Posted on 03/14/2005 5:58:09 PM PST by Dave123
Bill Maher and Ward Churchill, Together At Last Written by Jack Engelhard Monday, March 14, 2005
It keeps getting worse. Okay, Dan Rather is gone, and by the way, the only mistake here was that he was sometimes a first-rate reporter but always a second rate anchorman. He never belonged in that chair. So Rather is gone, but Bill Maher is still with us. That’s really my mistake. I did not have to tune him in, but as (bad) luck would have it, I kept fishing along the dial and somehow ended up with Maher’s “Real Time” on HBO.
What’s this? Maher is enough but who is THAT right next to him? I mean left. Ladies and Gentlemen, give it up for Churchill. No, not Winston. Ward. Ward Churchill. If you don’t know who that is, you’re not reading this anyway, so let’s skip the journalistic formalities as to who, what, where, when, why…though, come to think if it, these are all good questions when it comes to both Churchill and Maher.
Okay, for those who came in late, the flap is about Ward Churchill, a professor at the University of Colorado, who covered himself with academic glory when he declared that those who happened to be in the wrong buildings at the wrong time, September 11, 2001, were “technocrats of empire,” hence, by Churchill’s definition, “little Eichmanns.”
Groans from the rest of us, but kudos from Churchill’s fellow tenured travelers, whose teachings are beginning to produce a generation of “little Ward Churchills,” or, “little Bill Mahers.”
As usual, I arrived right in the middle of a discussion. Let’s skip the preliminaries. Here’s what I picked up. Bill Maher doesn’t totally agree with Ward Churchill that the victims of 9/11 deserved to die - but he doesn’t totally disagree with him, either. I’m not saying Maher said that. But that’s what I picked up - and let’s not forget that Maher once said that those 9/11 terrorists were NOT cowards. Very nice.
Here’s what I’m thinking as these two go back and forth, so friendly like, with punk kids in the audience actually APPLAUDLING Ward Churchill.
What am I thinking? I’m thinking, WE ARE ACTUALLY DISCUSSING THIS? This is where we are in America today?
Terrorism is relative…murder is justified?
First of all, I never understood how Bill Maher ever had a show called Politically Incorrect. No one on this earth is more politically CORRECT than Bill Maher.
Second, it really is low and cowardly when Maher says something outrageous and then, with that smirk, retreats to, “Hey, I’m just a comedian. I’m only joking.”
He knows damned well that people (granted, mostly kids and Yuppies) take him seriously.
So the question for Bill Maher, if he can stop smirking for a minute, is this: In other words, virtually all rape victims are guilty, right?
That is the same logic, for no woman (no human being) is completely, totally blameless and innocent. She had it coming, right, Bill? Right, Ward?
Don’t look at me. I am only using your system of logic.
Further along the show, Maher brought out a man whose brother was one of the Twin Tower victims; I mean perpetrators. I did not catch the name. But this man was supposed to counterpoint Ward Churchill. I felt for this guest. You knew he was hurting and that he had much to say.
Like the rest of us, however, he is inarticulate and does not smirk very well. He won a round or two, but lost the fight.
Clearly, the punks in the crowd, the real little Eichmanns, were a Ward Churchill crowd, a Bill Maher crowd, kids doomed to leave college as bumper stickers.
Right along here, when I sensed the show going to pot, along with Western Civilization, I began to tune out and figured I may even be better off with Greta Van O.J. and her latest on Michael Jackson. I mean, the real important business. But I stayed long enough - another mistake - to hear Maher say that the new Twin Towers ought to have a section named, “Why They Hate Us.” Or maybe it was, “Why do they hate us?” Same difference.
Maher wasn’t kidding about that, and he wasn’t smirking. Yes, everything is our fault.
The little Eichmanns in the audience (those who can’t get seats for Jon Stewart) whooped it up, yeah, like, right on.
Why do they hate us, Bill?
I had the answer, but who the hell was listening? I am not so articulate myself. But the answer is this: They hate us not because of anything we did. In fact, we do mostly good. No other super power does as much good, not today, or ever before. Who ya gonna call when a tsunami hits? Who rescued and REBUILT all of Europe and all of Japan? I could go on, but like I said, I am not articulate, and I am not on television. Maybe there’s a connection.
Here’s why they hate us. They hate us because they are hateful people. Period. I offer this as a possibility, though I’m not quite sure who “they” might be. Presumably (if I read Maher correctly) “they” are the people who believe that bloodshed is a ticket to heaven
No wonder there’s a problem, Bill. What’s waiting there in Paradise? Spiritual knowledge? No, carnal knowledge.
Maybe it’s them, not us?
Coincidentally, late word, from the New York Times, has it that President George W. Bush has assigned Karen P. Hughes to be our goodwill ambassador in an effort “to repair the [tarnished] image of the United States overseas, particularly in the Arab world.” This is confusing. You’d think it would be the other way round.
Hey, we didn’t land on 9/11…9/11 landed on us!
Back on HBO, the next segment on the program featured Maher poking fun at the Ten Commandments. You know, like, how useless they are. The crowd loved this.Who needs the Bible when we’ve got the ethics and wisdom of Bill Maher?
Hey, man, Bill Maher knows best, right along with Ward Churchill. Just ask those cheering little Eichmanns in the audience.
About the Writer: Jack Engelhard is the author of the bestseller "Indecent Proposal," the award-winning "Escape from Mount Moriah," and the novel "The Days of the Bitter End," which is being prepared for movie production. Jack receives e-mail at viewopinion@aol.com.
Compare and contrast:
"Second, it really is low and cowardly when Maher says something outrageous and then, with that smirk, retreats to, “Hey, I’m just a comedian. I’m only joking.” He knows damned well that people (granted, mostly kids and Yuppies) take him seriously."
and
Michael Moore’s defense whenever his accuracy as a documentarian is called into question is "it’s just comedy, it doesn’t have to be accurate." (When asked on CNN about mistakes in Stupid White Men, he again responded, "How can there be inaccuracy in comedy?").
See the similarities? See the cowardice?
Moore and Maher. Two sides of the same coin. A two headed coin.
Both feel that they can say whatever they please, presenting it as fact, fabricating as they wish, portraying opinion as fact, and when called on it, say it is just "comedy."
Well, I am not laughing. I am projectile vomiting.
And don't forget the so called comedian Al Franken.
Just remember one thing about Bill Maher and Al Franken...
When you agree with them, they are to be referred to as comedians or satirists.
When you disagree with them, they are Jewish. How dare you be an anti-semite!
Bill Maher better hope I never see him in a dark alley, or anywhere else for that matter.
I'm with you there. If someone did this in the corporate world, they'd be hung out to dry. Kudos to the Cherokees who showed him up on the faked background.
As for Churchill, he was such an inarticulate moron that Maher had to do all the talking to "help" him.
In an article by David Peterson, dtd 2-20-05, published on the ZNET, http://www.zmag.org, Peterson defends Churchill against the "racist mentality" of Churchill's critics!
Excerpts:
"I know and you know that this whole line of inquiry into Ward Churchill’s Native Americanhood betrays a racist mentality. Plain and simple. Dress it up anyway you like."
"Right now, Ward Churchill is serving as a proxy persona non grata for all of the personae non gratae academics to have run afoul of various establishment factions over the years. The subsequent focus, not on his ancestry, but on his Native Americanness [HIS FRAUDULANT CREDENTIALS, damnit!], is merely a case of the American racist monster [!!!] let loose upon the scene..."
"Churchill’s racist detractors [!!!] are hell-bent on excluding him from the academic community. So they’ve called for him to be rounded by the modern American Gestapo [!!!], and given the once-over by a board of race scientists [!!!] to determine whether he really is the offspring of American Indians."
Peterson implies we free-thinking and free-speaking Americans who DARE to criticize phony-Indian Churchill are "racist monsters." TRUTH IS: Churchill's false claim of being an Indian was a deceptive ploy, a BIG LIE to advance himself. Notice the author Peterson slithers into defining Churchill's "Indian-ness" as the object of Churchill's detractors' racism!!! Does Peterson assert that the disclosed fact that Churchill posed as an Indian to deceptively gain academic status has made Churchill the object of racism??? Peterson's premise is based on convoluted, left-loaded ill-logic: 2+2=5.
TRUTH IS...David Peterson is a student of Noam Chomsky, the
Linguistics Master. Or is it, Lingtwistics?
In a word,
"They hate us because they are hateful people."
The real enemies of the American People can be seen on TV.
"Bill Maher better hope I never see him in a dark alley, or anywhere else for that matter."
I've liken the sadistic antagonism of leftists like Churchill, Moore and Maher, et al, to that of the cowardly schoolyard bully. If someone provoked enough stand-ups to the bully brat-mouth and belts him one good one, that bully cries and complains all the way home where the bully brat-mouth phones the ACLU.
Justice is as justice does...
The freaks ruined the best staion ever on cable, HBO. I won't even watch HBO anymore. It's a station for psychos and Maher fits right in.
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