How extreme is Bill Maher? The Real Time host gets really angry when anyone says something that could be perceived as less than sufficiently anti-RonaldReagan. And it was six years ago yesterday that Maher melted down, trashing the “race-baiting” two term president as “the man most responsible for our decline.”
What set Maher off? Other liberals saying that the current GOP is so extreme, it’s too conservative for even Reagan. On June 7, 2013, he sputtered, “Ronald Reagan was an anti-government, union-busting, race-baiting, anti-abortion, anti-gay, anti-intellectual, who cut rich people’s taxes in half, had an incurable case for the military industrial complex, and said Medicare was socialism that would destroy our freedom. Sounds to me like he would fit in just fine.”
Maher ranted:
Reagan just made s—t up…. Worst of all, Reagan inspired a whole generation of people who hate government to get into government. Both sides should really stop pretending he was something other than the man most responsible for our decline.
…
When you mainstream Reagan…. the far right becomes the new middle. He wasn’t a friend to all Americans. He was patient zero for everything you’re fighting against now. He was the original teabagger. Stop agreeing he was a saint, especially when his two miracles were turning water into polluted water and walking on the poor.
Maher’s show hasn’t changed. Just a few weeks ago, journalist Fran Lebowitz appeared on the HBO program and wished death on the current president, Donald Trump: “I think we should turn him over to the Saudis. You know, his buddies. The same Saudis who, you know, got rid of that reporter. You know, maybe they could do the same for him.”
For more examples from our weekly flashback series, which we call NewsBusters Time Machine, go here.
A partial transcript of the June 7, 2013 rant is below. Click “expand” to read more.
Real Time With Bill Maher
6/7/13
BILL MAHER: Ronald Reagan was an anti-government, union-busting, race-baiting, anti-abortion, anti-gay, anti-intellectual, who cut rich people’s taxes in half, had an incurable case for the military industrial complex, and said Medicare was socialism that would destroy our freedom. Sounds to me like he would fit in just fine.
…
Reagan just made s—t up…. Worst of all, Reagan inspired a whole generation of people who hate government to get into government. Both sides should really stop pretending he was something other than the man most responsible for our decline.
…
When you mainstream Reagan…. the far right becomes the new middle. He wasn’t a friend to all Americans. He was patient zero for everything you’re fighting against now. He was the original teabagger. Stop agreeing he was a saint, especially when his two miracles were turning water into polluted water and walking on the poor.
