The 9/11 terrorists were brave for what they did, the real cowards are American soldiers launching tomahawks instead of getting down and dirty.

Another example of Maher's sophistication.

Was it wrong of me to have allowed a little smirk to appear on my face at the thought of Maher being "savagely beaten"? Bad, bad Grace.

But, after all, "I am a person"!

Maher synergy: "The really brave ones are the child molesters, who get down and dirty instead of savagely beating terrorists."

Generally, I refrain from saying I "hate" someone. Hate is like love; I believe you can only really hate someone you know well. Hate is an intimate emotion, and it requires a fairly intimate relationship between hater and hated. I mean, there are people in the world that I don't care for and others who irritate me, but hate? That's a tough bar to get over with me.

I hate Bill Maher.

I'd punch his smirky, oh-so-smug face if he were standing in front of me. I'd grant his teeth a Reno-style divorce from his head courtesy of my fist. Anyone who'd say such a despicable thing, even in jest, is worthy of my hatred. I don't hate people lightly, but I also don't hate half-way. Maher has made my shit-list, and he's on there forever.

The revelation that Maher was "savagely beaten" in the schoolyard is not surprising.

I'm beginning to doubt that Bill Maher is a real person. Instead, I think he's some sort of ControversyBot, programmed to say exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time to generate "buzz."

Or maybe he's just a stupid fucking cunt. Split the difference.

You know what's really creepy about Maher's remarks? He has a reputation here in L.A. for dating very very much younger females.

So I could see how he would want to rationalize, being the perv that he is.

I think Pat O'Brien rips off the moustache and glasses and bingo, he's Bill Maher! Same lack of the brain-to-mouth filter, inappropraite sexual references, etc.

OH, My, that is truly the most disgusting thing I've read in a while. "Gently masturbated by a pop-star"? What kind of drugs is Bill Maher on?

For health reasons, I'll refrain from commenting much in this, except to say that Maher will be burning in hell one day, and his fate will be just.

I don't know who Ferguson is, but I admired the poise with which he handled an amazingly distasteful scene, while stepping away from Maher's self immolation.

Honestly, Ace, the guy didn't need any more space to explore. That brief exchange was enough for Maher's career to jump the shark, definitively. Then the shark fucked him. But I guess that was better than being savagely beaten by the shark, right, Bill?

Utron, can't it be both?

Criminy, doesn't Maher know there's a war on?

I'm with Christopher, I have no problem at all believing Maher got his ass kicked in school.

I've always hated him. Narcissitic, arrogant prick. Nothing he says surprises me. Good for Ferguson for getting him off the air.

Maher illustrates what passes for rational thinking and hard argument among the left. He speaks as if getting the snot knocked out him or getting groped (or worse) by a perv is an either/or choice for a child. Never mind that "neither" is the correct choice.

Leftists believe they are intellectually superior. And they wonder why the rest of us can't stop laughing at their pretentiousness.

Man, I miss the olden days, when Bill Maher showed comedic promise.

You know, back in the 80's, when he did that sticom "Hard Knocks" on Showtime. Boy, was that funny.

Okay, it wasn't.

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

The bigger the leftist shitheel, the more in love he is with his own voice. This idiot barely takes a breath between one asinine shitstorm and the next.

Silence is golden, Bill.

Utron's was funny.

Next stop for Maher, MTV's the Surreal Life.

Maher's the type of guy who'd call someone "Chris" and then whine about getting his ass kicked. And I doubt that it was just one savage beating. I'd be willing to bet that there were multiple repeated savage beatings.

I don't know which I find more offensive, the shit that tumbles from Maher's mouth or his insistence that he's not really a liberal.

The smug fuck. He reminds me of the guys in college who marched in Take Back the Night rallies so they could get laid.

Within 6 months Maher will be on Primetime Live claiming he had an affair with Paula Abdul.

I caught him on a rerun of Leno where he blithered on about the Republicans being a party based of anger and hatred.

What a douche-bag!

Hey, don't you guys get it? It's supposed to be ironic.

Because that's what passes for comedy these days - jackasses like Maher smirking and saying stupid crap while trying to pass it off as ironic commentary. I dislike Maher for the same reason I don't find the Daily Show all that entertaining - it has its moments, but smarmy-boy Stewart gets on my nerves.

I hate Bill Maher as much as the next guy (well, maybe not quite as much as Monty up there) , but what about the gladiator jokes in Airplane? I mean, "Tell me Joey - do you like gladiator movies?" I mean, that was hysterical.

You know, just sayin.'

That brief exchange was enough for Maher's career to jump the shark, definitively.

Please. This fuck has been bulletproof ever since Ari Fleischer told him to watch his mouth. Pissing off Bush by proxy gave him a reservoir of goodwill on the left that can never be dissipated.

True. Bush-hatred covers a lot of sins, as far as Hollywood is concerned. Even if this did hurt his career, all he has to do for rehabilitation is get addicted to drugs or alcohol, get caught with a prostitute and go on "Oprah."

Anybody ever read Truly Tasteless Jokes?

I mean, "Hey Joey, every see a grown man naked?"

You have to admit, that was a pretty funny scene.

...

...

Ok, I'm in, let's hang Peter Graves high! HIGH!

Bill (INDC),

Airplane was funny, whereas Maher wasn't even making the pretense of joking.

That said, Graves should be exhumed.

ba-dum-dum

Bill has a point. It's not so much the subject matter here as the fact that Maher's "joking" about a real case. It's the difference between Joe Pesci trying to kill Macaulay Culkin in "Home Alone" and some comic going on a talk show during the Andrea Yates trial and saying, "Terrible thing, but man, we've all had those days when we want to drown our kids, haven't we? C'mon, people!"

Also, Maher's just scummy enough of an individual to make his goofing about child sex irredeemably creepy, whatever the context.

It's not so much the subject matter here as the fact that Maher's "joking" about a real case.

Bingo.

"Have you ever been in a... in a Turkish prison?"

Ace, I believe Ferguson used to play the boss on the Drew Carey Show....

Whoops:

http://www.wavsource.com/movies/airplane.htm

Okay, Allah. I still think Maher's comments marginalize him even further, but I might have overstated things. I had to, in order to set up the Bill-being-sodomized-by-a-shark joke. Not that I would advocate that, of course. I was being ironic.

"Airplane" was hysterical, which doesn't make the real-life equivalent funny. "Do you like gladiator movies, Macaulay?" Ha. Ha. Ha.

Maher was just doing what Leftists have come to see as their fundamental right: to say provacative things without fear of retribution.

"It's all relative, baby! Words don't really mean anything, so where's the harm? I can say any outrageous, hateful, anti-American thing I want and still claim to be a good American -- nothing I say can possibily be treasonous! It's all done in the name of freedom!"

Jane Fonda should have been arrested and jailed long ago for giving aid and comfort to the enemy during her "Hanoi Jane" stunt. That was clearly treason by any yardstick, and yet because she was not prosecuted every leftist since then has felt free to say just about anything. But for gosh sakes, don't take what they say seriously; they're just being "provacative".

Bullshit to that, Junior. Read your Spider-Man: with great power comes great responsibility. The right to Free Speech is not absolute. There is a line, and it's not an infringement of your rights to say so.

I thought it was crafted quite well. "Gently masturbated by a pop star" is a funny phrase.

Anyway, I'm going to give Maher the benefit of the doubt and conclude that he's not really okay with children being molested.

If it helps, just try to picture Colin Quinn making the crack.

Read your Spider-Man: with great power comes great responsibility. The right to Free Speech is not absolute. There is a line, and it's not an infringement of your rights to say so.

True, true.

But closely held secret: Spiderman? Filthy liberal. Total Red. Swear to God.

Not to mention gay as finger sandwich, Bill.

Bill:

But closely held secret: Spiderman? Filthy liberal. Total Red. Swear to God.

Oh, hell, *that's* no big secret. He's a punk college kid, and his girlfriend MJ takes every word Chomsky utters as Holy Writ. She's got his poor webby head all turned around....

The D.C. Universe is where all the good Republican superheroes hang out. Superman, Batman, Green Lantern...any one of them could kick Spiderman's punk ass.

Bill, Uncle Ben (not the rice) said that, though. Most assuredly not a commie.

And Jeff, I'd hazard that any gayness Uncle Ben engaged in was just what had to be done in the Jungles of Burma in the WWII

I'm glad Jeff G stepped in to defend Maher, although he might have been being ironic. In any event, here goes:

If I had to choose between a beating and being masturbated by a pop star, I guess I would want to know (1) how bad a beating; (2) what kind of masturbation; and (3) which pop star? Given that the answer to #3 is "Michael Jackson," I'm inclined to go for the beating, even if it's "Temptation of Christ"-level.

I *kind* of see Maher's broader point, which is that some of the adolescent-adult sex starts to look something like consensual, when the adolescents start getting around the 15-17 year old range, and the adults start getting sufficiently hot. For example, if I had to choose between having sex with Paula Abdul at age 17 and getting beaten to a pulp, I guess I'd go for Paula.

However, as usual, Maher's edgy comments are idiotic. He's ignoring that: (1) these kids are 10; (2) it would be wrong regardless; and (3) it's Michael Jackson!!!

Not sure that I really "defended" Maher; just noted that the phrasing was funny and that I doubt Maher really condones child molestation.

Sometimes comedians say that they think things they don't really think. The lie for their art.

I guarantee you, Maher will find a way to tie this to Bush on his next show. Something about how you can't make jokes about jacking off toddlers in "Randall Terry's America" or whatever.

"And what's the deal with drowning, anyway? Wouldn't it be easier just to poison the Fruity Pebbles? Hey-o!"

two points that really hit the nail on the head to me (one of which is mine, of course) are

1. Maher wasn't even making the pretense of joking. His "ironic comment" such that is was, wasn't a "joke," nor was he pretending to be funny (which he isn't but he still pretends to be at times)

and

2. This wasn't an abstract BS session on Politically Incorrect. They were talking about an adult "male" multimillionaire who used financial means to coerce poor families to send their kids to his "pleasure park"

not really much to "joke" about there

Seriously, though, Spiderman's not a liberal. He *acts* liberal to score with MJ, but every time he tries to pull the lever for a Democrat, his spider-sense goes off and he ends up voting Republican.

Jeff, Maher didn't just say that the kids were "gently masturbated by a pop star" - he started out the conversation by saying that people lacked perspective because they didn't take into account that MJ was "servicing" the kids rather than the other way around.

Maybe he was building to the joke, but he was way off.

Maher is so shit-headed! It's just good the guy isn't a father, nor ever will be one....

If he was a father, well, he would have no problem deciding what was worse for his 12-year old son -getting beat up by other 12 year old kids or getting beat off by a priest or rabbi...

Wait, it is Maher...

When Maher's show was canceled and he realized he blew it, he was desperately shopping around for another show and filled in as a late night radio talk show host on KABC in LA. He acted so put upon, so disagreeable, and so whiny, he was out of there by popular request after two days. Talk about showing your true colors!

Intellectually, I know he isn't condoning child sex abuse, but the guy has on more than one occassion demonstrated his extreme dislike for kids. Actually, it's beyond dislike. If you don't want them, fine. If you don't like to be around them, no problem. But this hatred some people have about kids is pathological. Look at all the nuts that post on alt.support.childfree. They act like someone is holding a gun to their head demanding they procreate.

Mahar is a regular at the Playboy Mansion because that's the only place he can score.

ugghhh... do Bill & Jeff have to kneejerkedly defend shit like this? What's it proving?

I don't know. I don't make child-fucking jokes myself. I do understand there's a thing called "black humor" or "darkly ironic humor" and all that, but, hey, I specifically requested people not to make jokes about the Star Trek-pedophile connection, even though the "boldy go where no man has gone before" joke was just sitting there.

This is a real case. Jackson really diddled very young boys, and they'll be scarred for life, whether the jury convicts him or not (which they won't).

As they say... you can make jokes about Lincoln getting shot now, but in the 1880's... sort of in bad taste.

I suppose I'm less offended by the joke itself than by Bill Maher's whole "I'm such a bad, bad boy" jerkoff persona.

Would any conservative get away with suggesting that children, while being raped or drugged/molested, should just lie back and enjoy it? I don't think so.

Dom Irera had a joke about priests molesting boys, the punchline to which was, "Why not me, Father? Wasn't I cute enough? How can I go through life with this feeling of rejection?"

I don't mind that. It's different. Why? Because he obviously wasn't suggesting he really wanted to be molested.

If you go back to the original, fuller quote -- which I didn't reprint, because I didn't want to swipe the whole quote from LifeTrek, who found it -- you will find Maher making a SERIOUS point that we ought not be so hung up on shit like this.

After making that SERIOUS point that a little molestation never hurt anyone, he follows it up with this "joke" -- which, in the context of the original SERIOUS remark, doesn't seem like "irony." It just seems like a humorous manner of restating his SERIOUSLY MEANT point.

I was kidding about the irony thing. It was a stupid joke to make, and I thought Ferguson handled it with extraordinary smoothness.

Good grief. Bill Maher is sitting there implying HE had a harder childhood than molested children do, and if he had a choice between beating and molestation, he would have rather been molested.

Uh, so was it supposed to be funny...or not?

Offensiveness aside...

It's not funny, so as a joke it failed.

If it's NOT a joke, it shows some real twisted thinking. Poor picked on Bill, what a ROUGH AWFUL childhood he must have had. Sniff sniff. Yes, Maher, getting r-a-p-e-d would have been less damaging than what YOU went through.

I've watched Craig Ferguson a few times now, and I'm starting to like him as a host more and more. Good for him, getting that jackass off his stage and reserving his show for less self-absorbed rhetoric.

Later,
bbeck

ugghhh... do Bill & Jeff have to kneejerkedly defend shit like this? What's it proving?

I wasn't defending his quote as much as I was defending the concept that jokes about that SUBJECT matter CAN be funny, a concept that many of the sweeping comments were contradicting inviolably.

Jeff was defending the quote.

I think it could be funny, but the context that you surround it with alters its effect, and it's maher.

Do you not think that the quotes from airplane were funny? I mean, the Captain wanted to bang a little boy ...

funniest thing Bill Maher has ever said, "What? That's it? It's over?"

(read the transcript)

probably not the first time he's said this, but the funniest by a country mile.

and INDC Bill is correct about the joke part. It can be darkly funny to joke about these things, adn a healthy release.

Maher just wasn't funny here, and i don't think he was really trying to be funny, after looking at the transcript. More retarded-creepy

Do you not think that the quotes from airplane were funny? I mean, the Captain wanted to bang a little boy ...

Not so much "funny" as "fuckin' hhhhottt."

I laughed my butt off at Capt. Oveur and his creepy fixation on Tommy. I also laughed at the scene where they slapped the bejeezus out of the hysterical woman. And I laughed in Scream when Rose McGowan got cut in half by a garage door. (I always laugh when Rose McGowan gets killed; that's one joke that never gets stale.)

In real life, most of those things would barely raise a chuckle, and that's where Maher blew it. Appearing on a talk show, commenting on an actual case, and whining about his own sad childhood, where he got savagely beaten instead of getting jerked off by a creep who looks like a cross between E.T. and Freddy Krueger, was totally inappropriate. Lord knows I'm not easily offended, but Maher crossed the line.

The "gladiator movie" scene in Airplane is my favorite (except for maybe Mrs Cleaver offering to translate Jive), because it pokes fun at the Disaster Movie Hero Stereotype.

I actually did use to think Maher was funny on the rare occasions I was able to catch Politically Incorrect at 2:00 am.
But then I learned how weird and nasty he is. As he gets older he goes after San Quentin quail. He has said that marriage and kids are pretty much for suckers.

I don't think that everyone should marry and reproduce, but you shouldn't sneer at people that do. Arrogant douchebag.

A less known item is that he is involved with some radical animal rights organizations. Like a few of those people, he probably thinks that animals and kids are equivalent. It's no big deal if your puppy gets licked by some bigger dog, but if some man tried to pull a Michael Jackson on my kid, I'd kill him, castrate him, and them kill him again.

Does that sound kind of weird? It's way past cocktail time.

I don't think that everyone should marry and reproduce, but you shouldn't sneer at people that do.

Heh, I actually find it comforting that Maher won't reproduce. :)

Later,
bbeck

Since this is being compare to Airplane, let me say this...

Those Oveur-tones came off to me as Oveur reminiscing about his personal "awakening," not as a desire to bang the kid. It's not like he was looking at the kid in the same way American Idol's Constantine stared into the camera.

And the other folks above said it right: there IS a difference in the "joke" when you cross from imagination to reality. But that wasn't why I thought Maher was wrong, although I concede the point that people have made.

Later,
bbeck

I'd kill him, castrate him, and them kill him again. Does that sound kind of weird?

No, not at all. ;-)

Maher's joke was funny like the joke where the rapist tells the woman to lay back and enjoy it is funny. It isn't.

And what ever happened to the palimony suit against Maher by "CoCo"?

Craig Ferguson is pretty good. The few times I've seen him he kept the jokes coming, was prepared for his interviews, and he had a way of walking right up to the line but not crossing it.

Oh crap. Are you saying he did breed? Hopefully the only input he has in that child's upbringing will be huge sums of $.

Palimony ain't child support. There wasn't a baby.

The other day the judge threw the case out.

And, as I said before, Maher is legendary in L.A. for trying to pick up very young females. I guess he thinks they should just lay back and enjoy it, cause, hey, it's not like getting beaten up.

What Dogstar said. Palimony is what you sue for after living with someone for a certain period of time without being married: pal-imony.

Later,
bbeck

Ace, thanks for the link.

I just need to add that Airplane is one of my favorite movies of all time, but the two aren't even comparable. One is comedy the other is a jerk on a talk show discussing life altering events in a CHILD's life as if it was JUST diddling. Remember the well founded outrage against priests - I bet Maher still use that material to attack the Catholic religions and all priests!
DKK
BTW, I am a bit jealous - look at these comments, I didn't get any? Ace, your a STAR! (wink wink) Thanks again.

Thanks. I know what palimony is. Sorry about the loose shit.

We'll let it go this time, Stace. :)

Later,
bbeck

I guess when Maher couldn't be delivered from the beatings from his peers and his Dad by praying and taking the Eucharist, he decided at that point he hated religion and family life.

Thanks bbeck. Oveur and out.

Oh, no, Stace's right. I'm sure Maher is the father and breeder of numerous strains of stds. I bet he calls them his “little billys.”

Maher is one twisted sissy. His problems with power and masculinity must be of Freudian proportions.
He's contemptuous of children because they're powerless against molestation. Presumably, he hates himself,and them, for that reason.

He's terrified of women his own age because they too are more powerful than he is, and can kick his ass. And should. Those savage 12 year olds could very well have been girls.

The fact that he can only date the very young suggests he'd love to be Jacko....revenging himself upon the world as a child-destroying pedophile with enough star power to keep getting away with it.

LifeTrek

You are right, the difference is that one thing is scripted and the other is just some jerk-off speaking off the top of his head. I didn't read the transcript or see the show but I think it's easy to say things when there are no reprecussions. The MSM doesn't care as long as he's on their side.

Comedy is comedy... it's there to make you laugh/smile. I get it. I've put my foot in my mouth 100 times but to go on with diarrhea of the mouth on national TV and get a free pass... priceless.

I think the funniest moments in Airplane were the
sh!t hitting the fan and the jive session. The turkish prison stuff was funny 20 years ago... Now its just repetitive banter.

X

I think the main way to judge if its over the line is if NAMBLA can use it as a celebrity endorsement. I mean, Maher the idiot makes molestation sound good.

Where in Airplane! we knew the captain was sick, that was an essential of the joke.

Grace:

True, he dated an ex-gf of mind when she was 19.

Then she turned 20, and BAM! it was over.

She still makes fun of him.

Maher displayed his mind is so disgustingly evil. The fact that he is allowed to continue blabbering through the mass media after what he said... why do we see only a few good people express their outrage here (and a couple of other places)? This calls for much more action... Maher needs a beating, a professional beating for the rest of his life.

I actually agree with bbeck, shockingly. I always took the Captain Oveur scene in Airplane to be more about the Captain reminiscing over his "awakening" and encouraging Timmy to do the same, rather than trying to score with the kid. I thought it was funny just b/c the questions were so random.

But jokes about a real case, coming from some slimeball like Maher.....totally inappropriate. His smug contempt for everything but himself is obnoxious. He still has a job only b/c he says the right things politically to keep an audience, the same idiots who pay to see ward churchill

brak's got it. the humor in the cockpit scene is of a piece with the aburdist "WTF?!?" style of the rest of the Zucker/Abrams/Zucker oveur, um ouevre.

It's funny because it's somewhat alarming. There's bland old Peter Graves deadpanning these surreal questions, and it's funny because it's a little bit alarming and makes you uncomfortable. But it wasn't explicit and it left you going, "what was that?"

Unlike Maher's point, which was basically to normalize pop-star pederasty. While hearing someone muse about that is creepy-funny in Airplane, that's just creepy and unnerving and really f'in unfunny when someone does it in real life.

You people are fucking morons.

I also hate the f*cker. He is a bigger traitor to the left than Michael Moore (who first off, at least has *some* concern for his people, and secondly, has my pity). I passionately hated Bill Maher even before reading that. The man hates and mistrusts everybody, himself most of all. Being so paranoid, it is no wonder he is INSANE! Anybody want to kill this man, do it in a nation which allows euthanasia and asisted suicide because planting a bullet in the back of Maher's head would probably be considered a mercy killing!