On his show 10 days ago Bill Maher gave his summary of his visit to the White House to meet with Trump.....
13 remarkable minutes...
Needless to say there was instant blowback......here's a sample reaction to Maher's grovelling......
The title of the piece is "Send In The Clown".
There’s a maxim that the difference between a comedian and a comic is that a comedian says funny things, and a comic says things funny. Then there are clowns — like Bill Maher. He traded his red nose for a big brown one the second he eagerly walked into President Trump’s gaudy White Fun House of deception.
Maher, the comic who once fancied himself a fearless political truth-teller, is now wobbling under the weight of his own ego. His recent televised monologue — an extended love letter to his dinner with Trump — was less a political reflection than a highlight reel of self-flattery and unearned gravitas.
It's remarkable that an intelligent man like Maher allowed himself to be conned by Trump,
but you may recall this story from two weeks ago, "How to deal with a Sociopath"....
what just happened?” you’re asking yourself. You knew the conversation would be tricky because you had to tackle someone about their misbehavior. Maybe it was a colleague who claimed your work idea as their own; maybe it was a new friend who said nasty things behind your back; or maybe it was a romantic partner who was unfaithful. The evidence is incontrovertible—so much so that, had the boot been on the other foot, you would be confessing your error and asking for forgiveness. But that’s not this person’s MO. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/04/darvo-sociopath-gaslighting/682372/
Here's the money quote about sociopaths from the above article.:
Take special care with dating: Dark Triads can present as charming and captivating, because they tend to be more invested in getting you to love them first than they are in establishing the basis of a mutually loving partnership. If you feel you’re being swept off your feet, try to bring a healthy dose of skepticism to bear on this seeming dreamboat. Do your research—some digging into their social-media profiles, in particular: Are they very online? Do they get into a lot of scraps? Are they gaslighting others? If so, move on.
So Larry David wrote an essay for the NYT, and they published it - he didn't mention Bill Maher, but he didn't need to.
Larry David - "My Dinner With Adolf".
Imagine my surprise when in the spring of 1939 a letter arrived at my house inviting me to dinner at the Old Chancellery with the world’s most reviled man, Adolf Hitler. I had been a vocal critic of his on the radio from the beginning, pretty much predicting everything he was going to do on the road to dictatorship. No one I knew encouraged me to go. “He’s Hitler. He’s a monster.” But eventually I concluded that hate gets us nowhere. I knew I couldn’t change his views, but we need to talk to the other side — even if it has invaded and annexed other countries and committed unspeakable crimes against humanity. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/21/opinion/larry-david-hitler-dinner.html?unlocked_article_code=1.BU8.5Fxi.Ud-PKJPsZteI&smid=url-shareh
And Bob Lefsetz with the final commentary on this mess......
That’s it for talking to the other side…
Then again, they don’t want to talk to Democrats.
This is the power of comedy, this is the power of art.
For a while there, during last week’s show, I thought Bill Maher was going to avoid talking about the backlash to his “book report” about having dinner with Trump…
BUT NO!
It took a while, after the monologue, after the interview of Douglas Murray, but Bill couldn’t help himself. Maybe this is because he’s unfamiliar with the internet he keeps denigrating. Because if Bill was on it, he would have known to…STFU!
You never respond to the haters. Look how much good it did for Gayle King, it not only extended the Blue Origin story but made her a laughingstock even amongst those who don’t even know her! You commit a faux pas, at least admit it.
Which Bill should do going forward, but that would crack his image. It would humanize him, then again, he doesn’t want to be human, he wants to sit above it all in judgment.
And BTW you'll never get another "New Rules" in DDD!
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