I just watched the season finale of Bill Maher's Real Time on HBO. Normally I forget to watch it, and have to catch up via video-on-demand, but since Andrew Sullivan had blogged that he was flying out to take part I wanted to see if he'd say the same stuff on TV that he's been blogging.
It was a weird show in some respects - Bill Maher was obviously still pretty angry underneath his bravado - but I was particularly struck by three things that Andrew Sullivan said.
(1) He attacked Bill Maher for losing the election for the Democrats by making jokes about people of religious faith that demeaned them. "If you demean them, how do you expect them to vote for you?" Say what? Look, I'm perfectly willing to concede that there are religious folk in the red states (and elsewhere) who are turned off by what they see as ungodly attitudes and actions from people in the blue states. But it's been that way for years, just as there are secular people in the blue states (and elsewhere) who are turned off by Bible-based thinking and homophobia. For some people on both sides, these attitudes are deeply ingrained, and cleaning up Bill Maher's jokes or Pat Robertson's sermons isn't going to have any effect. Each group offends the other simply by existing, by being themselves, and to argue that they should change seems to contradict Sullivan's pleas for a return to tolerance through federalism.
(2) Why does Sullivan (and many others) froth at the mouth when anyone mentions "America" and "war crimes" in the same sentence? And why do they always argue how much better America's actions are than those of Saddam? Is that the standard by which America should judge itself? From someone like Sullivan who argued so eloquently just a few days ago about the collective amnesia concerning Abu Ghraib, such jingoism seems inapposite.
(3) It is possible that Sullivan's excitability was occasioned by the appearance on the program of Noam Chomsky, whom Sullivan accused of "making millions running around the world denigrating the United States". (I may have got the exact words wrong: he certainly said "millions", which caused a few eyebrows to be raised.) But why the outrage? Numerous legal bodies, including the International Commission of Jurists, have declared that the invasion of Iraq and many of the consequent actions of the USA and its allies violate international law. Logically Sullivan would seem to have only three options: refute the charges, accept them and agree that the USA should take responsibility for its actions, or declare that the USA is somehow above the law. Lashing out at an academic for exercising his freedom of speech, and saying that his views don't deserve to be heard, does Sullivan no credit. (Whatever happened to Evelyn Beatrice Hall's immortal dictum "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"?)
Of the other speakers on the show, ex-Senator Alan Simpson seemed determined to take offence, especially at the antics of Maher's unruly audience. (They should fix that - it's actually an embarrassment.) Susan Sarandon was frustrated and exhausted after all her campaigning in Ohio and Pennysylvania, and was a bit too paranoid about voter fraud (though I can sympathize with her). Comedian D. L. Hughley was OK but forgettable, and Pat Schroeder was as forthright as ever.
Despite Sullivan's plaintive "God help me" about tonight's show, he appeared to enjoy himself. His reactions to Bill Maher's New Rules segment seemed to attract the camera like a magnet. I wonder how he'll blog about his perspective?
Posted by geoff2 at November 6, 2004 01:44 AMI don't watch much (well, really, any) TV except when I'm travelling or when I want to get an alternate view of other countries' perspective through free-to-air sat.
In any case, it is good that the transcript is available. I'd like to see what Chomsky had to say.
But really . . . the so called "blue states" you refer to are not so blue themselves. If you look at the counties of California, you'll see that you're getting blue as you go north and as you go to the coast. So, the blueness and the redness of the states are just an illusion.
As I said earlier, I think the problem is that the country has lost its moral steering. In other words, large non-ambiguous moral issues (Thou Shall Not Kill, the innocent at least) and the question of responsibility (we are the invaders, and the more powerful party) have faded away for those fundamentalists who emphasize much more ambiguous (from the view point of responsibility and personal choice) ethical questions such as a woman's right to abortion, where there can be a great debate and refutation of their position. The reason for this mis-placement of moral uprightness is that there's no real, truly moral leader to correct the compass of moral reason here.
As sample of what is going on, I recommend Rahul Mahajan's latest piece:
http://www.empirenotes.org/november04.html#05nov041
and the response he received from some readers:
http://www.empirenotes.org/november05.html#05nov042
When people vote against Bush, they are also making a moral choice (which is not necessarily a calculative, utilitarian choice) but there's no leader who can articulate it for them and others as such. In the absence of such leaders, and in the presence of questionable leaders claiming moral superiority, many who want to live moral lives are lost in bewilderment, the consequences of which we're seeing today unfold.
As long as the US has this particular electoral system, colour-coding states makes sense. And It's worth noting that the red and blue colours match the mid-19th century division between slave and free states/territories almost exactly. The broad dichotomy is real and deep.
Mahajan's blog is useful - thanks. His account of Fallujah and that of River from Baghdad are quite consistent. I also found his "untermenschen" analysis (http://www.empirenotes.org/october04.html#24oct041) brought together a number of important strands.
AS to the rest of your comment, I can't wrap my head around the repeated references to "moral leaders". America doesn't do "moral leaders" any more. Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan... none of them. Carter? Only after he was out of office. Non-political leaders? Where? Not from religious circles.
In Britain, Thatcher was a moral leader, even if she was widely vilified for it. Blair is trying to be the same, with very mixed results.
Posted by: Geoff Arnold at November 6, 2004 09:33 AM
James Wolcott gives his hilarious take on Sullivan on Maher. He asks the blogosphere if it can come up with a screen-grab of Sully's self ass-grab. Yikes.
Never occurred to me that this site wouldn't accept HTML coding. (I really should have read the other comments before posting.) For Wolcott, see http://jameswolcott.com/
Posted by: Philboid Studge at November 8, 2004 10:29 AMEvelyn Beatrice Hall? Forgive me if I'm being dense, but is that supposed to be a joke? It's a (very garbled) quotation from Voltaire!!
Posted by: Michael at November 8, 2004 11:59 PMAh, yet another person caught by the Voltaire trap. It really was Evelyn Beatrice Hall, writing under a pseudonym: here's a detailed explanation.
Posted by: Geoff Arnold at November 9, 2004 12:16 AM