Reader Paul sent me a 5-minute segment of Andrew Sullivan’s appearance on Bill Maher’s show last night, adding these comments:
He was the initial one-on-one interviewee and they mostly talked about Wokeism. Maher pointed out that this was Sullivan’s 27th appearance on the show, the most of any guest.
In the group discussion part of the show, Maher’s anti-vaxish opinion reared its ugly head. He mentions that he’s vaccinated and “did it for the team”, hinting that he wouldn’t have taken it otherwise. Then he says he won’t be getting the booster. One of the guests was someone who consulted on COVID matters for the US military. I was happy that he pushed back hard against Maher and that Maher seemed to indicate that he was on thin ice. I suspect that Maher’s going to get an earful on Twitter today.
In the short segment, Maher heaps praise on Sullivan for his common sense, noting that their perspectives generally agree. They then discuss Andrew’s move to Substack, and Andrew admits (I don’t remember this from before) that he was indeed fired from New York Magazine (I think it was because Sullivan was going to criticize the violence and looting of some of the Black Lives Matter protestors). Andrew’s own criticism of the pro-woke mindset of magazines (including all that have “New York” in the title) is pretty good.
Here’s part of Maher’s monologue, largely about the downside of smartphone. Well, they certainly have made people nastier as well as reduced the reading of books as well as people’s attention span in general.
Max Rose was the guest that pushed back on Maher’s somewhat antivaxish take on boosters. He got a lot of twitter comments today congratulating him on it:
https://twitter.com/MaxRose4NY/status/1428054772314161155
Someone has posted the full episode to YouTube. Here’s a link that goes straight to the part where Bill says he doesn’t want to get the booster: https://youtu.be/bcLrw_y0oGA?t=2470
The first segment in which Sullivan and Maher discuss creativity and pot reminds me of what George Carlin told Jon Stewart in their interview: that, even after he got clean, he’d keep some weed around. He’d write out his routines completely sober, but then, afterward, he’d take a toke and edit them with a slightly altered consciousness.
I liked the part where Maher claimed that if he liked something he’d written while sober AND loaded, then it was a keeper. It’s good to have a process.
“Open a Ketchup restaurant” was a funny one.
He is right on the “smart phone”. Of course now that the phone has replaced the camera and the computers and keeps everyone attached to the internet it is more important than people or jobs. If I had kids, and luckily I don’t, not sure I would want them to have phones. The growing up, the childhood would be screwed.
I’m really sick and tired of Maher saying how he’s fit so he won’t take a booster if it’s recommended and he only got vaccinated “for the team”. Great. Glad you’re on the team but now stop having Bret Weinstein and Heather Hayer on to take about how we should be worried about the vaccine and every chance you get introduce more doubt to make people hesitant. When you get sick with covid, you help evolve a more deadly variant. Stop talking about how we have to just get on with our lives and how millennials are healthy enough not to get the vaccine….you aren’t understanding how evolution works. What he says may be factually true but practically wrong.
Makes no sense. It’s surprising that someone as smart as Bill Maher can’t see that. I suspect that the twitterverse has helped him see the error in his thinking.
I think he views everything from the lens of being slim. In his mind fat is the enemy. He’s not wrong but it isn’t the answer to everything. And he has one of the worst understandings of all things science. Some of it is ignorance, some bias, and some just ineptitude.
See, this is what tips the scales for me not like Bill Maher. Ok, we agree on most things, but where we don’t agree is literally on a life and death matter, and taking the right path is for the greater good while the wrong path of being anti-vaxx is both stupid and dangerous for oneself and others. So what really burns my marshmallows is how he uses his position to tout the stupid and dangerous-to-others side. I can’t forgive that one.
Yeah I’m starting lose patience too. Mostly because he is too lazy to understand the science and seems like he’s smart enough to understand the science. He seems he’s rather just believe what he wants to believe which BTW seemed to also be that there are UFOs if you watch his latest with NDT. Thankfully NDT outlined how to think more skeptically about these things.
Me also – anti-vax is one of my few deal breakers. The position puts somebody beyond the pale for me.
D.A.
NYC
“…what really burns my marshmallows…”
I love this and I’m taking it 🙂
I’ve always thought that Bill Maher is a good and funny host, but I don’t think he’s particularly smart. He’s certainly above average (lots of people are), but he’s not anywhere close to being significantly intelligent. So, I take him as he is: as a vehicle to get out certain messages I like — anti-woke, among other things — and find his positions like anti-vax very unfortunate. Thankfully, he at least isn’t completely anti-vax.
Maher’s jovial defense and approbation of male genital mutilation is deeply disturbing.
In other news, I don’t have a phone of any description. It’s very freeing.
Andrew Sullivan is the Dave Clark Five of common sense.
“Bits & Pieces”? 🙂
Any way you want it, Ken!
With Maher and Sullivan it seems like women’s is one of their easy targets that don’t require much effort to right and talk about, especially since it is useful for lampooning the left. They know they’ll get a knowing nod or laugh from people who like to shake their heads at what the world’s become. But, as Julian Vigo has pointed out, there’s no real intellectual left Nor right anymore. The application of this scale is no longer relevant to actual positions that people hold, debate, or defend. There is as much cancelation tomfoolery on those who identify as being on the Right, but there is also great danger from these people in power who are trying to destroy our democracy.
Maher’s stance on vaccines indicate that he doesn’t really apply much thought to issues except as to how he can turn them into one liners. I don’t get why thinking people pay so much attention to him. Especially atheists. His movie Religulous made him popular among atheists because it was a lampooning look at loons. Atheists seem to love that as much as the people in Idiocracy loved the show where the guy gets hit in the balls. So he gets a pass. He also gets a pass from liberals because he made fun of Dubya
There are elements of Authoritarianism throughout the spectrum in politics. Focusing on the Left (whoever they are) is easy. And it serves those in power who are holding on to power. Our democracy is under attack from people claiming to protect it, and our freedoms, but the weakness of democracy is that it relies on people.
In the meantime, Trump is rallying for MO Brooks in Alabama, two politicians who tried to incite an insurrection. But, sure, let’s focus on wokeness.
My phone didn’t like the word “wokeness” and changed it to “women’s” and I missed one instance that I didn’t realize until after the editing deadline. I apologize for the confusion.
“reduced the reading of books as well as people’s attention span in general.”
Guess the joke’s on me because I use my smartphone to read ebooks and listen to audiobooks.
I’m sceptical about all of those alleged effects of smartphones. I think Maher is right about Apple’s initiative to scan all our phones in case we are pedophiles but he is wrong about smart phones in general and he conflates them with social media. You don’t need a phone to access Facebook and you don’t need a phone to send dick pics across thousands of miles.
Likewise. I can carry 400 books in my pocket with me (and do) anywhere I go. And a few dozen audio books. I think it’s great!