Watched Fox News today? Taken a look at what's posted on Drudge Report or The Daily Caller? Doing any of this makes you a thought criminal and potentially violent, at least according to liberal comic Bill Maher.
Wasting no time politicizing the mass murder of nine people at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., Maher on his show last night literally pointed a finger at one of his guests, Daily Caller columnist Matt Lewis, and suggested that Lewis's website, along with Drudge and Fox News, are complicit in the massacre at the historic house of worship.
Cable television seldom gets more appalling, and Maher got his comeuppance when Lewis pounced --
MAHER: When she took over as governor (referring to South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley), she said she reached out to CEOs across the state to drum up some jobs. She said none of the CEOs, not one of them asked me about the (Confederate) flag (flying on the capitol grounds in Columbia). She said, we really kinda fixed all that when you elected the first Indian-American female governor.
See, this is the point I'm making -- they (Republicans) think they fixed all that.
LEWIS: But do you think that the flag, I mean, I agree, they should take that flag down. But do you think that's why this young man shot up that church? I think it's really ....
Earlier in the show, two of Maher's other guests, MSNBC political correspondent Joy Reid and House Democrat Luis Gutierrez of Illinois, said the Confederate flag should not be flown at the South Carolina state capitol. Among the victims at the church was its pastor, the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, who was also a South Carolina state senator.
Surveillance footage showed that the car driven by the gunman, Dylann Roof, displayed a license plate with Confederate flags. Roof's Facebook profile photo reportedly showed him wearing a jacket with the flags of apartheid-era South Africa and Rhodesia.
MAHER: Well, we can never know why someone snaps, but I betcha I know where he got his news. (laughter and applause from audience). I mean, 'cause you were coming on the show, I looked at your website the last week -- there was a lot of stories about black people. A lot of stories. Same with Matt Drudge. I mean, I think they present a really twisted view. I'm not surprised this guy thought they're taking over the country. Obviously he's a warped mind, that goes into it.
And people who don't share my politics are even more warped ...
MAHER: But I don't think it was video games.
Or anything Sarah Palin posted on a website, at least not this time.
MAHER: And I do think the media's responsible to a degree. I wouldn't say we should be droning Fox News but we did drone Anwar al-Awlaki because he inspired people. He didn't do any terrorist acts, he just inspired ...
Only if one stretches the definition of "inspired" to include active participation in planning terrorist attacks. Self-inspired, you might say.
At which point Lewis came off the ropes and swung back hard (Sorry, didn't mean to incite violence by writing that).
LEWIS: Let me just challenge you on this real quick. You have talked on shows in the past a lot, I think you did a documentary that was anti-religion ("Religulous", 2008).
MAHER: Right.
LEWIS: This guy goes into a church and shoots up a church. I would not accuse you of inspiring people to ...
MAHER: No, you got me! (laughs)
LEWIS: ... act violently because of your anti-religious rhetoric. That would be wrong of me to do. I think it's inappropriate ....
REID: But Matt, that's a non sequitur in this case. The religion was not the point. He said, I am here to kill black people.
LEWIS: He didn't go to a bowling alley. He didn't go to a rock concert.
REID: He went to a storied black church, probably the most famous black church in South Carolina, if not in the country, the birthplace of the African Methodist Episcopal church ...LEWIS: I totally agree!
REID: ... and said I'm here to kill black people.
LEWIS: And he sat and worshipped with Christian, African-American Christians at an A.M.E. church for an hour and then he killed them. I think it's safe to say religion had something to do with it.REID: Seriously?
Based on what we've learned of Dylann Roof, there appears little doubt that he was motivated by pathological hatred of black people in carrying out his heinous act. But why is Reid so quick to conclude that the fact it occurred on sacred ground is insignificant?
Lewis, not incidentally, was outmatched three-to-one during this conversation. Earlier this year, the panel discussion in the middle of Maher's program was balanced equally between liberals and conservatives, and more than once. Maher has apparently dispensed with that approach to better give himself and other liberals on the show a fighting chance.
