WND AT THE WHITE HOUSE
Spokeswoman: Maher not worth response
TV personality had suggested more would live if Cheney didn't
Comments by HBO personality Bill Maher that suggested more people would continue living if Vice President Dick Cheney were to die are not worth responding to, according to a spokeswoman for the White House.
Spokeswoman Dana Perino was responding to a question from Les Kinsolving, WND’s correspondent at the White House. He asked:
“An HBO TV personality named Bill Maher said on the air, the Vice President, ‘I’m just saying, if he did die, other people, more people would live. That is a fact.’ End of quote. Question: Since this is the same person whom ABC fired five years ago for commending the terrorists responsible for 9/11, surely the White House has some concern about Maher’s reference to the desirability of the Vice President’s death, don’t you?”
“I’m not going to dignify his comments with a response,” said Perino.
Maher, who two years ago said Christians suffer from a neurological disorder that “stops people from thinking,” recently appeared on the “Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” and said President Bush is a rube, dolt, and vain half-wit.
“The people who were defending [Bush] were saying, ‘Well, he’s just inarticulate.’ But inarticulate doesn’t explain foreign policy. I mean it’s not that complicated. The man is a rube. He is a dolt. He is a yokel on the world stage. He is a Gilligan who cannot find his a– for two hands. He is a vain half-wit who interrupts one incoherent sentence with another incoherent sentence [audience cheers and applause]. And I hope I’m not piling on.”
“The host of HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” made the comments about Cheney on that program.
A report on NewsBusters said the discussion included mention of an attempted assassination of Cheney last week, and Maher asked why it was necessary for the Huffington Post to remove comments by readers expressing their disappointment that the attempt failed.
“In a nutshell, the host said the world would be a safer place if the assassination attempt succeeded,” the report said.
Here is how the discussion developed:
John Ridley: It’s one thing to say you hate Dick Cheney, which applies to his politics. It’s another thing to say, “I’m sorry he didn’t die in an explosion.” And I think, you know…
Bill Maher: But you should be able to say it. And by the way…
Barney Frank: Excuse me, Bill, but can I ask you a question? Do you decide what the topics are for this show?
Maher: Yeah, I decide the topics, they don’t go there.
Frank: But you exercise control over the show the way that she does over her blog (The Huffington Post).
Maher: But I have zero doubt that if Dick Cheney was not in power, people wouldn’t be dying needlessly tomorrow. (applause)
Joe Scarborough: If someone on this panel said that they wished that Dick Cheney had been blown up, and you didn’t say…
Frank: I think he did.
Scarborough: Okay. Did you say…
Maher: No, no. I quoted that.
Frank: You don’t believe that?
Maher: I’m just saying if he did die, other people, more people would live. That’s a fact.
Perino also declined to respond to a question about the appropriateness of a planned $77 billion lawsuit by New Orleans against the Army Corps of Engineers over the levees that broke during Hurricane Katrina.
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