He produces one live show a week with as many as 20 weeks off a year. His schedule, like his latitude, is enviable. Those fat targets, as well as Obama’s own missteps, have become fodder for even more aggressive monologues, with late-night comics now driving the political conversation arguably as much as their “serious” news counterparts.Īlthough Stewart is the wiseguy watchdog and Colbert the smarty-pants rabble rouser, Maher stands out as the increasingly aggressive line-crosser, a position enabled by both a personality that loves to shock and nearly zero restrictions thanks to his decadelong perch on HBO. Thanks to the surge of the Tea Party, the Republican Party has been propelled further right, causing Congress to stall in nearly comical deadlock since the inauguration. Many posited that the election of Obama in 2008 would somehow temper the bite of liberal-leaning late-night programming (the antidote to the rise of Fox News).
Bush, riding a wave of Dick Cheney antics and anti-Iraq War sentiment.
Bill maher give it to me straight doc tv#
All three hosts helped popularize a new TV genre during the eight-year reign of George W. “There’s only one place in this country where the millionaires and billionaires are liberals, and that’s here in California.”Ĭonventional wisdom would have you believe that the late-night comedy of the Maher, Stewart and Colbert ilk thrives on opposition-party humor.
“To all rich liberals: This is where the game is now,” he says. In addition, a recent study showed that Obama election support from the entertainment industry had fallen nearly 60 percent from $2.8 million in 2008 to $1.2 million in 2011. He considers his $1 million gift a challenge to Hollywood’s political donors, who, driven by a diminished entertainment economy, dissatisfaction with Obama’s policies, residual SOPA anger, or all of the above, have been sitting idle as the Republicans’ American Crossroads super PAC has thus far outraised Democracts 2-to-1. “But I thought, who are we kidding at this point? I think the cat is out of the bag which side I’m on.” Maher says he still considers himself a moderate but believes the Republican Party has shifted to exclude nonextremists, making Obama the crucial best option. “I never used to give money because I thought, well, I don’t want to tip my hat one way or the other,” Maher says. And in doing so, he is setting himself up as an increasingly powerful voice as the presidential campaign heads into its defining months. Unlike late-night peers Jon Stewart, with his Rally to Restore Sanity, or Stephen Colbert, who launched a satirically eponymous super PAC, Maher is publicly putting his own money where his big mouth is. In the process, the bomb-throwing provocateur - a devout atheist who wants to legalize most recreational drugs and famously was kicked off ABC for saying the 9/11 terrorists weren’t cowards - has crossed the line from pay cable commentator to mainstream activist. With his donation, Maher - whose politics aren’t exactly down-the-line liberal - has become the highest-profile celebrity to give so much to the Obama re-election cause, which has struggled to gain steam in Hollywood (DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg remains the industry’s largest donor, giving $2 million to Obama’s super PAC as of Jan. PHOTOS: Bill Maher’s ‘New Rules’ for Hollywood “It’s a scarier group of Republicans than I’ve ever seen in my life, and it’s a different world with Citizens United,” he says, referencing the 2010 Supreme Court case that has led to GOP backers like casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson giving many millions of dollars to unregulated super PACs. “This election is so not in the bag,” he adds, his voice rising, as it often does on Real Time, with the semi-righteous and hyper-informed outrage that has won him loyal fans and prompted the kind of death threats that require a full-time security guard at his Beverly Hills home. “I threw a snowball hoping to cause an avalanche,” Maher, 56, says a week later in his no-frills bungalow office at CBS Television City, a short golf-cart ride from the studio where he shoots Real Time on Friday nights.
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