September 1, 2005, - 7:08 am
Bill Maher Passes Gas in America’s Face
By Debbie Schlussel
It’s crotchety liberal “comedian” Bill Maher’s dream come true.
And the rest of America’s nightmare.
American gas prices have reached near-European levels. Thanks to rising prices imposed by OPEC coupled with shut down oil drilling in America’s Hurricane Katrina-stricken Bayou, we are suffering the absurd reality Maher has selfishly wished on us in years of insane ranting.
Thanks, Bill.
On an August 2003 episode of his HBO show, “Real Time,” Maher said this:
“Stop whining about gas prices. It’s good that it costs a lot. . . . It’s also good if it makes you think of walking the three blocks from your house to Del Taco instead of taking the Land Cruiser. Gasoline costs a lot because we have to find it, bribe or kill the people who live on top of it, extract it, refine it, ship it and pump it. You’ll pay $2.00 a gallon and you’ll like it, because you know what the alternative is: riding on the bus with poor people.”
Don’t hold your breath for the day when Maher rides the bus with poor people. While the rest of us are, indeed, suffering–some carpooling, some considering riding the bus–Bill isn’t.
When he began these rantings on ABC’s “Politically Incorrect,” I was a frequent guest on the show. It was comical to hear Bill espouse eco-radical measures like high gas prices, while he rode to and from his luxury home in gas-guzzling chauffer driven limos and town cars. All of his show guests–mostly brainless liberal celebs–were also driven in gas-guzzling town cars and limos. The drivers always talked about how they also picked up Bill’s many girlfriends at LAX–again in the giant, gas-guzzling limos and town cars.
You know that Prius Bill brags about driving? Don’t look for it in the HBO parking lot. And even if he did dare drive it, NBC reported most hybrid cars save little gas until the fifth year of ownership, and even then it’s less than $100 per year. Another study showed the Prius is so unsafe, it could be fatal. Think of Bill Maher and his limos when you’re fatally injured driving your hybrid.
It’s beyond hilarious that the people running environmental group Sierra Club’s “Sierra Summit” invited Maher to “entertain” and spout his environmental views because he “drives a Prius.” Sure, he does. And Camryn Manheim is anorexic.
Like Maher, the rest of the entertainment industry’s environmentalism is phony. The only Hollyweirdo who rides his bike to work is Ed Begley, Jr. And the only “entertainment product” he’s acted in lately is the Cindy Sheehan show recently playing to a limited, unwashed audience in Crawford, Texas.
And those people who bribe and kill for gas? FYI, Bill, as much as you love to hate the average American, that’s not US. It’s our Islamofascist friends in the Middle East who bribe and kill for gas–like the ones in Saudi Arabia, who seized and nationalized the oil wells WE found and developed. If we had any guts at all, we’d enter Saudi Arabia (the country which would now be part of Greater Saddamia, had we not saved its very existence) and take the oil wells back. That move would single-handedly gain back the fear and respect of the Islamic world that is now laughing at our decline while it continues its disturbing fundamentalist revivalist phase.
CNN reported that vast parts of the Muslim World are happy that the Hurricane raised gas prices and added to American suffering, saying it’s part of their global jihad.
But don’t look for cowardly Maher to talk about that.
As for the “Land Cruiser” that out-of-touch Maher presumes the rest of us drive, think again. The rest of America doesn’t live three blocks from Del Taco (or at a swanky Hollywood estate like Maher) and can’t afford a Land Cruiser. Millionaire Maher can afford several. The average American lives miles from work, their kids’ schools, and the nearest grocery store. They live in the hated Red States, with their vast expanses–where Hollywood likes to vacation and own ranches, but wouldn’t want to live.
But what does pampered Hollywoodite Bill Maher know about the average American?
Not much, if you listen to his bizarre views. Close your eyes, and you might think you’re listening to the Unabomber.
On an “Earth Day” show in April, this year, Maher repeated his Environmental Liberation Front-esque mantra:
“I hate to tell you this, folks, but gas doesn’t cost too much; it costs too little. Ooh, I know, I know. I know you hear about gas prices over two dollars a gallon and it makes you nearly choke on your four-dollar latte.”
Note to Bill: Not everyone outside of Hollywood has daily money to burn hanging with Britney and Paris at the “Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf” on Sunset Strip.
More Maher profundity: “We bitch about gas, but adjusted for inflation, it’s the same price it was back when the Pope was a Nazi. And that’s not the fault of ExxonMobil, either. That’s like Kirstie Alley saying her problem is that Arabs control all the fudge. Anyone who’s been to Europe knows that the price of gas over there is just a picture of an arm and a leg. And that’s because they tax it heavily and we don’t. How come we Americans accepted that you could do that to cigarettes – overtax them because they were bad – but burning oil into the atmosphere is okay? You can’t smoke in a bar, but you can drive through a restaurant?”
Question for Bill Maher: Have you ever tried to get to work or take kids to school on a magic flying cigarette? Guess what? Other than on the set of the failed “Bewitched” remake, it doesn’t seem to work.
Another tip: Average Americans–not your Hollywood activist friends like Rob Reiner–aren’t too happy about the cigarette tax. It’s a poor man’s tax, just like the gas tax you think is too low. Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, and shoplifter Winona Ryder can smoke up a storm. The tax doesn’t hit them or affect their yoga and soy lifestyle. Just like a gas tax won’t hit you and your limousine liberal glitterati friends.
Leave the $3 lattes to Bill Maher’s crowd. As for the rest of us, do you want to return to the days when Jimmy Carter told us to ride bikes to work in the sweltering summer and freezing cold winter?
It’s time Bill Maher got real and stopped passing gas in America’s face.
Anyone who wishes high gas prices on America is just an empty windbag. And, these days, wind is not a preferred energy source.
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Right on Debbie! America needs to put these Hollywood liberals where they belong, on the unemployment line. If everyone stopped watching his show, his ratings would plummet and HBO would boot him, but only in a perfect world. But it is nice to dream.
super j on September 1, 2005 at 8:05 am