It’s really been amazing this past week watching liberal media members that for years have been complaining about Republican filibusters almost universally celebrate Texas state Senator Wendy Davis’s (D) filibuster of an abortion bill that clearly would have passed if she hadn’t.
Count Bill Maher amongst the hypocrites, for having just two months ago called the filibuster a “quiet coup” that is a Constitutional problem, the HBO Real Time host Friday referred to Davis as a “new political star” and her actions as “heroic” (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):
BILL MAHER: Let’s end with the, mentioning the new political star that we have on the stage in America, the Texas state Senator Wendy Davis. Did you see what she did this week? [Cheers and applause] She single-handedly stopped a draconian abortion bill from getting passed in the Texas state legislature. Stood up there, filibustered for twelve hours. [Cheers and applause] So I guess Todd Akin was right: women can shut that whole thing down.
Later in the program, Maher added to this:
MAHER: Finally, New Rule: stop saying Republicans are waging a war on women. It's not women they hate. It's women having sex that doesn't end with a baby popping out. Sex in their mind is for procreation, not recreation. The same way the G-spot is seen as just another liberal hoax that needs more study. [Laughter and applause] Alright, I bring this up because besides the heroic Wendy Davis, there were two stories in the news last week dealing with teenage sex. And just to be safe, the Vatican issued a denial.
So on June 28, when a Democrat filibusters a bill that had the votes to pass – one that Maher doesn’t agree with – she’s a “new political star” and “heroic.”
I guess Maher conveniently forgot how he’s been routinely bashing the filibuster as being a twisting of the Constitution, and that just two months ago, on April 19, he called it a “quiet coup”:
MAHER: And for those people who just hear that 90 percent of Americans wanted something, they wanted this background checks bill passed, and it couldn't get through the Senate, I want to answer that question for them. How can something that 90 percent of people wanted, how can democracy work this badly?
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof predictably agreed with Maher, after which Salman Rushdie said, “I think there's just a simple problem here, a real constitutional problem in America which is the filibuster.”
Maher agreed saying, “Yes.”
“If you have a vote which wins, is won by a simple majority by quite a wide margin,” Rushdie continued, “and that fails, there's something wrong with American democracy.”
Maher again agreed saying, “Correct.”
So, on April 19, the filibuster is “democracy working badly,” a “constitutional problem,” and “something wrong with American democracy."
But there was more that day:
MAHER: But certainly if 90 percent of people support something it should be, that’s the will of the people. The people who are elected as their representatives should be doing their bidding. And to answer this question again, one, the filibuster you say, which I have called before a quiet coup. I think it is. The Senate, it should be 50. 51 should pass, not 60, but that has become really the law of the land now.
So, on April 19, the filibuster was “democracy working badly, a “constitutional problem,” “something wrong with American democracy,” and a “quiet coup” when Republicans did it.
But two months later when a Democrat does it, she’s a “new political star” whose actions were “heroic.”
It really boggles the mind how such a bald-faced hypocrite can have his own nationally televised program.
