Bill Maher on Friday proudly equated the Casey Anthony verdict with Republican thinking.
Unfortunately for him, conservative author Ann Coulter was present, and when she got the chance to respond during the internet-only Overtime segment of HBO's "Real Time," she nicely exposed some of the host's most delicious hypocrisies (video follows with transcript and commentary):
BILL MAHER, HOST: And finally, New Rule, if you can look at a crime where everything points to one answer and not see it you're a dumb ass. And if you can look at the deficit and not see that the problem is that the rich stopped paying taxes, you're a Republican.
Before Coulter interrupts, I must.
As NewsBusters reported last August, the liberal think tank the Brookings Institution calculated that extending all of the Bush tax cuts for an additional ten years would cost the Treasury a total of $3.675 trillion.
Of that, Brookings identified that $679 billion - or roughly $68 billion a year - would go to married couples making over $250,000 and individuals earning in excess of $200,000.
It therefore is logical to conclude the cost of these taxes the previous ten years since enacted in July 2001 has been somewhat similar - roughly $68 billion per year.
As we currently have a $1.5 trillion deficit, exactly how would it disappear if we had $68 billion more in revenues?
I guess using Maher's premise, if you look at the deficit and believe the problem is because the rich stopped paying taxes, you're either a Democrat, a liberal comedian, or both.
But I digress:
MAHER: And before you accuse me of equating the Casey Anthony verdict with Republican thinking, save your breath, I am. I am. I'm equating them. I’m saying if you're a working class American who still votes Republican then you don't get to bitch about that verdict.
ANN COULTER: They were all Democrats. I bet they were.
MAHER: You bet they were.
COULTER: The entire OJ jury…
MAHER: I’m doing something now.
COULTER: I don’t care. The entire OJ jury were Democrats.
MAHER: I’ll see you in court.
COULTER: The entire OJ jury were Democrats.
MAHER: My lawyer will. In his press conference last week President Obama said maybe, just maybe, the problem with the budget is that the billionaires were quote "enjoying the lowest tax rates since before I was born." Yeah, like we believe Obama was born.
Now here's Obama’s thinking, and it’s a little counter-intuitive, but try to follow it. When Clinton was president, the rich paid a little more taxes and the government had money. Then Bush cut all those taxes and now we don't. I know it's hard to grasp. It involves subtracting. But in suggesting that in these desperate times we slightly raise the tax on private jets, Obama was baiting the Republicans to look like extremists by defending private jets, but the gambit failed because half the people are not outraged. Half of them say I'm with the Party that cuts all these programs for real people, for the 99 percent - planned parenthood, environmental protection, college, health care, infrastructure - but holds the line on private jets. Voting for them is as stupid as voting not guilty for the mom who lost her baby for a month and went looking at a wet t-shirt contest.
[Applause]
MAHER: Every election, roughly half the population votes Democrat and the other half votes Republican. Now, I understand why the Republicans get one percent of the vote - the richest one percent. That other 49 percent, someone will have to explain to me.
Unfortunately for him, Coulter was still around in the internet-only Overtime segment wherein she did indeed explain it to him as only she can:
MAHER: First of all, do you want to respond to that editorial? I could feel you chomping at the bit.
MAHER: Well, now you can respond.
COULTER: I didn’t, I forgot we had this internet section, so I tried to pretend I was listening to music.
MAHER: Well, I basically was saying…
COULTER: Okay, one thing is, okay, I got the basic idea – one percent of Americans with their private jets, the ones you fly, Bill, because you’re such an environmentalist.
[Applause]
MAHER: Well, I did when we had debates.
COULTER: Oh, it was just for me.
MAHER: It was just for you.
Nice. Does anyone doubt for a second that Maher, like most of the global warming believing Hollywood elites, flies private jets whenever it's possible?
They sure don't care about carbon dioxide when they're emitting it.
But that wasn't the only hypocrisy Coulter exposed:
COULTER: Okay. I don’t understand why anyone who wasn’t part of the 40 percent of America working for state, local, or federal government would ever vote for the Democratic Party since that is what the Democratic Party stands for. And as I told you interrupting your joke – sorry, but I couldn’t help myself…
MAHER: I understand.
COULTER: …it is a fact that every juror on the OJ case was a Democrat. Everybody blames the blacks. Not me. I blame the Democrats.
[Applause]
MAHER: Well, I…
COULTER: Ha!
MAHER: Alright, let’s move on.
It's nice to be the host and be able to change the subject when you've been exposed as a hypocritical dunce.
All in all, it was a good evening of liberal hunting for Coulter.
Brava!
