Bill Maher on Larry King: There's gotta be something funny about Obama

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So funny yet still nobody tuned in.

Bill Maher appeared on Larry King the day after the presidency was won by Barack Obama.

Really, Mr. King? You're attempting to hold some cultural and news relevance (judging from the ads for your program) and the best you can do is the garrulous atheist with a pompous smirk (and presumably some dark, unresolved Daddy issues)? What? Obama's aunt not available? Jon Stewart too busy to come by and chat about the fun times both of you have had over the years, pretending to be newsmen? No Chevy Chase retrospective on political parody with a cynical flair? It could mean Larry King is losing his booking effectiveness. Or that he thinks Bill Maher is the new -- who? Saul Bellow? Not sure even Saul Bellow would like that, despite Maher's success and their shared distaste for anything traditional (outside of cynicism, that is).

This booking tells us volumes about Larry King without even watching the program, for its timing and topic. I did watch and then I read part of it. The oddest bit is when Maher proclaims the "real Americans" to be those other than some slice that Palin referred to as "real Americans". That is, that "real America" is not the 80% who are white, not small town Americans, and not "Joe the Plumber" types. The man is unhinged -- but it is good to see that people such as Palin get on his nerves. The weaker they are, the quicker they screw up. He hides behind humor so that his commentary can quickly turn from "here's the real deal" to "hey, it's just comedy, man!" Because he has his own firm ideas, but he is at heart a smarmy, spoiled bully. He is like the rich kid with all the toys in the neighborhood, punching holes into everyone else's hopes and egos, just because no one's punched his lights out for it yet. Give it time.

Oh, and while I'm at the place of this girlish-lipped, Hollywood metro-sexual bagman: Thanks, HBO, for encouraging his brand of jolly (ignorant, unscientific) atheism, freely vacant of relevance, and rich with one-sided vitriol. If HBO won't punch his card, someone is going to eventually suck some wind out of his black sails.

Maher: There's gotta be something funny about Obama

Here's a simple reason: Maher cannot find anything funny about Obama because he would not dare look, or even want to ask it. To keep his scam going, he will work at it, but he's fool enough to admire Obama too heartily. There is no softer spot for a liberal than their messiah. Just like some TV anchors and supposed journalists (Olbermann, Matthews at the top, and when resistance is low, Campbell Brown, Couric, Gibson, yadda yadda), Maher has a one-eyed view. He can seemingly only make jokes about what he hates. That's not humor, that's bullying. You're simply a punk with friends who let you bully. Such cynicism, such laughing at things you do not comprehend much less appreciate has worked for bullies and satirists for a long, long time.

However, good satirists aren't shameless publicity hounds who crave their own like-minded folks, as Maher sure seems to.

Here's another jewel from this freak-mouth, via the Huffington Post (in 2006), on the same CNN show:

During the live broadcast of CNN's Larry King Live, Bill Maher suggested to Larry King that [the former] Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman is gay. (Watch the clip from the live broadcast and read the transcript on the site)

BM: Well, I wouldn't be the first. I'd get sued if I was the first. Ken Mehlman. Ok, there's one I think people have talked about. I don't think he's denied it when he's been, people have suggested, he doesn't say...

I guess this is funny to Mr. Hell in a Hand Basket because what? All conservatives hate gays? So this would be ironic is Mehlman were gay? I guess to Maher this was like the irony of Hitler apparently having some Jewish ancestry. What a totally despicable man this whining preacher of un-God is. Why is he considered funny, because, like the guys of Jackass, he's so thoroughly much of an ass that it is entertaining to watch him? Or is it because his views make sense to people? He's cynical, not satirical. Satire, aside from most SNL skits of the past 25 years, is funny. Cynicism, however, is only funny only to those who share in an unwillingness to see others' views as legitimate. You know, like fascists.

Bill Maher: the fascist of funny, the czar of cynical comedy. Fully backed by HBO.So, why should you be backing HBO? I would prefer not. Maybe I will drop HBO, because I have had thoroughly enough of Maher. Perhaps bringing HBO to its knees will be the way to end his reign of smug, cynical, godlessness words of terror.

- jR