Click to revisit the heyday of Chelsea's 8th Avenue
My blog is featured in Susan Olsen's tell-all about the ill-fated "Brady Bunch Variety Hour"!
Growing up in Madison Heights, Mich.
The Web leads to an unexpected return to a house I grew up in.
Carlsbad, Calif. (2008)
Go Behind the Music of my high-school band, A La Plage
Little Larry left us too soon.
With Debbie Harry
With Robert Buckley
With Roger Federer
With Ed Burns
With Thomas Roberts
You've read the blog -- now read the book!
My memoir is available at Three Lives & Co. in the West Village
Like my book on Facebook here.
6 comments:
Love me some Maher -- "Religulous" was brilliant -- but he's lost me on this one.
Limbaugh's only reason for apologizing is that he's losing advertisers. The point of this threatened boycott isn't to get Limbaugh to apologize, the point is to make him GO AWAY.
Maybe Maher is concerned that someday he, too, will be the subject of an advertiser pullout. (Just don't outrage half the country with ignorant, bigoted ranting and you should be fine, Maher.)
Maher has had it (advertiser pullout) happen to him before and it cancelled his show (& him) off the air for awhile. Still, this is how the free market and public pressure should work.
Advertisers have the right to choose themselves and if they find Maher and Rush objectionable or contrary to their image, they should be encouraged to pull out. It's better than when Wendy's said it would no longer sponsor Ellen when in fact it already hadn't been...
I think there is a little bit of Maher saving his own butt. The Right is already calling on Obama to return Maher's 1M donation because of the things Maher has said of Palin and Bachman. It may happen if the Right is indignant enough. Of course, the Right is simply trying to deflect attention of Rush and themselves to some other shiny thing.
The big difference here, and something you can use in arguing this point is that Bill Maher is a comedian. Pure and simple. He does political comedy, sure, but it's still comedy. Rush on the other head is a self-made and oft quoted Republican leader. There's a big difference between the two.
Rush didn't really apologize sincerely. The words "I'm sorry" were never used. He said he used to words inappropriately. So, to Rush, if he had said "woman of ill repute" instead of slut or prostitute, everything would have been fine.
His supposed apology never addressed the issue that Rush had all of his "facts" wrong.
It's not taxpayer money buying people's insurance as Rush claimed.
The woman testified about the need to use birth control for other medical issues, not preventing pregnancy as Rush claimed. She spoke of a friend who lost an ovary because she couldn't get the pill to control ovarian cysts.
And, Rush believes that the more sex you have, the more birth control pills you have to take.
Where in Rush's apology did he make any admission that he had all the data wrong?
When Maher had his post-9/11 problems, Limbaugh, surprisingly, was one of his defenders. (He didn't even say that Maher had the right to say what he said. He said, "Bill Maher was right.")
Post a Comment