Bill Maher's comic deceit
During a recent HBO Real Time monologue, comedian Bill Maher said of "friend" Al Franken: "He did a bad thing, and the condemnation has been universal, which he deserves. But what he doesn't deserve is to be lumped in with Roy Moore. Or Kevin Spacey. Or Harvey Weinstein. Or Donald Trump, who calls his accusers liars, threatens to sue them, did long riffs at his rallies, where he said they were too ugly for him to assault."
Discerning viewers surely noticed Maher's rhetorical sleight-of-hand. Offenses imputed to Spacey and Weinstein are established, conceded by them, and not disputed by anyone. Moore and Trump, though, have disputed all allegations made against them. And zero actual supportive evidence has been offered in any venue.
By intercutting the names of Spacey and Weinstein, whose culpability is established to everyone's acknowledgement, with those of "innocent until proven guilty" Moore and Trump, disembling gagster Maher endeavored to imply consonance where there simply was none.
It's certainly so that the unsettling Franken's sordid capering was not of the same horrible order as brutish ravishment. Maher is correct on that solitary point. (Leeann Tweeden's allegation of a backstage forced kiss by Franken has not been objectively confirmed.) Whether Franken suffers political and professional sanction is for the appropriate parties to determine.
But he shouldn't, exclusively owing to one ugly, joshing incident photographically preserved -- doubtlessly, to his heaving rue. (I will happily concede, though, that because I detest Franken for a host of fine reasons, I am enjoying the hell out of his ignominious ruination.)
Maher's giggly mouthing of unethicalness and intellectual fraudulence, though, mirrors that bandied of late by an emerging assemblage of prejudice-colored, electorally contriving dastards. In their, and Maher's, tilt-a-whirl reckoning, unsubstantiated allegations lodged against ideological adversaries are sufficient cause for hammering together a gallows. But genuinely documented offenses perpetrated by political fellows are mere 'bad things,' about which no further fuss need be made.
During a recent HBO Real Time monologue, comedian Bill Maher said of "friend" Al Franken: "He did a bad thing, and the condemnation has been universal, which he deserves. But what he doesn't deserve is to be lumped in with Roy Moore. Or Kevin Spacey. Or Harvey Weinstein. Or Donald Trump, who calls his accusers liars, threatens to sue them, did long riffs at his rallies, where he said they were too ugly for him to assault."
Discerning viewers surely noticed Maher's rhetorical sleight-of-hand. Offenses imputed to Spacey and Weinstein are established, conceded by them, and not disputed by anyone. Moore and Trump, though, have disputed all allegations made against them. And zero actual supportive evidence has been offered in any venue.
By intercutting the names of Spacey and Weinstein, whose culpability is established to everyone's acknowledgement, with those of "innocent until proven guilty" Moore and Trump, disembling gagster Maher endeavored to imply consonance where there simply was none.
It's certainly so that the unsettling Franken's sordid capering was not of the same horrible order as brutish ravishment. Maher is correct on that solitary point. (Leeann Tweeden's allegation of a backstage forced kiss by Franken has not been objectively confirmed.) Whether Franken suffers political and professional sanction is for the appropriate parties to determine.
But he shouldn't, exclusively owing to one ugly, joshing incident photographically preserved -- doubtlessly, to his heaving rue. (I will happily concede, though, that because I detest Franken for a host of fine reasons, I am enjoying the hell out of his ignominious ruination.)
Maher's giggly mouthing of unethicalness and intellectual fraudulence, though, mirrors that bandied of late by an emerging assemblage of prejudice-colored, electorally contriving dastards. In their, and Maher's, tilt-a-whirl reckoning, unsubstantiated allegations lodged against ideological adversaries are sufficient cause for hammering together a gallows. But genuinely documented offenses perpetrated by political fellows are mere 'bad things,' about which no further fuss need be made.
posted by DC Larson at
November 18, 2017
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home