Bush administration had it, cowards.Īll terse efficiency in the backstage moments before “Real Time” goes live, Maher bounded out to the set (the same set as “The Price Is Right”), hair characteristically slick and jacket and tie impeccable - Maher’s on-screen appearance could be described as Rat Pack modern - and went right into the opening monologue. That’s when, just a week after 9/11, he infamously said on “Politically Incorrect” that the terrorists were many things but not, as some in the George W. Maher decided against keeping too much around after an abrupt career change nearly 15 years ago. The room is sparsely furnished - most of the accessories are leftover props from past shows, like a campy Elvis painting. Maher looked around his office as he spoke. ![]() Maher believes one reason may be because he knows harder questions would come up. Obama’s first phrase to Maher, to hear the comedian tell it, was a smiling “am I going to get lobbied?” Obama has not been on “Real Time” since he took office, one of the few late-night shows he’s declined. “If there are going to be critics who say that it comes with a sense of hubris,” Martin said, “there are far more that see it as something attractive, because he’s pushing against thoughts and ideas he feels are wrong.”Įarlier that day, Maher had met with President Obama at a fundraiser at Tobey Maguire’s house. In a TV culture where intuiting an audience’s desires is practically religion, Maher is keen to be an apostate. They weren’t going to vote for the guy who says something about Islam.” People were not going to vote for the atheist. “But do I think each year he won the Emmy and we didn’t it was because he was better? Of course not. Any show that gets people to be interested in news instead of. Maher said he doesn’t see this as a disappointment, though his comments suggest it continues to gnaw. For a 10-year span beginning in 2005, the show was nominated for the late-night Emmy alongside “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart,” a program with similar political-comedy ambitions. “Real Time” has been often recognized by mainstream Hollywood - and also consistently fallen short with it. It has also though, perhaps, rubbed some in the industry the wrong way. That candor has earned Maher a reputation among fans as a straight-talking disrober of the emperor’s new clothes, a fact evident by both the longevity of “Real Time” and the enthusiasm, in-house and on social media, of its audience. But perhaps because it arrives only weekly, or perhaps because Maher has been doing this so long he has become a kind of taken-for-granted fixture-or perhaps because he is simply more polarizing than others who occupy these chairs-he’s often been overlooked. Labeling “Real Time” the best-kept secret in late night would be an overstatement the show, as Maher and those who work on it are apt to remind, consistently has drawn around 4 million viewers an episode when various on-demand and delayed-viewing metrics are factored in. The comment is partly sincere - it takes a certain kind of personality to volunteer for the largely liberal beatdowns - but it also sets up the unsparing comments to follow When Dean says Americans are fed up with small paychecks and thus “want a business leader,” one of Maher’s other guests, the liberal activist Heather McGhee, quips, “But the business leaders are the one who aren’t paying them!” I want to help you,” Maher says to Dean on air. ![]() On this night, the conservative radio host and former Trump Productions chief Andy Dean is scheduled to come on - the first time any associate of the GOP front-runner has appeared on the program - and Maher would make sure he got the jabs-in-the-ribs “Real Time” welcome. ![]() ![]() For 35 weeks each year, he calls out politicians, religious leaders, demagogues, pundits - some of them, notably, his own guests - with a brand of humor that’s at once engaged and world-weary, and not infrequently infused with snark. Then the table grew temporarily quiet before turning to the ethics of Clinton’s behavior.įor the last 13 years on HBO’s “Real Time” (after nine years on ABC’s “Politically Incorrect”), Maher has been presiding with similar authoritativeness over what he sees as a feast of hypocrisy. Finally, in a knowing and unfussy tone, he spoke: “Why do we have so many pantless punters?” he queried, a remark that drew a few anxious laughs. Leaning forward in his chair, hand on coffee mug and eyes in distant contemplation, Maher took it all in without appearing to take it all in.
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