Appearing as a guest on Friday's Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO, CNN host Fareed Zakaria complained that the U.S. invaded Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks, and engaged in some bizarre history revisionism as he suggested that the only response that was needed was to start locking cockpit doors.
Additionally, Zakaria went over the top in lauding President Barack Obama as being similar to Star Trek's calm and intellectually skilled Mr. Spock in adeptly handling the financial crisis without overreacting.
At 10:09 p.m. Eastern, host Bill Maher set up the discussion by arguing that he was more afraid that the U.S. would overreact to the coronavirus pandemic than he was in actually catching the illness, and then invoked the country's response to the 9/11 attacks as a mistake. Here's Maher: "After 9/11, we overreacted and wounded ourselves much more than the enemy ever could have. Do you worry that that's what's happening now?"
In his response, Zakaria dismissed the 9/11 hijackers as just "a bunch of guys with box cutters" and argued that there should not have been a military reaction:
FAREED ZAKARIA: You're absolutely right -- 9/11 happens, and basically it's a bunch of guys with box cutters who get onto planes and then use the planes as bombs. Locking the cockpit door essentially took care of that problem. Instead, we spent something like $50 or 60 billion and the next three months ramping up our Defense Department which, you know, which had almost nothing to do with protecting us from that kind of threat. Then, we built this enormous homeland security apparatus, then we went out and invaded Iraq -- I mean, none of it really related to our problem, and so, in crises, in fear and panic, we do these things.
Not mentioned was that the terrorist network that planned the attacks had a safe haven in Afghanistan, and would have carried out other attacks if its members had not been rooted out.
The CNN host listed the 9/11 attacks, the 2008/2009 financial crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic as the three worst crises since the Cold War ended, and then hyperbolically gushed over how President Obama handled the financial crisis, likening him to Mr. Spock although he accidentally said "Dr. Spock" instead:
ZAKARIA: And the distinctive feature of the '08/'09 one, is we really didn't overreact. And I do think that having a President who was Dr Spock helped in that regard. You know, Obama is very calm, very cool, very rational, and, you know, some people saw it as a lack of emotion, Dr. Spock, but when you think about it in these terms, it was really helpful to have somebody who doesn't just go with the herd, and who sits back and asks himself: "What is the right, rational answer to this problem?"
Maher corrected his guest that Dr. Spock was actually a pediatrician, and suggested that a pediatrician is needed to deal with President Donald Trump.
Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the Friday, April 17, Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO:
BILL MAHER: What I'm scared to death of is we wind up doing -- or maybe we've already done -- what we did after 9/11. We are overly influenced by dramatic death. When something is a dramatic event like this as opposed to everyday death, you know, 40,000 a month who die from obesity -- that just goes by -- opioids, lot of pollution.
After 9/11, we overreacted and wounded ourselves much more than the enemy ever could have. Do you worry that that's what's happening now?
FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST: Absolutely, and I worry that we have the wrong reactions, and we try to compensate for the things that we got wrong maybe, you know, you start fighting the last war. You're absolutely right -- 9/11 happens, and basically it's a bunch of guys with box cutters who get onto planes and then use the planes as bombs. Locking the cockpit door essentially took care of that problem. Instead, we spent something like $50 or 60 billion and the next three months ramping up our Defense Department which, you know, which had almost nothing to do with protecting us from that kind of threat. Then, we built this enormous homeland security apparatus, then we went out and invaded Iraq -- I mean, none of it really related to our problem, and so, in crises, in fear and panic, we do these things.
I will point out, you know, there are sort of three crises of the post-Cold War world -- 9/11, the 2008/2009 financial crisis, and this one. And the distinctive feature of the '08/'09 one, is we really didn't overreact. And I do think that having a President who was Dr Spock helped in that regard. You know, Obama is very calm, very cool, very rational, and, you know, some people saw it as a lack of emotion, Dr. Spock, but when you think about it in these terms, it was really helpful to have somebody who doesn't just go with the herd, and who sits back and asks himself: "What is the right, rational answer to this problem?"
MAHER: Well, I think you mean Mr. Spock. Dr. Spock was a pediatrician. And a pediatrician is definitely what this President needs.
