Given the host's well-known loathing of Republicans, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi probably thought she was on friendly turf during her weekend appearance on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher."
What she clearly had not anticipated was that she was dealing with a comedian who's as much loose cannon as he is left winger.
Maher wasted little time after Pelosi appeared on his show to point out a contradiction she made in practically consecutive sentences, after her half-joking claim that Republicans gaining control of the Senate in this year's midterms would mean that "civilization as we know it today would be in jeopardy." Maher let that one pass relatively unscathed, but not this one --
PELOSI: What's interesting, what might interest you, you tell me if it's interesting, is that over 50 percent of the public doesn't even realize that there are midterm elections in November.
MAHER (pointedly): Right.
PELOSI: That is very sad, but we have to change that.
MAHER: Well, how do we change that? I mean, they always say that, you know, people, they don't get the government they deserve. I think they do. Uh, you know, the politicians are no prizes but the people are almost worthless.
PELOSI: No, the people are very wise (stated with hands clasped, as if in prayer), but the ...MAHER (pounces): But you just said they don't even know there's an election! (Pelosi laughs, to her credit). How can they be both wise and not know that?!
PELOSI (backpedaling): Well, those who, uh, let's just say, we have a responsibility to make sure that they know that there is an election.
"The people are very wise" -- translation: the peasants know what's best. That's why we must keep such a sharp eye on them, lest they rebel and threaten civilization as we know it.
While he pounced here, Maher missed another opportunity during a later discussion in the same show (when he sneered at Fox News as polarizing) about voter turnout in the midterms. NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell claimed that "a lot of people out there ... are just fed up with everything that happens in this town" (Washington, D.C.) and as a result, "aren't voting, aren't involved."
Mitchell, in her own version of Pelosi's "the people are very wise," described these uninvolved non-voters as a "silent majority of middle, moderate, thoughtful people."
Would "thoughtful people" shrug their indifference during one of the most consequential eras in our history, as serious problems accumulate at home and ominous threats worsen abroad? "Thoughtless" would be more accurate.
