Maher to Guest Defending Islam in Wake of Boston Bombings: 'That's Liberal ####'

NewsBusters.org ^ | April 20, 2013 | Noel Sheppard

[Kaslin]

Bill Maher on HBO's Real Time Friday made a statement that will make the Right cheer as the left predictably cringes.

After his guest Brian Levin - the director of the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino - said of the Boston bombings and how it relates to radical Islam, "We have hypocrites across faiths, Jewish, Christian who say they're out for God and end up doing not so nice things," Maher marvelously responded, "That’s liberal bulls--t right there" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Maher to Guest Defending Islam in the Wake of Boston Bombing: 'That's Lberal Bulls--t'

BILL MAHER, HOST: So you're obviously the perfect person to have here today. You study this all the time, the mind of crazy people who do horrible things. I'm always interested to know how people like the people we caught today up in Boston can have two minds going at the same time. I mean, if you read what the older brother wrote on his, on the internet, he said his world view: Islam. Personal priorities: career and money. And we see this a lot. I mean, the 9/11 hijackers went to strip clubs the night before they got on the plane.

BRIAN LEVIN, DIRECTOR OF THE CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF HATE AND EXTREMISM AT CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, SAN BERNADINO: Could I just interject? Look, it's not like people who are Muslim who do wacky things have a monopoly on it. We have hypocrites across faiths, Jewish, Christian who say they're out for God and end up doing not so nice things.

MAHER: You know what? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what? That's, that’s liberal bullshit right there. I mean, yes, all faiths…

LEVIN: There are no Christian hypocrites?

MAHER: No, there are.

LEVIN: You make a career on that.

MAHER: They just, they're not as dangerous. I mean, there's only one faith, for example, that kills you or wants to kill you if you draw a bad cartoon of the prophet. There’s only one faith that kills you or wants to kill you if you renounce the faith. An ex-Muslim is a very dangerous thing. Talk to Salman Rushdie after the show about Christian versus Islam. So, you know, I’m just saying, let's keep it real.

LEVIN: Well, I guess I have a girl for you, Pam Geller you could maybe meet. No, I really disagree with you.

MAHER: I don't know what that means.

LEVIN: Well, she’s an Islamaphobe. But, no I…

MAHER: I’m not an Islamaphobe. That’s wrong. I am a truth lover. All religions are not alike. As many people have pointed out, “The Book of Mormon.” Did you see the show?

LEVIN: No, it's hard to get tickets.

MAHER: Okay, can you imagine if they did "The Book of Islam?" Could they do that? There’s only one religion that threatens violence and carries it out for things like that. Could they do “The Book of Islam” on Broadway?

LEVIN: Possibly so.

MAHER: Possibly so? Tell me what color the sky is in your world.

LEVIN: Here's my difficulty with your premise here, Bill, and that is look at how religions over history have had things done in their name that have been terrible.

MAHER: Absolutely. But we're not in history. We're in 2013.

LEVIN: But what I would tell you…

MAHER: You're right, during the Middle Ages, I would say Christianity was the bigger problem.

LEVIN: If I may, though. You are making an error in that Islam has over 1.4 billion adherents. There’s a heterogeneity to it. Are there extremists who are horrible people who would slit your throats? Yes. But there are also folks that are fine, upstanding people.

MAHER: Of course.

LEVIN: And I'm very worried you have a national audience where we're promoting Islamic hatred.

MAHER: No, you're wrong about that and you're wrong about your facts. Now, obviously, most Muslim people are not terrorists, but ask most Muslim people in the world, if you insult the prophet, do you have what's coming to you. It's more than just a fringe element.

Folks that are surprised by this shouldn't be, as this isn't the first time Maher has come out strongly against radical Islam.

In 2011, he told Muslim Congressman Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) that the Koran is a "hate-filled book" and that "the threat potentially from radicalized Muslims is a unique and greater threat" than from "right-wing militias and Timothy McVeigh types."

As for going after the hypocrisy of the Left, Maher last month said in regard to the high taxes he's now paying, "Liberals - you could actually lose me."

Is there hope for Bill Maher?

Is it possible the far more reasonable person that existed in the '90s with a program on Comedy Central called Politically Incorrect is starting to reemerge after more than a decade of hibernation?

Let's pray.

[AuntB]

“How many people has Pam Geller killed?”

I think you know that Pam Geller has killed no one, what ARE you talking about?

[lonevoice]

I completely agree. Much as I detest Maher, he has credibility with a lot of liberal moonbats. If he continues speaking up like this (and at personal risk, as you noted), it may help erode some of the PC that’s putting our nation in continuing jeopardy from Islamopsychos.

[ckilmer]

You’re right, during the Middle Ages, I would say Christianity was the bigger problem.

We are starting to realize that the reason there was a middle [dark] age is because Islam terror drove Christendom into it.
...........

Mohammed and Charlemagne Revisited:
The History of a Controversy
by Emmet Scott
New English Review Press · 2012 · 270 pages
$19.95 · Kindle version $9.95

Mohammed & Charlemagne Revisited by Emmet Scott

Throughout the coastal areas surrounding the Mediterranean Sea, archaeologists have uncovered a layer of subsoil that was deposited over a period of three hundred years beginning in the middle of the seventh century AD.

This stratum, named the “Younger Fill” by the geologist Claudio Vita-Finzi, covers the ruins of all the major cities and settlements that were established along the Mediterranean littoral during classical antiquity. It stands as a coda to Graeco-Roman civilization. For three centuries after the year 650 the archaeology of the region is all but barren. Wastelands or severely diminished primitive settlements have replaced the formerly great cities of the Roman Empire and the Near East.

One might surmise that the Younger Fill is the result of some yet unidentified climatic trauma that afflicted the entire Mediterranean basin. However, the same phenomenon has been observed in an entirely different watershed: Mesopotamia, the land drained by the Tigris and Euphrates in what is now Iraq, and also including the coastal regions adjoining the Persian Gulf.

During the same period — from the middle of the seventh century until the middle of the tenth — archaeology in the entirety of Europe and the Middle East virtually disappears. This civilizational interruption might be thought a result of the Dark Ages in Europe, except for the fact that it includes areas of the Middle East which were never part of the Roman Empire, and where advanced cultures independent of Rome and Greece had flourished.

What all these areas have in common, of course, is that they were conquered by the Arabs during the initial period of Islamic expansion, when the Near East, North Africa, and Iberia were subjugated within the space of less than a century.

Islam came to the Mediterranean and left as its principal legacy the Younger Fill.
http://gatesofvienna.net/2012/08/who-really-killed-the-pax-romana/

[ckilmer]

Mohammed and Charlemagne Revisited:
The History of a Controversy
by Emmet Scott
New English Review Press · 2012 · 270 pages
$19.95 · Kindle version $9.95

Mohammed & Charlemagne Revisited by Emmet Scott

Throughout the coastal areas surrounding the Mediterranean Sea, archaeologists have uncovered a layer of subsoil that was deposited over a period of three hundred years beginning in the middle of the seventh century AD.

This stratum, named the “Younger Fill” by the geologist Claudio Vita-Finzi, covers the ruins of all the major cities and settlements that were established along the Mediterranean littoral during classical antiquity. It stands as a coda to Graeco-Roman civilization. For three centuries after the year 650 the archaeology of the region is all but barren. Wastelands or severely diminished primitive settlements have replaced the formerly great cities of the Roman Empire and the Near East.

One might surmise that the Younger Fill is the result of some yet unidentified climatic trauma that afflicted the entire Mediterranean basin. However, the same phenomenon has been observed in an entirely different watershed: Mesopotamia, the land drained by the Tigris and Euphrates in what is now Iraq, and also including the coastal regions adjoining the Persian Gulf.

During the same period — from the middle of the seventh century until the middle of the tenth — archaeology in the entirety of Europe and the Middle East virtually disappears. This civilizational interruption might be thought a result of the Dark Ages in Europe, except for the fact that it includes areas of the Middle East which were never part of the Roman Empire, and where advanced cultures independent of Rome and Greece had flourished.

What all these areas have in common, of course, is that they were conquered by the Arabs during the initial period of Islamic expansion, when the Near East, North Africa, and Iberia were subjugated within the space of less than a century.

Islam came to the Mediterranean and left as its principal legacy the Younger Fill.
http://gatesofvienna.net/2012/08/who-really-killed-the-pax-romana/

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Blind chipmunk.
Nut. Law of averages

[SunkenCiv]

Levin’s a Media Scumbag — so’s Maher, but he’s actually speaking the truth. Thanks Kaslin.

MAHER: They just, they’re not as dangerous. I mean, there’s only one faith, for example, that kills you or wants to kill you if you draw a bad cartoon of the prophet. There’s only one faith that kills you or wants to kill you if you renounce the faith. An ex-Muslim is a very dangerous thing. Talk to Salman Rushdie after the show about Christian versus Islam. So, you know, I’m just saying, let’s keep it real.

LEVIN: Well, I guess I have a girl for you, Pam Geller you could maybe meet. No, I really disagree with you.

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

there was equal and violent push back by the Church in the form of the Inquisition.

Are you referring to the Spanish Inquisition?

Recent scholarship debunks much of "The Black Legend."

[SunkenCiv]

sidebars on FR:

• The curious story of Terrorista #1 and Two "Globe Reporters" Crashing Her Apartment
• Brian "Brain-Dead" Williams of NBC News didn't know the names of the terrorists on Fri. Night
• Boston bombing shouldn't derail immigration reform (Libs already want more terrorist in US)
• Boston Bombing Suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev -- Partied It Up Following Deadly Attack
• "Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is Innocent" Group Created on Facebook, Already Has Over Half a Thousand Members
• The Culprits (the Tsarnaev Brothers are the real victims)
• U.S. public defender in Boston seeks to represent bomb suspect
• 'Terrorista#1': Bragging license plate on BMW belonging to friends of captured Boston bomber
• The Tsarnaev Meme Wars Begin (Boston Marathon bombing)
• America's Chechens are Coming Home to Roost*
• Boston bombing: Muslims told not to apologize for their faith
• No, Mr. Obama, America is not safer than ever. You LIE!! [FReepathon thread XVII]
• Bomb Investigation Pivots to a New Mystery: Motive [Really? Try "Islamic Terror"]
• Boston Jihadi: ".... uplift & increase the good manners & behavior of a person the way Islam does"
• The 'Co-exist' Bombers (Mark Steyn)
• Revealed: 'Relaxed Boston 'bomber' partied with college friends two days AFTER marathon massacre
• Boston jihad murderer after bombings: "I'm a stress free kind of guy"
• Boston Marathon jihad murderers may have trained in Chechen Islamic school
• Muslim Privilege: Muslims Are the Real Victims of Marathon Massacre
• Elspeth Reeve at Atlantic Wire.... "The U.S. Anti-Muslim Crowd Is Quite Pleased with Itself"
• Obama's Peace Partners Urge Muslims To Buy Arms And Take Part In 'Jihad Against Jews And Christians'
• Video posted by Boston jihadi: ".... I am appealing to Allah. Wake up, wake up followers of Allah."
• Enemedia Rushes to Obscure and Whitewash the Jihad Motive for the Boston Bombings
• "David 'let's hope the Boston bomber is white and not Muslim' Sirota's head, over at Salon, ....
• CAIR Lectures US: Boston Jihadis Weren't Influenced By Islam!
• The Tsarnaev brothers were double agents who decoyed US into terror trap
• The real domestic terrorists

[FredZarguna]

That's the Roman side of the story. If, for the sake of advancing a hypothetical I accept any of it as true, here are your salient points:

• It was very "generous" of a French monarch to "allow" Christians to practice their own faith. [The Roman Church's history of generosity is well documented.]
• When Christians defiled Roman Churches, they were not arrested by the "tolerent" monarch for the destruction of property, instead they were set upon, beaten, and murdered by Roman mobs.
• The condign punishment for challenging the Roman Church in France was the outright murder of tens of thousands of Christians who "brought it on themselves."
• Right.

Your silly "argument" puts me in the mind of a claim by I once read on a Roman Church message board that William Tyndale was not murdered by the Roman Church [yes, he was] and that his crime was not in creating an English language version of the Bible, but in creating an unauthorized version of the Bible: Just so. People pretending to have the authority over other Christians in matters of conscience encourage their extermination, and then claim they got what was coming to them. This is typical of the Roman Church, and its excusers persist to this day.

[FredZarguna]

Nonsense. Document what you're claiming. The Crusades were a response to centuries of rape, torture, forced conversion and murder by Muslims. CENTURIES. We have a rough idea of how many people were murdered as witches and heretics in Christian Europe, and it isn't even close.

But in any event, you are missing a fundamental point: When Christians kill in the name of their religion, they are committing a heretical and terrible sin. When Muslims kill in the name of their religion, they are obeying scriptural injunctions to do so.

There are only two places in this world, according to Muslims: the Dar al-Islam, those places where Islam has conquered, and the Dar al-Harb, everywhere else. What does Dar al-Harb mean? It means "The Land of War." Try translating that into an equivalence with "He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword." I'll be glad to wait.

[FredZarguna]

This is not even an argument, any more than the claim that Reform Christians and their ideas eventually led to the creation of the United States of America, a country in whose formation the Roman Church played virtually no role.

See how it works?

[GOPJ]

This is one amazing read... Bill Maher doing ‘conservative’... and honest... cool read.

LEVIN: There are no Christian hypocrites?

MAHER: No, there are.

LEVIN: You make a career on that.

MAHER: They just, they’re not as dangerous. I mean, there’s only one faith, for example, that kills you or wants to kill you if you draw a bad cartoon of the prophet. There’s only one faith that kills you or wants to kill you if you renounce the faith. An ex-Muslim is a very dangerous thing. Talk to Salman Rushdie after the show about Christian versus Islam. So, you know, I’m just saying, let’s keep it real.

LEVIN: Well, I guess I have a girl for you, Pam Geller you could maybe meet. No, I really disagree with you.

MAHER: I don’t know what that means.

LEVIN: Well, she’s an Islamaphobe. But, no I…

MAHER: I’m not an Islamaphobe. That’s wrong. I am a truth lover. All religions are not alike. As many people have pointed out, “The Book of Mormon.” Did you see the show?

LEVIN: No, it’s hard to get tickets.

MAHER: Okay, can you imagine if they did “The Book of Islam?” Could they do that? There’s only one religion that threatens violence and carries it out for things like that. Could they do “The Book of Islam” on Broadway?

LEVIN: Possibly so.

MAHER: Possibly so? Tell me what color the sky is in your world.

[GOPJ]

What color is the sky in his world? Great line - he lives the with Unicorns.

[Perseverando]

[MaryFromMichigan]

Men really are sinners and we are just as bad as the muzzies.
Don’t cast stones!

Really?
You stand by that statement?

[justiceseeker93]

Is it possible the far more reasonable person that existed in the '90s with a program on Comedy Central called Politically Incorrect is starting to reemerge after more than a decade of hibernation?

The "Politically Correct" program Maher did which I recall was not on Comedy Central, but on ABC late weeknights. Was he a "far more reasonable person" then? Maybe at rare times, but let's not forget that he got cancelled on ABC after referring to the 9/11 terrorists who flew the planes into the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon as "courageous"!

Separately, as fan of Mark Levin on the radio, I happen to admit that reading this Levin's remarks caught me off guard for a second, but obviously he has no connection to Mark. Never heard of this Levin before, but he obviously thinks he's witty when he insultingly mentions Pam Geller as a possible girlfriend for Maher.

[Mister Da]

We don't need the likes of Mahar on our side of anything, just like we don't need baby rapers on our side.

If Maher turns conservative, he will be the Liberal’s poster boy conservative. I don't want to be associated with him whether he is right or wrong.

However, it is amusing to watch a Liberal squirm over Liberalism's inexcusable defense of an ideology of murder, rape, misogyny, slavery, & racism.

[Zuben Elgenubi]

That is funny. Thanks. I’m going to send it to my sister. She’s married to a Woody Allen type.

[Stepan12]

He is just a broken clock right twice in a day. Not even that! He is more correct say twice in a year. An amusing segment but hardly one to do cartwheels over.