Originally published by The Washington Times, 1-14-11. Used by permission.
Although it has become fashionable for liberals to challenge right-wing “hate speech” with patronizing pleas to “tone down the rhetoric” and a microscopic ability to examine their own verbal ammunition, the discussion reached an all-time low this week following Arizona’s fateful shootings.
Quick to add his personal spin on recent history, Bill Maher received quite the surprise while appearing on The Tonight Show, Tuesday, January 11th. This time, television’s hip crowd did not seem to appreciate Maher’s clever willingness to associate conservatives with violence.
Said Maher, “The right-wing loves, the go-to rhetoric for them is, “Wouldn’t it be fun to kill the people we disagree with?”
Bill Maher on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
(Photo: Paul Drinkwater/NBC)
When members of the audience started booing, Maher asked them if they ever read. Such arrogance is par for the course with this smug celebrity and his personal track record of designating those who disagree with him as nothing but a pack of morons.
One cannot help but think of another recent shooting: The Pentagon incident. Bill Maher, in the middle of a standup routine commenting on how the perpetrator was gunned down said, “Why? Why? Why couldn’t this have been Glenn Beck?”
Call me a romantic, but Maher seemed to be having “fun” with the idea of Beck’s death. Yes, I do understand: The brilliant, artistic wit was in the middle of a comedy monologue. He did not intend for his well written oratory to be taken as a literal call to violence. But then, we conservatives are not the ones who need to be convinced that lone gunmen, (rather than the words they may be exposed to) are responsible for their own actions. If Maher really wants to go through this door, he’d be well advised to look both ways first, to the left as well as the right.
###
Bob Siegel is a radio talk show host and columnist. Information about his radio show can be found at www.bobsiegel.net.
Reactions to all of Bob’s articles will be read and commented on over the radio. The reader who posts comments is welcome to call in and respond to on-air remarks. Call in toll free number: 1-888-344-1170.
Comments 3
Well said. It is important that EVERYONE try to tone down the PERSONAL rhetoric, not because this tragic incident was in any way caused by “hate speech” (it clearly wasn’t). but because the rhetoric is counterproductive to being able to have the vigoruos policy debates that are necessary to keep our country strong.
I’ve just completed a long exchange of comments on Facebook with a leftie that thinks that right wing “violence-speak” is far more prevalent than left wing. It caused me to do some research on the Internet, and you might find the results interesting.
As expected, it’s the left wing politicians and luminaries — from Obama on down — that provide most of the supposed “violence-speak.” And the left wing attacks are on their GOP political opponents, while the best my Internet adversary could come up with were right wing references to the civil war, and hostile comments by Republicans against terrorists and convicted murderers.
I may put this together as a blog item, but in the meantime, it’s posted on my Facebook page.
Bravo, Bob. You are a calm oasis of logic in the desert of celebrity-driven politics.