"We'll always have Paris. We didn't have, we'd lost it until you came to Casablanca. We got it back last night."

So famously said Humphrey Bogart to Ingrid Bergman in the marvelous conclusion of one of the greatest films of all time, "Casablanca."

On Wednesday, MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell shamelessly used a version of this line on White House advisor David Axelrod.

During her interview about yesterday's election results, including Bill Owens' victory in New York's 23rd Congressional district, Mitchell asked Axelrod about the Obama campaign documentary aired on HBO Tuesday.

This led to the following exchange that is guaranteed to make Bogie and Bergman roll over in their graves (video embedded below the fold):

UPDATE: Fox News misreported Gibbs' press gaggle comments. He did not claim President watched HBO special on election night.

During the 10AM ET hour of America’s Newsroom on Fox News Channel, fill-in co-host Martha Maccallum told viewers what President Obama watched on election night while Democrats suffered big losses in New Jersey and Virginia: “Robert Gibbs said, well, he was actually watching, you know, the HBO special about his year-long campaign and how it all went.”

On Tuesday night the White House had worked to downplay the Democratic gubernatorial defeats by claiming the President did not watch the election returns. Apparently Gibbs thought it would look better if the commander in chief was watching a self-indulgent fawning documentary about himself. Interestingly, Obama apparently previewed the HBO special a few days earlier, as Gibbs himself explained to the blog Talking Points Memo: “White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs says Obama has already seen ‘By the People’...Gibbs told TPMDC Obama’s review: ‘Thumbs up!’”

On FNC, Maccallum noted: “...we know that Michelle and the girls went to the Miley Cyrus concert last night... So he’s all alone in that big house, right? Nothing to do but sit back and watch – reminisce about the long campaign and watch HBO and the special.” The HBO documentary, ‘By the People,’ debuted on Tuesday, in commemoration of the one year anniversary of Obama’s election.

On Election Day, HBO will broadcast a documentary about Barack Obama's presidential campaign.

Though he's been in office for less than ten months, the cable network actually felt it was time:

BY THE PEOPLE: THE ELECTION OF BARACK OBAMA is a moving record of the Obama campaign's history-making odyssey to the White House. Interwoven with the drama of the campaign is never-before-seen footage of Obama behind the scenes, as well as interviews and candid moments with wife Michelle Obama, the couple's young daughters, Malia and Sasha, and senior campaign staff, volunteers, reporters, supporters and opponents.  

The following is a preview (video embedded below the fold, h/t Mediaite):

HBO's hit series "Curb Your Enthusiasm" has pushed the comedic envelope for many years, but what happened in Sunday's episode was so disgraceful it's already received comment from the Catholic League's Bill Donohue.

The set-up is the show's star and producer Larry David is taking some medication that is making him urinate quite forcefully.

It's so powerful that while urinating in his assistant's bathroom, he accidentally splashed some of it on a picture of Jesus Christ hanging on a nearby wall.

This prompted the following response from Donohue (video embedded below the fold h/t Big Hollywood):

Comedian Wanda Sykes drew little criticism from the "objective" media for wishing Rush Limbaugh’s kidneys would fail in a dinner thrown by the White House Correspondents Association in May. In her new HBO special, I’m A Be Me, Sykes continues her love for the Obamas, and her hate for anyone who crosses them. Sykes mocked people who didn’t like that the Obama family dog wasn't from a rescue shelter:

"How come he didn’t get a rescue dog? He should have gotten a rescue dog." I’m like, the man has to rescue a country that’s been abused by its previous owner.

Sykes also went on an extended riff about how beautiful Michelle Obama is, much more beautiful than Barbara Bush:

A few years ago, comedienne Sarah Silverman disparaged God on her Comedy Central program by throwing him out of her apartment the morning after having sex with him.

On Friday's "Real Time with Bill Maher," Silverman expounding on her anti-theism by introducing a new video wherein she offered a solution to solve world hunger: "Sell the Vatican, Feed the World."

As she chided the Pope for preaching about living humbly despite residing in a "house that is a city," she advised him that such a noble deed would absolve him of any guilt he might have over his alleged connections to the Holocaust.

More disgracefully, Silverman said, "If you sell the Vatican, and you take that money, and you use it to feed every single human being on the planet, you will get crazy p***y" (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript, h/t Mediaite, vulgarity alert): 

Comedian and kooky leftist Janeane Garofalo is at it again, smearing conservative activists as "white power" racists. Garofalo made her incendiary comments on the October 2 edition of Bill Maher's "Real Time" program on HBO.

Sorry, Janeane, the "real reason that so few people are willing to talk about racism is because, quite frankly, few people are as crazy as Janeane Garofalo is," Media Research Center President and NewsBusters Publisher Brent Bozell told viewers the next morning on Saturday's "Fox & Friends." [MP3 audio available here]

Bozell noted that Garofalo conveniently forgets that President Obama began office in January with a stunning 83 percent approval rating, before citing more evidence of Garofalo's wackiness:

"The American dream is not totally dead, but it’s being pretty, it’s dying pretty fast...Horatio Alger would move to Europe these days."

So said New York Times columnist Paul Krugman Friday.

Appearing with disgraced former New York governor Eliot Spitzer on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher," Krugman demonstrated perfectly why his perpertually pessimistic view of America is so revered by perpetually pessimistic liberals (video available here, partial transcript below the fold):

Who needs to make health care Barack Obama's Waterloo, as Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C. suggested? Why not make it the president's Alamo?

That's the advice PBS host Bill Moyers had for President Barack Obama in an appearance on HBO's August 28 "Real Time with Bill Maher." According to the former press secretary for President Lyndon B. Johnson, a defeat on health care/health insurance reform would do the left more good than crafting some sort of compromise.

"I mean, I would rather see Barack Obama go down fighting for vigorous, strong principled public insurance, than to lose with a bill - look, BusinessWeek had a cover story last week, ‘The Insurers are Winning,'" Moyers said.

The first reaction to a story like this is get wrapped ’round the axle of HBO’s hypocrisy, so let’s get that out of the way: Of course no Republican who had behaved in the same manner as ”sex columnist” Dan Savage would get a shot at an HBO show. But there’s really no hypocrisy when you realize that Bill Maher’s network is waging ideological war. Through that prism of clarity, the network’s desire to do business with and thrust Mr. Savage further into the American cultural/political landscape is perfectly consistent.

For those of you unfamiliar with Savage, here’s an excerpt from a Salon piece he wrote in 2000 titled “Stalking Gary Bauer.” The set-up was simple, Savage volunteered at Republican Gary Bauer’s presidential campaign headquarters and decided, "...if it’s terrorism Bauer wants, then it’s terrorism Bauer is going get[.]":

Naked, feverish and higher than a kite on codeine aspirin, I called the Bauer campaign and volunteered. My plan? Get close enough to Bauer to give him the flu, which, if I am successful, will lay him flat just before the New Hampshire primary. …

I went from doorknob to doorknob. They were filthy, no doubt, but there wasn’t time to find a rag to spit on. My immune system wasn’t all it should be — I was in the grip of the worst flu I had ever had — but I was on a mission. If for some reason I didn’t manage to get a pen from my mouth to Gary’s hands, I wanted to seed his office with germs, get as many of his people sick as I could, and hopefully one of them would infect the candidate.

If smugness were a crime, they would put HBO "Real Time" host Bill Maher under the jail. 

On NBC's Aug. 24 "Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien," Maher expressed his frustration with President Barack Obama's inability to get health care/health insurance reformed and passed into law.

"I think right now for example, this health care debate looks like it's - we could lose it because I don't think [Obama] he has been tough enough," Maher said. "You know, he used to say in the campaign, ‘It's your time.' This is his time. He should get mad, stop [expletive] around."

One of the hurdles Obama is facing to get his brand of health care made law is some of the more moderate Democrats in the Senate aren't willing to agree to the far-reaching plan Obama and the Democratic congressional leadership want. Maher said it really didn't matter what they thought.

On Friday night's Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO, the host mocked Michelle Malkin's new book on the ethically challenged Obama administration, then mocked Jonah Goldberg, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and Glenn Beck with fake books that show how conservatives have "jumped the shark" [sic] in attacking Obama after only six months in office:  

He’s been in office, our president, for 6 months, and there is also, or there is already a book by Michelle Malkin. You know Michelle Malkin, she’s been on our show. She won’t come back, but. (Laughter.) But look at this. This is not a fake book we mocked up. This is a real book. Culture of Corruption. Look at him, it’s the American flag, he’s f—ed it up already. [Wrong. It's the Obama campaign logo.]

Six months in office! And already we can make this judgment! It blows my mind, because Bush always said ‘you can’t judge me now. Only history can judge me.' The long – we’ve got to wait 100 years to see how Iraq comes out.

[Update, 2:15 pm Eastern: Audio and video clips from the segment added.]

HBO’s Bill Maher, after being asked during a segment on Monday’s Situation Room on CNN to explain his recent “soulless vampire bastards” moniker of the current health care system, pushed for President Obama’s “reform” plan, paraphrasing the Democrat’s own words: “We can’t do nothing- doing nothing is actually worse.” He also stood by his consistent labeling of the U.S. as a “stupid country” [audio clips available here].

Anchor Wolf Blitzer interviewed Maher for two segments starting at the bottom of the 5 pm Eastern hour. Towards the end of the first segment, Blitzer prompted the HBO host for his take on the health care debate. After playing a clip from his “Real Time” program where he used the “vampire bastards” label, Blitzer complimented Maher for the “very funny stuff” as well as the “serious element” on his program and asked, “What would you want to see emerge from this whole health care debate in Washington?” Maher echoed the Democrats’s talking points on the issue:

"Michael Jackson IS America. We love him so much because he reflects our nation perfectly: fragile, over-indulgent, childish, in debt, on drugs, and over the hill."

So said HBO's Bill Maher on "Real Time" Friday night during his "New Rules" segment.

As he elaborated on how America fit each of these negative attributes, he concluded by claiming, "Monday is the 40th anniversary of Neil Armstrong first setting foot on the moon, and I can't think of any ambitious goal we've reached since then" (video embedded below he fold, relevant section begins at 1:45):

On Friday night’s Hardball, guest host Lawrence O’Donnell enthusiastically promoted HBO’s new, glowing Ted Kennedy documentary.

He began by declaring "There‘s so much ground to cover. We don‘t have enough time for this. And I want to show the people out there, people under 60, who don‘t know the early Ted Kennedy, don‘t remember the early Ted Kennedy, I want to show what you have got in this movie." But O’Donnell’s interview completely left out the biggest scandal of "the early Ted Kennedy" – the death of Mary Jo Kopechne at Chappaquiddick.

This seemed especially odd as O’Donnell recounted with filmmaker Caroline Waterlow how Richard Nixon was obsessed with Ted Kennedy:

O'DONNELL: Imagine that. Here you are, a senator. You have a president of the United States obsessing all day, is there something we can hang on him. Is there something we can accuse him of?

WATERLOW: With all—to think of Teddy, with all the things he was dealing with politically and within his family and all of the losses he has suffered, he was also—

In announcing that she was stepping down as Alaska Governor on Friday, Sarah Palin noted the unrelenting hostility of liberal media elites. In the barely ten months since she burst onto the national scene, Palin has been scorned and mocked by journalists -- including many supposedly objective reporters -- like few other politicians. Here are a few of the choicer attacks, as compiled from MRC's Notable Quotables newsletter:

"She is a far-right conservative who supported Pat Buchanan over George W. Bush in 2000. She thinks global warming is a hoax and backs the teaching of creationism in public schools. Women are not likely to be impressed by her opposition to abortion even in the case of rape and incest."
— Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter in a "Web exclusive" posted on his magazine’s Web site, August 29, 2008.

"[McCain has] done it [picked Sarah Palin] at great cost, because the whole Republican convention...was going to be the slogan, ‘He’s not ready to lead,’ meaning Barack Obama. Well, Sarah Palin makes Barack Obama look like John Adams. I mean, it’s just, it’s no contest."
— Newsweek’s Howard Fineman on MSNBC’s Countdown, August 29.

Newsweek’s Eleanor Clift: "This [McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin] is not a serious choice. It makes it look like a made for TV movie. If the media reaction is anything, it’s been literally laughter in many places across news-"
Host John McLaughlin: "Where is that? See that?"
Clift: "In very, very many newsrooms."
— Exchange on The McLaughlin Group, August 31, 2008.

[Update, 9:00 pm EDT: Audio and video clips added.]

President Obama isn't nearly liberal enough for HBO's Bill Maher. On Tuesday’s Situation Room on CNN, Maher repeated the focus of his rant on his show last Friday night about how Obama hasn't been adequately aggressive. When Wolf Blitzer asked what he was most disappointed about with President Obama, the HBO host went into full denial mode: “Barack Obama is not a socialist -- he’s not even a liberal....this country needs a left wing. It doesn’t have it, and part of the reason is the media.”

After Maher gave a bit of a criticism of the Democratic President, the CNN anchor asked: “So where are you most disappointed, because...a lot of liberals are disappointed he hasn’t done more to advance gay rights, for example- but where- where are you most disappointed in this president?” The HBO host first joked about his sexual identity, and continued by expressing his bewilderment with Obama: “I don’t know if this administration has really caught up to the idea that Americans are a lot more liberal, perhaps, than we think they are- or they think they are....I think part of the problem is that we don’t really have a progressive party in this country. We have the Democrats, who are what the Republicans used to be when I was a kid. They’re a pro-business party, a corporate-friendly, pro-business party. And then we have the Republicans, which are just a club for angry white people and Jesus freaks” [audio clips from interview available here].

Here we go again. 

During his opening monologue on ‘Real Time’ Friday night, Bill Maher, couldn’t resist piling on to the David Letterman controversy and the sex jokes made by him earlier in the week regarding Sarah Palin’s daughter.

In defending his friend, Maher thought Republicans had over reacted and this was just a case of ‘fake’ outrage. Much ado about nothing. He then went on talking about how Letterman had invited Sarah Palin and her young daughter, Willow, to appear as guests on his show but the Governor declined because she thought it would be wise to keep her daughter away from him. Said Maher, “…that’s right, he’s 62 years old, he’s gonna f*** her right there on stage…it would be very wise to keep her, very wise, yes. You know, I’d worry a little more about the 18-year old hockey players who knock up your daughters.” To which his audience of trained seals laughed and clapped and had a good old time. 

I sat there stunned. Much like his pal Letterman, as far as I was concerned, Maher had crossed the line. Big Time. What is it with these guys? 

A rather peculiar thing happened on CNN's "Reliable Sources" Sunday: Bill Maher trashed liberals.

Speaking with Howard Kurtz about how he always gets booed when he tells an Obama joke, Maher said "we get a very supersensitive liberal audience" on HBO's "Real Time," and "it's always that limousine liberal crowd that just has their finger on the politically correct button...That's what bugs me the most about liberals is that they just -- they object before they even know what they're objecting to." 

Despite Maher also claiming that "especially on campuses in the last 10 or 15 years, the repression of speech has come more from the left," one got the feeling the "Real Time" host wasn't being completely honest about his distaste for liberals when he later complained about Democrats: "We don't really have a party that represents me or any progressives."  

As you'll see from the following partial transcripts, Maher's positions were rather hypocritical (video embedded below the fold, relevant sections at 24:00 and 31:30):

Bryant Gumbel is still around, popping up monthly on HBO, which provides him with a platform to continue forwarding liberal nostrums unrelated to reality. On this month's edition of Real Sports, the sports news magazine he anchors, Gumbel decided the answer to inner-city gang violence is...more gun control!

Following a story on a rash of seven shootings with five deaths of high school athletes in the Norfolk/Virginia Beach/Portsmouth region of Virginia, an area reporter Jon Frankel described as “besieged by gangs, guns and fear,” Frankel told Gumbel “that there has been a real growth of gang activity in the area” as authorities have “really seen tremendous growth of these kids, you know, putting down stakes and saying 'this is our turf, stop messing with us.'” To which, Gumbel responded:

Let me get on my own soapbox here: I mean, they're talking about doubling the anti-gang unit. Why's nobody talking gun control?

As if gangs don't use guns to murder in states with strict gun control.