Bill Maher: Liberals Have To Get Out Of ‘Bubble’ And Realize Obama Might Not Win Reelection

[telemann.livejournal.com]

On Friday Night's episode of Real Time with Bill Maher, he turned the tables a bit of his running gag of Republicans that live "inside the bubble" (i.e. completely oblivious to any facts that run contrary to their opinions about various subjects such as global warming/climate change ¹, the auto bailout, etc) and suggested that Democrats and moderates who think it's inevitable Obama will be re-elected, giving in the process a short history lesson on the candidate who mis-spoke the most often, did in fact win. He calls the 2000 election as a race of "I.Q. [Gore] versus B.B.Q. [Bush]." Bill Maher doesn't mention this, but President Carter's re-election team thought that a race against Ronald Reagan would be much easier to win than against a moderate like Gerald Ford (had he chosen to run again). Some polls show Obama behind in some key swing states, so Maher's warning is a real one.

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1. Speaking of living inside the bubble and not allowing any facts in it, Neil deGrasse Tyson was on the panel and was debating with the conservative vice president of General Motors Bill Lutz, who stated global warming was a complete "crock of shit." video clip of that segment is viewable here.

Comments

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Ultimately, it doesn't matter that much who's the figurehead in front. As soon as it becomes clear who the Chosen One is, the establishment quickly moves in into the big game and appropriates the policy-making process (and the appointment process of the cabinet). I mean look at Obama. He was the man of Change and Hope. But then who got into the front row of his office? Wall Street guys - Geithner and all the rest. All competent guys who never had anything to do with the crisis in the first place, right? Sure, they're the only ones who know how to fix the shit that they caused, I've heard that argument many times. And who's whispering stuff into the president's ear on the issues of foreign policy since day one? That's right, Zbigniew Brzezinsky. Follow the money is a nice principle, sure; but I say also follow the endorsements. And guys like Kissinger were pretty quick to endorse Obama as soon as it became clear that he'd be the next president.

So even if it's Santorum or Gingrich (unlikely), or more apparently Romney running against Obama, and even if the contender somehow manages to win, what would that change? It could be Jesus running for president but again, he'd have to bow to those who stand behind him.

Just my very cynical 2 ¢.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Aren't businessmen supposed to be rational in order to be successful, rather than being full of stupid like this guy Lutz? Good call NdGT.

[terminator44.livejournal.com]

When they can appropriate regulators and legislators to shield them from their mistakes and stamp out their competitors, they don't need good business sense.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

That's actually a good point.

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

It amazes me how easily one could say "all of this global warming thing is hogwash, kthxbye" without even bothering to begin substantiating their claim.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

It's impossible to tell how likely people are going to get out to vote this early in the game. Once we have a Republican front-runner, the Democrats are going to go on the attack big time. The closer it is to election, the more the President is going to make his presence known. It's still too early to tell, Maher, but it's a good message that if you voted in 2008, you need to go out and vote again, because nothing is certain.

[foreverbeach.livejournal.com]

Fuck me, if Obama is not reelected, who will assassinate or indefinitely militarily detain Americans without trial, prosecute whistleblowers, and reappoint Ben Bernanke (monetary policy nightmare) to another term?

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Yeah who would do all those things that would've been done under a Republican President anyway?

[foreverbeach.livejournal.com]

Hey, you're right! Republican Ron Paul would do them all AND MORE!

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

I meant one that actually has a chance of getting elected.

[oportet.livejournal.com]

Hillary's at 100 to 1 to win it , so maybe the General Election isn't the only one he should worry about.

[404.livejournal.com]

So is Maher a libertarian or a liberal. I can never figure it out with him.

[blueduck37.livejournal.com]

He's an anti-war liberal who likes weed.

[404.livejournal.com]

[foreverbeach.livejournal.com]

lol

[404.livejournal.com]

http://www.salon.com/2001/08/01/maher_4/

A little old, but here you go

[dwer.livejournal.com]

I don't think this is particularly about talk show hosts supporting specific candidates.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

I think you're engaging in some false equivalency here, but ok.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Reagan was actually capable of running a political machine beneath the blather that appealed to the extremists that had been previously marginalized from discourse. He spent much effort creating a unified conservative political machine, and in terms of actually winning the election benefited from facing Jimmy Carter, who had no idea how to run a campaign. The October Surprise is one of those conspiracy theories to avoid facing the obvious, namely that Bonzo's most famous co-star totally schooled Carter in an election. Romney's too similar to Obama for the fanatics to accept him, also Romney really is not a Christian as they'd define it where Obama of course is a Christian as they'd define it. While Santorum just has to open his mouth about how homosexuality and man-on-dog are the imminent causes of the downfall of Western civilization enough to hand Obama the election on a silver platter. Gingrich, of course, can win only if the religious fanatics finally decide that they'll prefer a three-times married man who wrote half of Obama's ideas in the 1990s over their concept of a President who meets some romanticized ideal of what the USA never was.

Maher's a comedian, not a serious analyst.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Now now, he has a four-year degree in history and English. This makes him an expert in something.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

And Gingrich has a Ph.D. in history and I still think *he's* not a serious analyst. ;P

[dwer.livejournal.com]

not that I don't agree with you, but we're talking about the american public here -- a group of people who allowed George Bush to steal the 2000 election, and then actually elected him four years later.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Sigh, Bush didn't steal 2000, not unless we're also including Rutherfraud B. Hayes in the list of "Not-Presidents", while 2004 was because John Kerry was a lousy candidate against Bush, who actually was a fairly capable politician (including understanding how to use a hatchet man very effectively. Cheney was for Bush the inversion of RFK for JFK: Cheney did all the dirty work and Bush's persona ensured Cheney got the flack for what GWB actually was wanting the whole time).

[dwer.livejournal.com]

I don't care who you take off the list; I continue to believe, with evidence, that Bush was not elected president in 2000.

[404.livejournal.com]

At this point, does it matter?

[dwer.livejournal.com]

in the context of the American people to believe a lie? Absolutely.

[404.livejournal.com]

Ok, and? Are we going to be like the NCAA, who strip schools of national championships years later because they were found to be playing ineligible players? If Bush was found to have cheated, then what?

[dwer.livejournal.com]

then we know to not let it happen again.

[404.livejournal.com]

Guess we didn't learn our lesson back in 1876 with Tilden and Hayes.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

all the more reason to get the truth on the table.

[404.livejournal.com]

But the 1876 election is on the table, and is *usually* studied in school as the election that allowed Reconstruction to end. This is fairly widely known.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

that's not the table I'm talking about.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Except that it's happened with certainty once before, in 1876, and the concept of a "Corrupt Bargain" goes all the way back to the John Quincy Adams Administration. Unfortunately for US ideals, it's not entirely been clear how all our elections have wound up reflecting the actual nature of choice. For instance John Tyler wound up a President nobody wanted, and of course Gerald Ford was the other President nobody elected as POTUS. 2000 in this view is no less serious as an example of a "stolen" election but it fits right into a pattern of dodgy elections for the chief of the executive branch and is not some jarring break with what had gone before.

Which in a sense actually makes it both ironic and worse that it was able to happen again in the dawn of the Information Age.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

At least Ford went through the constitutionally defined process.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Of being nominated for Veep by Nixon because his previous Veep resigned during Watergate. And then himself becoming POTUS only because his precursor resigned. Tyler, in fact, had nothing equivalent bolstering *his* claim to power, and he was hated by everyone in Washington at the time for it. The sad thing is that the position of POTUS has a much more sordid history of a gap between the actual will of the people and the man holding the office than our own propaganda allows for.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately the question then becomes "how did he get an election close enough to plausibly steal in the first place?" and the answer is either that he was a better campaigner than given credit for, Gore was another crappy candidate, or a mixture of both.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

Oh, Gore was certainly not a great candidate. Running away from Clinton, trying to be too centrist, talking down to Bush's level. it wasn't pretty.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

So then that would lead to a conclusion that Bush was able to exploit this enough that it wound up being an actually simply stolen election by virtue of facing his first of two weak opponents. Fortunately that election was not thrown to the House of Representatives, as in 1824. I can't see the present-day USA liking what would happen if we had to put an election in the hands of the Congress to decide because nobody voted enough for anybody to win the electoral college. That could be a disaster, to put it mildly.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Bush would have won because the House was controlled by Republicans, but it certainly would have been much more constitutional.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Bush lucked out. And had a better set of lawyers in Florida.

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

Honestly no real thoughts on Obama's election chances, but man, NdGT's so awesome. He knows when to drive home a point, and when to just sit back, make a bet, and not get into a slugging match with a strawman factory that has no point or purpose. He just makes anything he's involved with better.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Yeh, he rocks. I love Brian Greene too.

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

I think we need a Brian Greene "Watch out guys we're dealing with a badass over here" pic :)

[telemann.livejournal.com]

P.S. I'm glad you're back man ;) Hope you are doing well too!

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

[telemann.livejournal.com]

hehe