NewsBusters.org has this post on Bill Maher's disgusting comments about Republicans and Ronald Reagan on the Friday edition of his show Real Time.
The Republican Party, besides Rudy Giuliani, Bush likes to dress up. He likes to be a cowboy, or Iceman from “Top Gun.” And they have something very gay, excuse me, going on with Ronald Reagan. I mean, they love Ronald Reagan in a way that’s just gay. I’m sorry. But, I think they want to put him on a stamp so that they can lick his backside.
I've heard the arguments before: Bill Maher is a comedian, while Ann Coulter is a commentator. But that argument doesn't wash because Coulter's outrageous comments are always countenanced as jokes.
The left has managed to turn its supposed comedy shows into political tirades for some time now. While Saturday Night Live was always harder on Republicans than Democrats, it is shows like The Daily Show and Stephen Colbert's show that put the lie to this "it's only comedy" act. I mean, Stewart touts his viewers as better informed about issues. It's very difficult to argue, on the one hand, that it is just a comedy show but, on the other hand, your viewers are getting better news from you.
But this is exactly what they will do. That's why so many lefties screamed at Ann Coulter saying that she couldn't use the word faggot to describe John Edwards or she'd end up in rehab, but Bill Maher can say Republicans want to lick Ronald Reagan's ass.
Noel Sheppard of NewsBusters also had this lovely clip from that unfettered source of vacuous opinion, Rosie O'Donnell, who appeared on Maher's show.
But I mean, Reagan was the beginning of the whole dream that they had, the right wing since you know, Roosevelt died, that they would take everything that working people have worked, you know, all this time for, and dismantle it. That’s why they liked Reagan because he’s a confederate…No, they worship him because he dismantled working rights for people. He helped make our country, like, only be about, uh, working poor, where you used to like actually be a working person like Dan and Roseanne Connor, and, like, have a house, and send your kids to college. Nobody of that, nobody who has those kind of jobs these days – of course, that don’t have those kinds of jobs here at all. They don’t even exist anymore. That whole class doesn’t even exist in this country anymore.
I hate to be the person to inform Rosie, but the reason the "working class" isn't sending their kids to college is because the price of college has skyrocketed as demand increased, not because of any Republican policy. Back in the 1980s when I went to college, it was $4 per semester hour. Now the price at the same university is $353 per semester hour. A four-year course of study at that university (not a terribly prestigious one, btw) will cost you $42,400. If you want to know why some people aren't going to college, that's the reason, not because there aren't enough blue collar jobs for Mom and Dad.
And let's look at that argument about Mom and Dad not having the same blue collar jobs to support their kids. It is true that there are fewer manufacturing jobs in the U.S. than there were in the 1970s. But that's because there are lots of jobs that weren't even jobs in the 1970s.
For example, computer programming, in the sense it is used by business today, was in its infancy and only a handful of people were programmers. But today, there are thousands of programming positions available. And even within computer programming, there are jobs that are highly paid which didn't even exist 10 years ago.
Rosie's right. We don't live in the world of Dan and Rosie O'Connor (a fictional one, btw). We live in a world with far more opportunities than Dan and Rosie could imagine. We live in a world where using your brain is going to get you more money (usually) than using muscle. We live in a world where jobs that used to be unskilled require far more and pay better. We live in a world where more education is required to keep up with the requirements.
We're not talking about the file clerk jobs of old. In the 1970s, a file clerk didn't need much skill besides an ability to alphabetize. But that's not true anymore.
Besides, I thought the reason the Dan and Rosie O'Connors sent their kids to college was so they would have a better job than unskilled labor. Does Rosie really think that parents want their kids to follow them into that sort of work?
The truth is, Rosie and Bill get to say these stupid and outrageous things about Republicans in a way that Republican commentors (even "comedians") would never be allowed to say. That's because when Republicans make these sorts of jokes, MoveOn.org and Daily KOS are there to stir up the hate machine. But when Maher and O'Donnell make worse comments about Republicans, these same apologists will tell you they are just "comedians."
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