Bill Maher: Obama eats Republican's lunch

[telemann.livejournal.com]

I was curious what take Bill Maher would have on Bin Laden's death. For me, one of the most frustrating segments was during what *should* have been a great interview with Peter Bergen*, (journalist and author of The Longest War: The Enduring Conflict Between America and al-Qaeda, Maher wasted a lot of valuable time trying to make doper jokes about Bin Laden's stash. I agree completely with Bergen's assessment of Ayman al Zawahiri, he doesn't matter because he does not have any of the charisma or organizational skills of OBL, and the movement is essentially decapitated). David Frumm (President Bush's economic speech writer) made a valiant effort I thought suggesting we shouldn't let cable media and radio hosts (on both sides) drive our political process, because it's poisoning the well. But didn't offer specific solutions on how to do that. And of course, I agree with Mr. Frumm's take on how we just can't get up and leave from Afghanistan or Pakistan, it's not just a simple matter of us packing up our bags and leaving. We have a vested security interest in what will be the world's fourth largest country (in population), which has nuclear weapons, and has radical Islamic elements intertwined within its armed forces, intelligence units, etc. The funniest moments were making comedy hay of all the conspiracy theories and blending them into a one-size-fits-all-crack-pot explanation of Obama, 9/11, the birthers and now deathers.



Irshad Manji, (author Allah: Liberty and Love, and director of the Moral Courage Project at New York University) gave some interesting insights about her take on the Islamic world's view of Bin Laden's death (generally favorable) but honestly, I was surprised she didn't think using a precision squad to kill Bin Laden versus using a bomb drop made any difference to anyone in the Arab or Islamic world.

The concluding "editorial" after New Rules in an odd way, confirmed rasilio's post earlier this week. Although basically Mr. Rasilio was limiting that to Tea Party candidates, Mr. Maher said the same thing, but he greatly expanded that to a broader sweep of the Republican record since 2000. As Maher noted: "And I know this all sounds like harsh truth, but Republicans are supposed to be the party of harsh truth. Like “there’s no such thing as a free lunch”. And speaking of lunch, Obama just ate yours."

You can watch the video segment here. And a written transcript is here. I would link the entire episode, but alas it's not available except on the usual websites online. I thought the panel discussion was pretty lively (if hard to follow at times).



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* Bergen is the last person to have interviewed Bin Laden.

Comments

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

I can't agree with that. It's not like bin Laden was a mid-level, low value target here, and I'm not necessarily buying that it was 50/50 at this point, either.

Or, to put it another way, I'm asking to be impressed that the President did what I expect of him or her. I struggle to keep the bar that low.

[montanaisaleg.livejournal.com]

I'm not necessarily buying that it was 50/50 either, but unless we have live video of bin Laden walking around in the compound, there's a very real chance that the whole operation would be for nothing. Taking into account the potentially very bad consequences of a failed raid - a couple dozen dead SEALs, political disaster for Obama, etc - there's no way this could be an easy decision. Again, just because others would probably have probably made the same decision, that doesn't make it any less of a tough call.