Bill Maher Compares Republicans to Radical Muslims

November 10th, 2006 10:15 AM

Lately, it seems that comedian Bill Maher is in a competition with MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann as to who can say the most virulent, disgraceful and absurd thing about Republicans. In a posting at HuffnPuff Thursday, Maher compared members of the GOP to radical Muslims, stated that religion and the “Islamic Menace” are myths, and suggested that the Administration are fascists. Not bad for one six-paragraph article, wouldn’t you agree?

Here are some of the low points (emphasis mine throughout):

For a good chunk of the GOP base, the Democrats are literally in league with the Devil, so any means of keeping them out of power is legitimate.

In fact, this attitude is only a matter of degrees away from the belief radical Muslims have that any wrong perpetrated against the "infidels" is justified.

He continued:

This also ties into the so-called father of neo-conservatism, the philosopher Leo Strauss, who argued that the only way to stop liberalism from ruining society was for the elites (a.k.a his neocon followers) to exploit myths (religion) or create new myths (the Islamic Menace) that will unite the hoi polloi in an orgy of nationalistic fervor. Sounds like fascism? Yup. But an interesting feature of Straussism is that the elites don't care if the myths they are exploiting are actually true; that's irrelevant as long as they're effective. Which is why we get Karl Rove talking about the Christian "nut-jobs," and the Kerry-hates-the-troops nonsense from last week. All those Republicans parroting the talking point re Kerry knew it was bullshit but they didn't care because it was an effective myth.

And this man has his own TV show to spout this kind of vitriol once a week. Shocking.