Bill Maher bends the truth as bad as anyone...

Bill Maher really gets me worked up sometimes, but usually I give him the benefit of the doubt because he is funny and I think his show serves as a great forum for exposing everything that is extreme and radical in supposedly 'mainstream' America. However, I will not give him a pass tonight after hearing him assert that Pat Tillman "voted for John Kerry" when criticizing the portrayal of Tillman by the Bush Administration. I wonder how Tillman voted for Kerry considering he was killed in April 2004, several months prior to the 2004 elections.

Having researched the claim that Tillman voted for Kerry, I found that in fact Maher's comment is based on an article published in The Nation in 2005, in which it is claimed that Tillman urged his fellow soldiers to vote for Kerry before his death. Interestingly, John Kerry was not even the official nominee for his party until late-August, and though it may have been that Tillman was encouraging his fellow soldiers to vote for Kerry in their respective state primary, that is certainly not how it has been portrayed by Maher.

Another claim made by Maher to back up his claim that Tillman must have been a compassionate liberal like himself is the fact that Tillman read Noam Chomsky. I read Noam Chomsky, as does anyone else who is thoughtful or curious about intellectual issues, but by no stretch does that mean I endorse everything that Chomsky thinks or stands for. The fact is that nobody should be speaking for Tillman, and those that do are just as guilty for dishonoring his memory as the Pentagon. Maher is a good guy, but I think he should choose the issues he covers more carefully because sometimes he comes off sounding like a hack.

Tags: Bill Maher, Pat Tillman, Noam Chomsky

Unholy ministers tell Imus he should be fired for controversial comments...

I don't know about the rest of you people, but I am really starting to get mad about the uproar over comments made by Don Imus last week which were racial in nature. I watch the Don Imus show nearly everyday, he is one of the funniest and most respectable shock jocks on the radio; certainly more appropriate and interesting than Howard Stern and some of his other competitors. Though his comments were clearly inappropriate, I think that way in which the media has embraced this story and made it into such an important issue is a perfect example of how sensationalized our society has become.

I understand that these young basketball players at Rutgers are very upset about what was said, but lets get serious, they would never have known nor cared about what some old man said if they were National Champions today, instead of runners-up. How can anyone expect 18-22 year-old women who have just suffered the most devastating defeat of their esteemed athletic careers to have a rational or uninfluenced opinion of Imus's off-hand comment. Instead, they have been thrust in front of the camera and told to pass judgement on a man who they do not know and likely do not listen to. The Rutgers head coach gave a 20 minute speech before a live television national audience about her difficulties handling the devastating loss in Sunday's National Championship, the recent passing of her husband, and now she has been thrown to the pack of politically correct bloodhounds- how can we possibly think that she is in a position mentally or emotionally to be passing judgment on Don Imus. We don't need these college athletes to have a press conference expressing their dissappointment with Imus's comments, we know what he said was wrong, and the proper thing to have done would have been to let these young ladies go back to their lives as students and allow them to escape the spotlight while they get over their defeat in the national championship.

The mainstream media could careless however, and with a few respectable exceptions, has crucified Imus by allowing Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson to lead the mass-media lynching against a man that said a something off-hand for a laugh. Don Imus is a former Marine and 30-year veteran of radio and television broadcasting. He is not an arrogant and abrasive loudmouth (at least in my opinion), and to insist that he should be fired for these comments is tantamount to declaring that, as Bill Maher stated on Imus Tuesday morning, Imus should be deprived from his livelihood and have his legacy permanently stained because his comments have deeply upset opportunists and ministers who have no concept of forgiveness and understanding. Matt Lauer asked the Reverend quite directly whether or not he thought that, as a minister, forgiveness was in order, but Sharpton was undeterred and continued his crusade to ruin the life of a man that has earned the admiration of many more respectable and informed people than the opportunistic Reverend. Sharpton should be ashamed and he should lose his program for leading the mob against a legend in the radio business who should never have to answer to a man who obviously cares very little for anything other than putting an old man out of work.

Imus has really impressed me with the gracious and apologetic manner in which he has carried himself over the course of the past few days. He had never struck me as a particularly patient or humble individual, but he has emerged from his flogging at the hands of his colleagues and every black minister in America as the only real victim in the entire ordeal. There will continue to be calls for the veteran DJ to resign, or be fired, but I would be shocked if the MSNBC will drop their biggest (and only) cable news superstar from their morning time slot. Imus has undoubtedly won more viewers from this ordeal than he has lost, since I find it highly unlikely that those of us who have grown to love the old man's style will find anything nefarious about what he said and how it was handled, except possibly an even greater disdain and disrespect for the Unholy Ministers, Sharpton and Jackson.

Tags: MSNBC, Don Imus, Imus in the Morning, Racism, Al Sharpton, Cable News, Bill Maher, Donald Trump, Media, US Media, Jesse Jackson, Injustice