By Brent Baker | October 23, 2010 | 8:06 AM EDT
 

Prefacing his remarks by proposing “you never get into a political discussion unless you bring the word Hitler in. You have to have Hitler, so let's put Hitler out there,” as if that caveat lessened the vulgarity of his impending comparison, on Friday night’s Real Time actor/director/writer Rob Reiner (IMDb page) contended all the Tea Party needs to match Adolph Hitler is a charismatic leader:

He wasn’t a majority guy, but he was charismatic and they were having bad economic times – just like we are now – people were out of work, they needed jobs and a guy came along and rallied the troops. My fear is that the Tea Party gets a charismatic leader, because all they're selling is fear and anger and that's all Hitler sold. “I’m angry and I’m frightened and you should hate that guy over there.”

“Right,” Bill Maher chirped in as Reiner, to applause from HBO's Los Angeles audience, declared: “And that’s what they’re doing.”

(Apparently, that means he at least doesn’t consider Sarah Palin to be a Hitler-like charismatic leader.) Audio: MP3 clip.

By Matthew Balan | June 16, 2010 | 8:19 PM EDT
Gloria Borger, CNN Senior Political Analyst; Former Solicitor General Ted Olson; & David Boies, Lawyer | NewsBusters.orgCNN senior political analyst Gloria Borger returned to her roots as a slanted journalist on Wednesday's Newsroom with a glowing two-part report on Ted Olson and David Boies, the former rivals in Bush v. Gore who are now fighting to overturn California's Proposition 8, which outlawed same-sex "marriage." Borger portrayed their coalition as "a script that could have been written in Hollywood."

Anchor T. J. Holmes introduced the first part of the analyst's report just before the bottom of the 1 pm Eastern hour. After noting that closing arguments had begun in the lawsuit against Proposition 8, Holmes stated that the challenge was "the story of two powerhouse lawyers who have turned the partisan divide on its head. Ted Olson, a Republican, and David Boies, a Democrat, famous arch rivals in Bush v. Gore, have now joined together in this fight. It reads like a novel, which may explain why Hollywood had a lot to do with it."

Borger, who, before joining CNN as an analyst in 2007, served as a political correspondent for CBS News, continued on the Hollywood theme: "It's a script that could have been written in Hollywood. The opening shot? A lunch in the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and it starts where you might expect, with a Hollywood heavy hitter: director and actor, Rob Reiner." She featured Reiner, a well-known liberal, throughout the first part of her report, as well as Chad Griffin, a former Clinton administration staffer turned activist for same-sex "marriage."