With Grover Norquist’s help, Bill Maher once again made a fool of himself Friday evening.
In the middle of an HBO Real Time discussion about ObamaCare, the host seemed shocked to hear that Bob Dole isn’t a real conservative leading Norquist to derisively comment to former Congressman Connie Mack (R-Fl.), “He doesn’t understand the difference between Reagan and Dole” (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):
To set this up, Maher and guest Dan Savage were making the point that ObamaCare was similar to plans proposed by Republicans in the '90s as a counter to HillaryCare.
"A lot of conservatives, it was basically Bob Dole's old plan from '94," said Maher.
"Bob Dole does not exactly qualify as a Ronald Reagan, limited government Republican. I'm sorry," countered Norquist.
With a shocked look on his face, Maher replied, "What? Wow, you're bar is pretty high."
"Can you make distinctions on the left for crying out loud?" marvelously responded Norquist who then leaned to Mack sitting next to him and said, "He doesn't understand the difference between Reagan and Dole."
It of course is not surprising that Maher doesn’t have a clue about Dole’s politics, for Maher is woefully misinformed on most subjects.
Let’s set the record straight, shall we?
Throughout the course of Dole’s political career, he had a moderate voting record.
His first speech in the Senate in 1969 was a plea for federal aid for the handicapped. Later, he joined perilously liberal Senator George McGovern to lower eligibility requirements for food stamps.
So moderate was Dole that when he ran for president in 1996, he chose Jack Kemp as his running-mate to appeal to conservatives.
Quite recently, he spoke out against the GOP saying that it should be “closed for repairs.”
But that happened less than two months ago.
Why should we expect someone with his own nationally televised political talk show to be aware of it?
