Letters and Comments

Democrats, Republicans, and Bill Maher

By U.S. News Staff

April 24, 2009 RSS Feed Print
  • Comment (3)

It is most unfortunate that Mary Kate Cary has taken offense at Bill Maher's article about the Republican Party and its "base" ["Bill Maher's Angry Rant Is Wrong About Republicans and Mainstream America," usnews.com]. She claims it is "mean" and "angry" in tone. I, on the other hand, find his comments to be factual, reasonable, and well thought out. The rationality of his argument belies any "angry" intention on his part. Rather, the feelings of "anger" belong to the Republicans and most of their supporters as they breech acceptable levels of discourse in their rants against President Obama, Democrats, knee-jerk liberals, and their ilk. They were apoplectic in their irrational derision of our president even before his inauguration. I can understand Ms. Cary's frustration though, since she was unable to refute the opinions that Bill Maher so ably expressed with rational arguments of her own!

Comment by David Bard of CA

I think ignoring people who just call names and restate stereotypes is the best approach. Otherwise you elevate their debasing talk to the level of a worthy discourse on politics, this country, and the future of both. It is worthwhile to state for the record that you are not a racist when you are called one because if you remain silent, some might take that as an admission of guilt. However, going any further than that is unnecessary and will likely bring you down to Maher's level of discourse, which is hateful, bigoted, and unproductive.

Comment by John Bynum of TX

Since Obama took office, the Republican Party has simply moved into mindless opposition mode. From Rush Limbaugh hoping for national failure, Cheney positioning the GOP as the torture party, the ridiculous windmill alternative budgets, the tea parties with their healthy sprinklings of goofballs of one sort and another, to the faux outrage over the Chavez handshake, it's all calculated to make the GOP look exceptionally foolish. Maher makes his living poking fun at foolish behavior, so you can hardly blame him when the GOP presents him with a target as big as an elephant. There's a mountain of evidence to demonstrate that it's doing no harm whatever to Obama, who gets stronger by the day. Ms. Cary needs to show some maturity and point out to her compadres where they are going wrong, but instead she produces this plaintive little bit of whining about a comedian doing his job.

Comment by John of CT

Maher is a classic left-wing pseudo intellectual media personality who is in a tizzy because people don't agree with him, so they must be insulted. We need to face the fact that there are now two distinct nations with distinct cultural and political values occupying the same space. The question is no longer if we will have a civil war, its only a question of when. My guess is 2010.

Comment by Jeff of MD

Excellent observations! Republicans need to huddle and come up with better plays. Cutting taxes cannot be the reply to everything. President Obama admitted early on that he's not perfect, like us. So pointing out where he may stumble does not help our country. Give him a hand—that is help him help us. Offer constructive criticism instead of criticism for criticism's sake and the Republican Party may prevent the further implosion of its party.

Comment by Keith of MA

People, quit playing into the "us vs. them," "left vs. right," "liberal vs. conservative" junk that's divided our country. Each side thinks it's about change, but it's just a different side of the same bad penny. Nothing changes. When you play partisan for one side or the other, you're playing a losing game and allowing yourselves to be tools for corruption and incompetence on both sides. The only place this division leads is civil war. That is not an exaggeration; it is the only possible outcome of this path of division. It was bad under Clinton, worse under Bush, and is intolerable under Obama. It needs to stop. Now. Those that pander to the left or right are not the only viewpoints out there. It is possible for someone to disagree with our president and not be a racist or anti-American. It's even possible for someone to protest high taxes and bailouts, and not be a Republican.

Comment by Rich of CO

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jenny dont even start, Bush was critisized the whole 8 years he was in office by democrats you hipocrit lmao

Pete of TX 12:24PM June 30, 2009

I find it interesting that when the republicans are in the white house you don't hear any kind of threats like secession from the union, or starting another civil war coming out of the mouths of their Democratic opponents. But when a strong Democratic president takes over, it seems THEN you start to hear about secession from the union and starting another civil war. The republican talking heads and other republicans have absolutely used every possible negative name calling adjective they can think up to smear Obama and the Democratic party with since the inception of Obama to the white house. They do this, rather than actually coming up with some strong ideas of their own to present for policies. They have to name call because they are not smart enough to come up with anything intelligent of their own. I heard someone or read someone say that the republicans are going to have to learn how to pace themselves. We Democrats spent 8 horrible years as we watched Geo Bush decimate the American political process and constitution. I'm so sick and tired of the republican party and all their hateful, negative nonsense. I wish they'd all go away on a collective hiatus so we don't have to hear their BS anymroe. I wish there was a law that removed the likes of Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Neal Boortz and FOX news from the media. I'm tired, tired, tired, tired of them all.

Jenny of GA 3:00PM April 25, 2009

Franklin Delanor Roosevelt (FDR) once noted: A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned to walk forward. This, of course, can be said of any politician who puts self-interest, special interest groups, and in general greed and avarice before the welfare and good order of the people and this nation.

What is happening today is an going polarization in American politics, led by the neocons, that is neither good, new, nor something that we cannot once again overcome.

When our current constitution was being written there was a wide range of opinion as to what a government should be about. One pundent of the far right noted that the purpose of government should be to protect the oppulent rich form the masses--Something the last administration excelled itself in--While others belived that the purpose of government was to do the most it could, for the most people, with the money that it has. With such divergent opinon it can be said that the only reason we have our current constitution, with its' admendments, is that those Americans at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia sought and found a concensus that, for the time, allowed them to walk forward.

Since the radification of our constitution in 1781 we have overcome and/or addressed the British in 1812, civil war, slavery, boom and bust laissez faire capitalism, WWI, the Great Depression, WWII, needed UN Police Actions, McCarthyism, the sad story of Native Americans, integration, poverty, and fuel shortages, just to name a few of the challeges we have faced and resolved to one degree or another.

We must once again unit behind a President and provide him the means to overcome the many challenges that face us today. However, FDR was handed a Congress that fully supported him and the working people of this nation. This is not so for President Obama who now faces just enough members of the old administration, members whos policies benefited and benefit only the few and the rich, members who still cling to those very polices of the last 8 years that have proven so devastating to the rest of us. As FDR noted, these are politicians who have not learned to walk forward. Perhaps in 2010 we, the people of America, need to give the President all the congressional members needed so he can more easily accomplish his mandate to the American people.

Lewis R. Lowden, North Star of MI 1:58AM April 25, 2009

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