I remember when Bill Maher lost his job at ABC. Do you remember what he did that cost him his job? Let me refresh your memory. The president called the 9/11 hijackers ‘cowards’ for killing thousands of innocent people. Mr. Maher thought that ‘coward’ was a curious descriptor for people who had just flown an airplane at full speed into the Twin Towers and Pentagon. Whatever else you might say about the hijackers, they didn’t seem to be lacking in courage. This observation was considered behind the pale of polite conversation and Maher was packed and on his way to HBO.
I mention this because a bunch of right-wing outlets, both here and abroad, have been racing to argue that the Norwegian terrorist might have overreacted but he had a point about how awful it is to have Muslims living in Europe. Now, I’ve read about how Europe spent a half-century debating how to solve the Jewish Question before settling for annihilation. So, it’s not like I haven’t heard about these debates before. I just think it is kind of grotesque to see it advanced in the Jerusalem Post, if you know what I mean.
Now, people should have the right to say what they want. But I note the double standard. Saying anything that could be construed as somewhat complimentary about the 9/11 hijackers would lose you your job, even if it was basically an obvious truth. But no such standard applies to complimenting the writings of Anders Breivik. Someone tell MSNBC.
I remember it well. The host of “Politically Incorrect” was fired for saying something “Politically Incorrect.” I haven’t watched Disney (ABC and other networks) since then. For suggesting that the terrorists were not “cowards” but that they were possibly brave martyrs was too much for the conservative-American brain to handle and we all feared head explosions all around us. Top that off with calling George Bush an idiot and you were certain to be fired in this country at that time I guess.
My workplace was exactly the same at the time. I worked with a bunch of authoritarians who would literally cry if you criticized their hero, George W. Bush. They had phony movie posters of George Bush saving the world with his trusty sidekicks Dick and Rummy and Condi. They even had George and Condi Action Figures. I joked about them (truthfully criticizing their incompetence) and these co-workers were offended. They really saw these fools as their HEROES. (shaking my head in disgust.)
I don’t know what to say about the Israeli connection with this terrorist. Note that I don’t say Jewish because there is a huge difference between Jewish and Israeli. I can say that he (the terrorist) was allied with conservative Israeli parties who hated Muslims. But he hated regular Jews, unless they lived in Israel and were scared/hateful Likud party bigots.
The opposite of coward is not brave martyr for the cause, there are other terms – (was was going to say foolhardy, but that doesn’t cover it). Bill Maher wasn’t suggesting they were brave martyrs for the cause in fact I could see them firing him for that), he simply remarked that among their characteristics cowardice didn’t seem to be one of them.
I didn’t say “for the cause.” But he did suggest that they were pretty brave (braver than he) and not cowards, as George Bush called them in one of his dramatic speeches made from a secure location inside the protective Presidential bubble. And while true, some people suffered head explosions over that.
Yup. There have always been forms of “political incorrectness” that are politically correct, and forms that are politically incorrect. As long as Maher mostly stuck to the politically correct ways of being politically incorrect, he was safe.
I loved the show when it started on Comedy Central, where he had Carte Blanche to say whatever the hell he wanted (except swear words) and never had to worry about offending anyone. When Disney (ABC) bought the show, they promised him he would have the same freedom. And then 9/11 happened (Oh No!) and suddenly people thought the whole world had changed because we were all suffering from PTSD as a result of being forced to watch the events of 9/11 for 3 weeks non-stop on all channels without commercials. And then the Anthrax attacks. We were under siege! We became a collective of zombies and if anyone said anything controversial, they were tossed out of the collective by the “authorities.”
Don’t you think the commercial interests in this country took advantage of us all through this period before we woke up? I felt raped daily by them because the shock didn’t last as long on me as it did on most people around me.
A sad period in American history.
George W Bush was a big pussy, just like his father GHWB.
When 9/11 happened, what did W do? Sneak away on AF-1, fly around looking for a safe place to hide out, skulk back to DC and only show up in NYC more than a week later.
Bill Clinton was in Oz when 9/11 went down, and even then, he got back to Ground Zero before W did. W was a pussy.
When the Chinese brought down a US recon plan and crew, what did W do? Make credible threats of all out war and nuclear annihilation? Stage a rescue mission? No, of course not…instead he puckered up and kissed the Chinese Premier’s wrinkly ass. Because W was a pussy.
Yes, that expression is sexist (or anti-feline) as all hell; too bad it fits W to a T.
Obama hasn’t been tested as much, so there’s no clear comparison. Yet.
The heart of the double standard is racism; racism has always been politically useful; politics & the corporate media work together.
Logic or fairness just isn’t applicable.
In no way do any corporate media narratives reflect what I, personally, perceive as truth & I don’t expect them to. That’s not what they’re for.
Well, there is this difference between the response to Maher and to Breivik — Maher was commenting on a story and Breivik is the story. So I don’t think the situations are quite comparable. But I agree with both your points — that it was outrageous what the media and the right did to Bill Maher, and the right’s fawning response to this rightwing killer is just stunning.
I think Booman is talking about the commenters, not Breivik. When he links to a story titled “Pat Buchanan Praises Breivik’s Cultural Analysis” I suspect that Pat Buchanan is loosely in the role of Bill Maher in this story while Breivik is in the role of the 9/11 terrorists.
Not a perfect analogy since Maher was not agreeing with the terrorists ideals, merely commenting on the fact that “cowardly” doesn’t seem like an appropriate descriptor (in the smarmy way that Maher has when commenting on any topic) while Buchanan is positioning to agree with Breivik’s beliefs while mildly denouncing his methods.
And Maher was the one who was fired.
Got it. Anyhow, I agree with the two basic points.
Any thoughts about this?
She brings up some good questions. I’d love to hear some answers because I remember what the right-wingers did to Ward Churchill. It was ugly.
Boo, you left out a rather important part of the Maher story.
He didn’t just say that the hijackers were brave; he followed it up with “The people who sit 1000 miles away and press buttons are the cowards,” meaning American pilots and whatnot.
He didn’t support da troops; that’s why he got fired.
You’re joking, right? Of course that’s what he meant but not out of disrespect to “The Troops.”
It was a comparison of the neo-cons in the administration who never served but have no problem disposing of the lives of “the troops” to achieve a goal.
Compare this to the capabilities of those we’re attacking, whether they’re the enemy or not. They don’t have that luxury. They have to be brave and die fighting if they are to have a chance at saving their tribe.
We would rather drop bombs from 30,000 feet and have hundreds of dead brown people below, which we won’t count, and call them “collateral damage” because our lives are more important than theirs. And we pray that we killed the intended target along with all the innocent civilians that we don’t care about.
In fact now we don’t even risk pilots lives. We run satellite-controlled “drones” with all of the pilots safely operating them from Las Vegas. But we still have tons of “collateral damage.”
But who cares about that? Look over there! Nothing to see here.
Was there anything in my comment that indicated it was a joke?
I was discussing the history of why Maher got fired. He was fired for precisely the reasons I explained. Your impression of his “real meaning,” a topic I never wrote word one about, is irrelevant.
That’s right. As I remember, anyone who opposed the President’s policies at the time were criticized as “not supporting the troops.” Even if they did support “The Troops.”
I guess Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld counted as (executive?) “Troops.”
Bill Maher never criticized the “real troops” though he may have criticized some of our crazy war plans that deserved critique.
Nothing personal. This subject just really rubs me the wrong way. Too many painful memories of authoritarian assholes shouting down weak liberals like me for being insufficiently “patriotic” for criticizing a dumb war that we should never have gotten involved in.
A tip: when someone uses the phrase “He didn’t support da troops,” note the spelling, he’s not expressing his own innermost thoughts, but rather, making a reference to a larger socio-political meme in recent political history.
I have no trouble locating large concentrations of cowardice in our elite institutions. The most notable are perhaps for me the paid and serious war-mongers with their endless theories about lights and tunnels.
Probably:
Cantor to GOP: Quit whining and vote