HBO host Bill Maher is touring the country doing "comedy" and granted an interview in Eureka, California to reporter Myles Cochrane, who brought up a recent attack (on July 18) from Sean Hannity. "He hates God. He hates religion. He smokes pot. He wants to be Hugh Hefner. You know, he's not hard to figure out."
After running tape of Maher attacking Sarah Palin as illiterate, Hannity added "he's got his head so far up Barack Obama, without using his vernacular, he wouldn't know an intelligent person if he saw one. It's like he's got this really - it's almost a dark agenda. Hates God, hates conservatives, hates conservative women, says anything and thinks that he's funny." Maher said Hannity's too cowardly to confront him directly on Fox News:
"Sean's a little -- shall we say -- frustrated," Maher said, upon hearing Hannity's response. "These guys -- Sean did this last season for some reason -- sort of get obsessed with me for a while. There was not a day that went by for a few weeks where he wasn't (obsessed with me). He brought on a psychiatrist, this guy Dr. (Keith) Ablow -- I used to call him Dr. A Blow, to psychoanalyze me. And, of course, I would go on Sean's show! I would be happy to go on Sean's show. But they're afraid. With the Republicans, they're always afraid to talk to you directly. It's so much easier to have a straw man to work with."
He likens his doubters' critiques to a broken record.
"Always, these people, they get about three sentences in and then it's right to: 'And the Playboy Mansion', Maher said. "They're obsessed with this idea of the Playboy Mansion. Could I just tell you what the Playboy Mansion is? It's a lovely backyard, they have a few big parties every year which I have gone to for many years -- but it's about three nights out of the year! It's just a good party. Anyone can throw a good party."
Hannity also labeled Maher a "sexist" for picking on Palin and Bachman.
"It would be sexist not to talk about Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman -- to put them off limits and say 'oh you know what, they're just girls -- we won't go after them'," Maher said. "I'll go after them just like I'd go after anybody who's running for office. And that's not just Republicans, I will talk about Democrats equally if I think they're screwing up. But Michelle Bachman? Gee whiz, she just won the Iowa caucus -- she's off-limits to talk about?"
Maher said he firmly believes that the candidate who receives the Republican nomination for president will appeal to the extreme far right of the political spectrum -- they'll have to sell them to what Maher calls the "crazies." He said he feels that former presidential-hopeful Tim Pawlenty recently pulled himself out of the race because he couldn't even pretend to be as radical as some of the other candidates.
"They're gonna nominate someone who either is Michelle Bachman or is imitating what she says, because that's what they want to hear," Maher said. "Taxes and government are always wrong and always evil. And the free market is always Jesus."
As for Obama, Maher isn't really in love with the current Obama. He wants Obama to grow out his Afro like he was back in the Seventies and let the radicalism flow:
"If I had one bit of advice for Barack Obama, it would be this," Maher said. "Stop trying to make the people who will never like you, like you. You just need to understand, there's 40 percent of the population who wouldn't vote for you if you personally saved them from drowning -- so stop trying to make those people like you. They'll call you a Socialist even if you give all the money to the rich people. You're the wrong age, you're the wrong party, you're the wrong color. Just flip the script. Scare them. Grow your hair out. Be that angry black man that they're so afraid you'll be and never are. That's the Barack Obama I'd like to see."
Last week, Maher told Carla Meyer of McClatchy News Service his most important issue is climate change:
Q. What are the most important issues for you, as a citizen and voter?
A. To me, the environment is always the most important. Now, I admit that is something that can be said by somebody who has the luxury not to have to worry where his next meal is coming from. I do understand how, if you are extremely economically strapped, well, "The polar ice caps? Whatever."
Except, we do have these unprecedented triple-digit days, and we do have giant dust storms blowing over Phoenix, and Texas is just one giant, devil-red barren land now. And I can name 10 other things.
Every time you read the story in the paper about the polar ice caps melting, they're always melting faster than they thought. Whatever the last prediction was, however bad they thought it was, no, it's worse. ... This idea that it's something far in the future - not really. It's kinda happening now, and it's kinda going to get worse.
