[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? 

"Remember during the campaign when John McCain attacked [Barack] Obama for acting like a celebrity and we all laughed at the grumpy old shellshocked fool? Well, it turns out he was right ...  It's getting to where you can't turn on your TV without seeing Obama."

That's not a Republican talking. It's Obama supporter Bill Maher in an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, "Enough With the Obamathon." Maher - like most clear-thinking individuals - has pretty much seen enough of the never-ending adulation and exposure being heaped on President Obama. (I must admit: I never thought I'd use the words "clear-thinking" and "Maher" in the same sentence. But Maher's op-ed proves the old adage that even a broken clock is right twice a day.)

From Maher's article:

If your liberal friends are brazen enough to declare that not only do Fox News and Limbaugh and Hannity and Ingraham and Levin encourage "domestic terrorism" with their "militia-style" rants, but they also claim "media liberals don't traffic in irresponsible talk of murder and violence and terrorism," here's just a fraction from our Notable Quotables archives that ought to put a stop to it:

-- As a final crash of self-indulgent nonsense, when the incontrovertible truth of your panoramic and murderous deceit has even begun to cost your political party seemingly perpetual congressional seats....this advice, Mr. Bush: Shut the hell up! Good night and good luck." — MSNBC's Keith Olbermann in a "Special Comment" on Countdown, May 14, 2008.

-- "Good evening. A President who lied us into a war and, in so doing, needlessly killed 3,584 of our family and friends and neighbors." – Keith Olbermann on Countdown, July 2, 2007.

-- "I’m just saying if he did die, other people, more people would live. That’s a fact." – Host Bill Maher on his HBO show Real Time, March 2, 2007, discussing how a few commenters at a left-wing blog were upset that an attempt to kill Vice President Cheney in Afghanistan had failed.

Catching up with Friday night's Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO, guest D.L. Hughley -- the actor/comedian who until recently had a show on CNN -- insisted “you never saw drugs or drive-byes or homeless people” in inner-cities before Reagan “cut” social programs and became “the Moses of...greedy white men.” Left-wing blogger Jeremy Scahill predicted “some guys” will pull down the new Capitol rotunda Reagan statue “and drag it through the street like the Saddam statue with some kid hitting it with a shoe.”

Pegged to the placement of the new statute of Ronald Reagan, Hughley declared: “I didn't love Ronald Reagan.” Maher echoed “I didn't either,” and then Hughley launched a rant with distortions of quotes from Ronald Reagan, as he recalled:

I grew up in Los Angeles inner city -- you never saw drugs or drive-byes or homeless people or anything like that. All the social programs that were cut as a result of Reagan coming into office and greed just became a hobby....I remember watching...him say people in America who are homeless are homeless because they want to be. That seemed to be one of the most-- and I was a kid -- I knew how cruel that was and I would never, you know, ascribe any level of greatness to somebody who would say, you know, if somebody's hungry in America it's because they're on a diet. Like that, to me, made greedy white men feel good about being greedy white men. He was the kind of the Moses of leading them to feeling good about being greedy white men. So to me he wasn't a great man.

On Friday night’s Real Life with Bill Maher on HBO, the host typically assaulted the Bible and the God of the Old Testament. He said of the Bible and the Koran "These are two books that are filled with hatred and wickedness and all kinds of immorality. I mean, I can’t think of a character who is less reliable as a role model than the God of the Old Testament." Newsweek editor Jon Meacham could only respond with pandering humor for liberals: "He’s kind of Cheneyesque actually – that runs through the God of Abraham...He didn’t shoot anybody. He smited them."

As Maher suggested he was too bright to believe in Jesus the "Jewish Zombie," Meacham also lauded how America has moved beyond a "public piety," as symbolized by Mel Gibson’s 2004 film The Passion of the Christ. "It doesn’t feel to me that we’re in the same place in terms of public religiosity and public piety that we were when Mel Gibson released The Passion of The Christ five years ago, when basically, he made an anti-Semitic film, and the only thing you can say about it is it’s the best film ever made in Aramaic." Surprisingly, Maher said he liked the movie, and he didn’t find it anti-Semitic, but that "the priesthood" had Jesus killed because he threatened their power.

Newsweek editor Jon Meacham appeared on Friday night’s edition of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, and acted like a great moderator in the debate over Barack Obama, that he was neither the "Indonesian sleeper agent" the right imagined, or the "Messiah" the left imagined, but just a "very, very hardball, hardcore practical politician" willing to commit "great sins" in war time.

Meacham also assailed what he called the "fundamental illogic" of Dick Cheney’s remarks, saying he isn’t fighting Obama so much as his old Bush colleagues.

Bill Maher was very upset the Democrats were such "pussies" on closing Guantanamo, and assailed that "dusty old dumbass" Harry Reid for enabling a 90-6 vote against funding a Gitmo closing until the White House has a plan for it. Meacham agreed that it was "insane." But then he added:

You have political reality that goes back to something you mentioned. Obama during the campaign was a screen on which a lot of people projected their hopes, their anxieties, their dreams for the country. A lot people saw in him what they wanted to see. The right saw an Indonesian sleeper agent who, you know, was going to turn us into a socialist country. President Bush did that in September.

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):

On his Friday show Real Time, HBO host Bill Maher interviewed the female rapper M.I.A. (real name: Mathangi Arulpragasam) on the end of civil war in her native Sri Lanka. Maher used the interview to denounce the ignorance of Americans, a Maher staple, but then he insisted that "we" Americans think of the Buddhists and the Hindus as "more spiritual" and peaceful than we are.

Maher explained that the Tamils (the heritage of M.I.A.) are mostly Hindu, and the Sinhalese majority are mostly Buddhist. She insisted it isn't a religious war, and Maher replied:

It’s interesting because I think in America, we think of the Buddhists especially, but also the Hindus as much more spiritual than we are, people who wouldn’t engage in atrocities and things like that. Not really the case, is it?

Later, after the interview, he returned to his theme that all religions are bad. While Americans think of Hindus as "They’re the people who run my Yoga class. They couldn’t possibly be involved in death and ethnic cleansing and slaughter. But it [religion] really doesn’t stop anybody. If anything, it justifies violence more than stops it."

Film director Ron Howard is “very optimistic” about the future of America, so long as the nation makes an “adjustment,” to fulfill his hope a “more progressive” nation will mean “at a certain point I don't think we'll be so consumed with being the pre-eminent super-power and, you know, driven by sort of militarism and this need to export, you know, democracy.” Howard's reasoning, on Friday night's Real Time with Bill Maher, came in response to Maher's formulation that America has “seen better days. We're sort of in place that has made a lot of people nervous. Some people would say this country has jumped the shark.”

Howard, who is out promoting 'Angels & Demons,' a sequel to 'The Da Vinci Code,' replied: “I'm a very optimistic person and I don't want to feel like there isn't growth, but there needs to be an adjustment anyway.” He proceeded to credit the insights he gained working on his movies with Europeans: “I've actually spent a lot more time in Europe and working with crew members and actors and understanding how they live and how they think.” Howard predicted “our lives are going to be better” because “we're going to be more progressive.”

Audio: MP3 audio clip whitch matches video (1:30)

The War Against Conservative Opinion (WACO) took an interesting turn on Saturday when liberal bloggers blamed right-leaning media members -- in particular, Fox News's Glenn Beck -- for the shooting deaths of three police officers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Since then, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and David Shuster have echoed this insanity on the air, as has CNN's Rick Sanchez who also pointed fingers at Fox News's Sean Hannity.

As my colleague Jeff Poor reported, this was Olbermann's rant during Tuesday's "Worst Person in the World" segment:

The hubbub over conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh proclaiming he hoped the policies enacted by President Barack Obama fail has gone on for months. It has drawn scorn and condemnation from voices in the media and on the left.

However, one committed and very controversial lefty isn't as up in arms about it as one might have thought he would be. HBO's "Real Time" host Bill Maher told the Orlando Sentinel on April 6 Limbaugh's remarks weren't as outrageous as some of his allies on the left have alleged. However, he did manage to take one shot at the conservative radio host.

"Maher says he is surprised the Republicans didn't give Obama more of a honeymoon," Hal Boedeker, the television critic for the Orlando Sentinel, wrote. "His take on Rush Limbaugh? ‘We all say crazy stuff when we're high,' Maher says, with a laugh. But Maher doesn't criticize Limbaugh for a line about hoping Obama will fail."

Three Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, police officers were killed on Saturday, and according to prominent left-wing bloggers including the Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan and Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos, it's because of conservative talk show hosts on radio and television.

Most frequently named as the culprit in such vitriolic postings was Fox News's Glenn Beck.

Such a disgusting conclusion stems from comments made to the press by friends of assailant Richard Poplawski as to why he might have carried out such a heinous act.

As the Associated Press reported Saturday:

Sometimes you just have to laugh at the Pauline Kael-like left. It seems that leftists in America are either mentally stunted or living in such an enclosed, bubble-world that they cannot discern reality from their own fantasy. Such is the case with the faux shock expressed by one Chuck Blow from The New York Times whose April 3 article is filled with the horror that some on the American right might not wish much success for a president of the United States. One must laugh at this man's alarm and wonder if he missed the last eight years where Bush, Cheney -- and at the end, even today, Palin -- were hung in effigy, where the past president was wished a long and torturous death, and where the left wanted untold horrors visited upon them and all Americans that support Republicans?

Charles' sudden awakening to the passion that politics brings is amusing if only to the extent that it is so empty of any introspection. It is hilarious that Chuck only just now had his eyes opened to enflamed political rhetoric and talk of the grave concerns for this country by many millions of his fellow Americans. Sad, in the end, that this guy thinks such vitriol has only just now come from the American right as if born fully grown and never-before-seen.

Chuck must surely have been in a coma since the year 1999.

It might be par for the course, but liberal cable talk show host Bill Maher has once again done his best to offend with a distasteful and insensitive wisecrack about the U.S. military.

Maher launched into a rant on his March 27 HBO show, "Real Time with Bill Maher" about American soldiers still stationed in Germany and Japan and took a swipe at the soldiers, insinuating they were rapists.

"Forget about bringing the troops home Iraq - we need to get the troops home from World War II," Maher said. "Can anybody tell me why in 2009, we still have more than 50,000 troops in Germany and 30,000 in Japan? At some point these people are going to have to learn to rape themselves."

Raspy left-wing talk show host Lionel (no surnames needed) hailed fellow leftist Bill Maher Friday on the Huffington Post with an article titled "God Bless Bill Maher." Lionel says he should win, without any challenge, "the award for best critical thinking by a television news commentator." (He quickly steps on that analysis by adding, "Bill Maher and Jon Stewart have earned my seal of approval for cogent commentary.") Why the honor? The atheism is apparently lovable:

Bill Maher has a point of view shot through his own perspective barrel with its own rifling. You can see his comedic ballistic marks. We know his frame of reference. Personally, I love his take on religion and [Maher's film] Religulous is brilliant. I'm biased. As is he.

Fox New's Glenn Beck is increasing "the chance for people to take horrible action" on President Obama.

So said HBO's Bill Maher Friday evening in a lengthy discussion about FNC's new primetime star.

I guess Maher missed the hypocrisy concerning his disturbingly caustic views of the Bush administration while they were in power, in particular his expression of regret that the March 2007 assassination of Vice President Dick Cheney failed. 

Possibly even more delicious was that sitting to Maher's left was MSNBC's Keith Olbermann who himself has made an almost endless number of personal attacks on members of the Bush administration during his tenure on "Countdown."

Alas, Maher seemed oblivious to all this seemingly obvious irony (video embedded below the fold courtesy our friend Ms Underestimated):

One of the highlights of the evening last night at the 2009 Media Research Center Gala and DisHonors Awards for yours truly was radio host Mark Levin, who served as an awards presenter.

With stinging humor, Mr. Levin zinged journalists and liberal pundits left and right -- or should I say lefter? -- so I took the liberty of taking some of the best lines and editing it down to a nearly 4-minute long video.

Click the embedded video at right to enjoy. An audio version is available here.

The Media Research Center (MRC) today proudly announces that HBO's Bill Maher is the "Winner" of Quote of the Year for tastelessly suggesting that Sarah Palin's teenage daughter Bristol was the actual birth mother of her infant son, Trig. Maher was selected by the more than 800 attendees of the MRC's annual DisHonors Awards Gala, held last night at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Washington, D.C.

Maher-- winner of the Half-Baked Alaska Award for Pummeling Palin -- beat out MSNBC's Chris Matthews (the Media Messiah Award), CNN founder Ted Turner (the Dan Rather Memorial Award for the Stupidest Analysis) and ABC's Bill Weir (the Obamagasm Award).

As NewsBusters previously reported, conservative Internet entrepreneur Andrew Breitbart went into the belly of the liberal beast Friday evening by appearing on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher."

Although he was treated abysmally by the host, his co-panelist, and the audience, Breitbart stated in Monday's Washington Times column that he had the time of his life.

More importantly, he strongly made the case concerning why conservatives must stop avoiding encounters with shameless, liberal media members such as Maher, Jon Stewart, and even the good ladies of "The View" and instead "take [them] on head-on" (h/t Hot Air):

Did you know that the racism in our country is coming from Rush Limbaugh?

That's what HBO's Bill Maher said on Friday's "Real Time."

Not just that, but also the people who are buying guns and ammunition since Election Day are doing so "because they're afraid that Obama and his Negro army are going to come and get" them.

I kid you not.

Such offenses occurred in the following exchange between Maher and his conservative guest Andrew Breitbart (video embedded below the fold, relevant section at 2:37):

The good folks in the Obama administration and in the media took on the wrong foe with Jim Cramer, for the outspoken CNBC personality struck back at his ill-informed and economically-challenged critics Monday in a fashion those that have watched him for years have grown to expect.

In his self-titled "Cramer Takes on the White House, Frank Rich and Jon Stewart," the "Mad Money" host: referred to the current White House as "exacerbating the crisis with its budget and policies"; accurately exposed the New York Times' Frank Rich and comedian Jon Stewart for cherry-picking snippets of his on-air recommendations in order to discredit him, and; complimented the civility of folks on the right declaring, "I always love anyone from Fox on the team because they are fierce in their defense with much less gratuitous slamming."

How delicious. Here are some of the highlights:

In today's Pot Calling the Kettle Black moment, Bill Maher thinks CNBC's Jim Cramer isn't helping by suggesting that President Barack Obama is Lenin.

This coming from a man who built an entire weekly television program on HBO savagely attacking George W. Bush and anyone associated with his Administration.

Despite the obvious hypocrisy, on Friday's "Real Time," as Maher was talking to CNBC's Erin Burnett about economic and financial coverage on her network, he actually said the following (video embedded below the fold, h/t NB reader Al Holloway):

On March 10, conservative author Ann Coulter will debate liberal comedian Bill Maher at the Citi Performing Arts Center in Boston.

Sadly, the facility only seats 3,600 people, for this event, ironically organized by Madison Square Garden Entertainment, is sure to be a hot ticket given the fiery personalities involved.

As reported by the Eagle-Tribune Sunday:

The Oscar folks selected Bill Maher to hand out the Best Documentary awards on ABC on Sunday night (his old TV home before he mocked our "cowardly" pilots six days after 9/11), and he was quick to note his film "Religulous" was not among the nominated. He suggested it wasn't because he made a junky film, but because the topic was too controversial:

"Now as a producer and a star of my own documentary this year, the one about religion that didn't get nominated. I know, it's a touchy subject. But someday, we all have to confront the notion that our silly gods cost the world too greatly. But there I go, ruining the ending."

But if the topic was too controversial to be even nominated, let alone win, why was Maher allowed to come out and spew his atheism on ABC?

Perhaps Maher should have pondered that he might be the opposite of Sally Field. It's not about God. It's about you. They don't like you. They really, really don't like you.

Maher tried not to sound bitter as he hailed documentarians as our "windows on the world" (cliche alert) and claimed "They give us the truth." That is a very broad brush, like saying every comedy movie is funny.

On the 2009 debut of his HBO show Real Time on Friday night, Bill Maher proposed his new solution for the economic crisis: legalize marijuana. In an interview with Rep. Ron Paul, he lectured: "When FDR came into office in '33, one of the first things he did was repeal Prohibition. He said we can’t afford this any more."

Paul was puzzled, so Maher continued: "When he was making radical changes, he said ‘look, we’re serious now. We’re gonna get serious, and people like liquor." Well, in this country, people love pot...[applause]...and if we ended that Prohibition, it’d be a giant boon of money."

He had an utterly straight face, no smirk. Paul denounced all the drug laws to such effect that Maher went back to joking. "Amen, stoner," he said to Paul.

Maher ended his show with another stirring solution to the financial crisis: executing two random rich guys to set an example: "If we killed two random, rich greedy pigs; blew them up at halftime at next year’s Super Bowl. Or left them hanging on the big board at the New York Stock Exchange, you know, as a warning, with their balls in their mouths, I think it would really make everyone else sit up and take notice."

Despite the election of President Obama, Bill Maher is still not happy with his native land, due to the lack of belief in evolution. He voiced his disapproval on Thursday evening’s Larry King Live: “I read the other day, I think only four in 10 Americans believe in evolution. It’s still not a very bright country, Larry.” He later compared Sarah Palin to former American Idol contestant Sanjaya Malakar: “She’s like a reality show contestant who just lost, and they’re always like, you know, you haven’t heard the end of me. I’m not going. Yes, you are, Sanjaya. Good bye, bye-bye.”

Maher’s criticism of his fellow citizens came three minutes into the 9 pm Eastern hour CNN program. King had asked him about the president’s first weeks in office and the proposed economic stimulus package. Despite the Obama administration’s various problems, Maher defended the president as “learning” and that “he certainly is the smartest guy we’ve had there that I can remember.” He also stated that the tax cuts that are part of the proposal “really are not stimulus.” The host then asked Maher, “Do you think he’s [Obama] going to solve this economic problem?” The comedian replied, “Well, he can’t personally solve anything....I mean this is a mess like -- and I don’t think they’re telling us really how -- how bad it is. I think that’s why Geithner was so vague the other day when he presented his plan, because I think he just didn’t want to say it’s even worse, because I think there would be more of a panic than there is.”

Praise the Lord and pass the video clips!

What do Bill Maher slamming Pope Benedict XVI as the criminal head of a pedophilia ring, Washington Post's Sally Quinn defending anti-American Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and Ted Turner founder prophesying environmental apocalypse have in common?

They are just three of the most outrageous quotes from the mainstream media in 2008 and were featured on the December 23 "O'Reilly Factor" in a segment with MRC's Director of Media Analysis Tim Graham.

You can view the segment in the embedded video at right.

Sean Hannity marks 2008 as the year journalism died. But it could just as easily be the year journalism felt a thrill going up its leg. That Chris Matthews announcement in February, that a Barack Obama speech caused him a mild ecstasy, represented the everyday "mainstream" media view. Reporters didn’t so much produce "news" during this election year as they tried to make a sale. Every story seemed to say "You know you want Obama."

Chris Matthews won the "Quote of the Year" for 2008 in the Media Research Center’s annual tally of the year’s worst reporting, or "The Best of Notable Quotables." The only quote that came close to Matthews in summing up the year in liberal tilt was this bizarre post-election headline from the Reuters wire service: "Media bias largely unseen in U.S. presidential race."