CBS reporter Robert Costa put together a puffball interview for HBO Real Time host Bill Maher on their show Sunday Morning. They let him claim he's not ideological and didn't laugh when he said “I speak for the normies. I speak for that vast middle that is tired of the partisanship. I don’t want to hate half the country, and I don’t hate half the country.”
Bill Maher represents the "vast middle," the "normies"? Conservatives across America would make a face at that. At bottom, Maher is a bit of shock jock, so that when Democrats are in power he's going to mock them as well, just as he suggested on Friday night that the Democrats "blew it" in all their legal warfare on Trump.
What was amazing in this profile was Costa imploring Maher to lay off mockery of the Left, just shine the spotlight on the right-wingers!
Robert @costareports pressed @BillMaher on @CBSSunday: If “left irritates you,” but “the right often alarms you,” then “what do you say to critics who say you should just focus on them if they’re more alarming to you than the left, then why not shine the spotlight on them only?” pic.twitter.com/5glVpJQsFQ
— Brent Baker 🇺🇦 🇮🇱 (@BrentHBaker) May 12, 2024
COSTA: You write a lot of throughout this book that the left irritates you, frustrates you at times, but the right often alarms you.
MAHER: Yes. They’re very alarming. They’re extremely alarming. More alarming.
COSTA: What do you say to your critics, though, who say that you should just focus on them, Bill, if they’re more alarming to you than the Left. And why not shine the spotlight on them only?
MAHER: The truth isn’t one-sided like that. The Democrats constantly are,running against Trump with the idea ‘You people out there couldn’t possibly vote for this guy.’ And people are saying, ‘Watch me. Hold my beer. Watch me vote for him again.’
Earth to Bill: Your "news" people at CBS and ABC and NBC and PBS do believe the "truth is one-sided like that."
Maher then insisted Trump is a massive liar and literally crazy with malignant narcissism. CBS ran a clip of Maher citing the Glenn Kessler "lie counter" at The Washington Post: "Trump made over 8,000 false or misleading statements as president. Nothing like this has ever happened before."
What has never happened before (or since) was the Post doing a database of "false or misleading statements" by one politician. They refused to follow through with Biden. Maher could have asked Costa when he and Bob Woodward were going to do one of those investigative books on President Biden. Woodward did four on Trump. They're just like Kessler: "why shine the spotlight" on Biden?
Speaking of false statements, Maher talked about how he was willing (despite leftist protest) to interview former Trump Attorney General William Barr, in part because he found it very important that Barr was willing to say Trump lost the election. Then Maher also took after ”Bill Barr's, I thought, horrible behavior when the Mueller Report came out and he basically lied about it.”
Costa didn't ask: What's the lie? It was more about spin as the collusion case fizzled. At the time, Democrats were furious because Barr announced Mueller would not indict Trump, but they wanted wiggle room. Mueller then offered verbal flatulence to Congress, "We did not, however, make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime." But the scandal was over.
