booker's is some damned expensive stuff not to mention the proof on the stuff (110) I think. Its gotta be tasty and smooth as hell though."

The bottle I have been nursing contains 124.0 proof Kentucky nectar! Yum.

I love the show cause he throws stones at both Republicans and Democrats.

I dont always agree with him but more often then not I do.

Any idea what would have happened in WWII, if a newsman praised the Japanese kamakizi pilots as brave, and Americans Sailers as hiding in their steel ships?

Nwokie, you clearly have heard only distorted 2nd-hand accounts of what was said.

What he said was that the terrorists were "not cowards". He wasn't praising or admiring them... he was making the point that those who were calling them cowards were wrong, and I agree.

I think that could be said of the kamakazis too - they were f-ed up in plenty of ways, but cowards they weren't.

My dad served on the USS Shangra-La in WWII, and when he was near the end, he finally talked about the war, and when talking about the kamakazi's he never used the terms brave or hero.

And I had an uncle who was in the battle of the Bulge, and he never used the term brave or hero when talking about the Dietrich's 6th Panzer army.

"...when talking about the kamakazi's he never used the terms brave or hero."

Bill Maher didn't use those terms either. Just how dumb are you??

Nwokie, quit free-associating to determine where you stand on this. I swear you sound like a chipmunk who can't stay focused on anything. You know what he said, you interpret or summarize - incorrectly - and then you associate that and attribute it something that doesn't even apply.

Who are you trying to convince? The people that saw it or others who didn't? Either way it's all wrong. Does that make any difference to you? No. It's just easier for you to try and retroactively fit everything anyone says to fit your personal view. Even though they didn't say that.

Please, knock it off. We notice. It takes away any credible reason to even listen to what you have to say.

Ok I was wrong, here are his exact words

"Bill Maher, the host of "Politically Incorrect," lived up to the show's title in an on-air discussion of whether the terrorists who flew the planes were cowards. Maher contrasted their actions with the U.S. practice of long-range aerial attacks. "We have been the cowards, lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away," he said. "That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building — say what you want about it, it's not cowardly."

Right. That's a far cry from praising them and calling them heroes.

And if someone, another country, lobbed missiles at us from 2000 miles away - " cowards " would be used A LOT to describe them. Right?

Can you imagine an American newsman describing kamakizi's that way in WWII?

In what way?

If we have thrown our lot in with wealthy Saudi extremists, Afghan warlords, smugglers and drug runners, and the money launderers of Dubai, we can also expect those actions to come back and haunt us. We may not like the results, but we are reaping what we have sown. It was cowardly to fight the Soviets through a group of mercenaries.

Making lame excuses when your targeting is run from Maryland and you bomb civilians -- in the hospitals, the embassies, the schools, the mosques, the marketplaces, the water facilities, the electric plants, the hotels full of aid workers and reporters -- and the camps of Canadian, British, Australian and American soldiers is cowardly.

There was a time when our men in uniform were directed by Generals who could hear the far off guns -- even as they planned. The bomber pilot flew the mission, not a missile. The infantry scouts crawled up the hill, not a robot. The recon plane took photographs, not a drone. The maps were made based on observations and facts, not conjecture and satellites.

The wars were shorter then too. They were not merely fighting to create profit and protect wealth. Our national blood was spilled to preserve our nation. Now, Americans are being used in a way that would send our forebears and founding fathers into the streets with muskets and torches.

The United States was once the land of brave, idealistic, naive and misguided rebels. People still die all over the world for causes every day. Myanmar. Nepal. Korea. Ivory Coast. Palestine. Columbia. Everywhere. They all use what they have to fight for what they perceive to be freedom.

If what inspired our country can be perverted here, it can certainly be perverted elsewhere. The ideas may be utterly crazy, and the causes on all sides may be unjust. The soldier in any fight may not be carrying out good orders, or be fighting for the right reasons, but he or she is not a coward.

I like Bill Maher. He isn't a coward either.

Nwokie,
Why do you keep referencing WWII? This is not WWII. And, Kamikaze pilots were not cowards. With all due resects to your Grandfather (it sounds like he was a war hero), the things that he did NOT say about Kamikaze pilots shed no light on their state of mind; it is irrelevant. And it's even more irrelevant to this conversation about Bill Maher's comments. Maher was obviously trying to be provocative by pointing out that someone can be brave, and AT THE SAME TIME commit actions that are bad for the world, like the attacks of 9/11. Brave means courage- having courage. Courage is about follow-through in the face of risk or tough consequences. None of that has anything to do with "good", "bad", "right", or "wrong".

Oh he's done until the subject changes again. Then he'll be all too happy to talk. But not now. No. Not when there is nothing to try and spin us on.

Grrr.

That crap bugs me.

But until now, the country being subjected to the attacks don't refer to their attackers as heros. And whats heroic about flying a plane into a building, if you believe you will immediatly be sent to paradise with 70+ virgins.

And if what he said wsn't wrong, why did he apologize?

"And if what he said wsn't wrong, why did he apologize?"

That's what civil people do; if their words offend others, even if no offense was intended, they apologize. I don't think he retracted the idea, just the way he said it.

And once again - Maher NEVER called the 9/11 attackers 'heroes'.

Who referred to the attackers as heros?

And he didn't apologize because he didn't say anything wrong. Inflammatory perhaps, but inflammatory comments can do good at times, to *promote thought*.

It doesn't take courage to fly a video-game missle into a target from a safe distance.

True that there's some disagreement about the virgins, but both dominant religions in the "war on terror" believe that their dead soldiers will go to paradise.

Nwokie,
Did you even read the posts by me and others? The phrase was "not cowardly"! Maher never called them heroes, and for the record, I WOULD disagree with the term "hero" being used to describe those terrorists. We can either talk about what was said, or we can talk about what wasn't said. But let's not mix them up.