Bill Maher: A.K.A.: Richie the Rich

The only reason I ever tune in to watch “Real Time with Bill Maher” (or any other crappy liberal program) is so that I can be ready for the ridiculousness that my liberal peers will come up with or try to find a curve ball to throw at my conservative friends.  I watch it as objectively as I do any right slanted/conservative slanted program, but much more often than not, I am witness to shallow liberal tactics (i.e. name calling, leaving out facts, changing facts to get a better applause from a misinformed audiences) and thinking that goes no deeper than the baby pool of politics. 

Once in a blue moon, shows like this will give me some ammunition.  I actually pride myself in being a conservative who can throw it back at my republican friends.  Every once in a while I will actually find a nugget that can give me the edge in making a point they haven’t thought of.  Again, these nuggets are few.  Liberal philosophy is so erratic, that I rarely have a nugget to challenge anyone with.  Last week’s episode of Bill Maher left me just as unarmed as most weeks.  But the nuggets of hypocrisy were ample. 

It amazes me how talk show hosts and newscasters like to refer to “rich people” and “the media” in general, as if they aren’t talking about themselves.  It would be like me writing a blog on “those crazy humans” and how they have such a silly compulsion for sleeping, eating and breathing just to get through the day. 

Bill Maher repeatedly took the recent Tim Pawlenty budget plan out of context and kept referring to the "huge tax breaks for rich people.”  Maher tends to go on and on with his conspiratorial connection between the republicans and so called “rich people.”   What Maher and his team of intern researchers bothered to look up, or even mention, is that the tax breaks that Pawlenty has proposed aren’t set up to benefit the rich, they are proposed to benefit everyone. 

Pawlenty proposes drops in just about every type of tax you can think of, including those pesky people making under $100,000 a year.   Yes, Bill, (as if he is reading this) even the poor people fall into that range. 

But if you can’t tell already, what really steams my bean is the continued references by Maher about “Rich People”.  Comment after comment about the rotten rich people was followed by the zombie-like thunderous applause of his audience.   Maher has learned quite well that you can always add to the uproar by accenting your sarcasm with a well placed “F” or “C” bomb.  

As I watched, I wondered.  A simple question, an obvious question.  Doesn’t Bill Maher know he is rich?  I guess when you make that much money, buy all that cool stuff and hang out with all those other rich people it is easy to forget you are rich too.  I guess it wouldn’t be as funny of a show if he realized who he really was.  Instead, he has plenty of fictitious material to use for his overly enthusiastic audience.