Politically Unforgivable

...His fuse lit once again, he barreled ahead: "We have been the cowards, lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away, that's cowardly...

...The tribute was completely in earnest...

...The Thursday Show: Maher had just lost Sears, his second major sponsor...

...They say truth is the first casualty of war and if that's true, this show may be in trouble...

...But to those who say that there was insufficient grieving, I understand...

...The comedian Larry Miller, an old friend of Maher's, offered this salve to America: "I came on to say the only reason to hate him is if he went out with your sister...

...Here is what Woodard had to say about the war on terrorism: "We're poised...

...Patriotism does not involve shutting up...

...Upon hearing George W. Bush say "you're either with us, or you're with the terrorists," Laura Innes complained: "I am far, far from being an expert...

...D'Souza continued: "These are warriors...

...Now Maher was finally getting it...

...I'm not going to guarantee that I can...

...The thing Maher wanted his viewers to understand was that his career meant nothing to him: "Many producers, who I love and who always think of the show first, they think that the most important thing to me is this show but it is not...

...The clock was indeed ticking, but it was ticking for Maher...

...Indeed, an examination of Maher's program that night and on the nights that followed reveals that he had no grasp of what would be an appropriate tone for his show to take in the wake of the September 11 attacks...

...The last show of Maher's week of horrors contained the only real laugh of the week, and it was especially welcome because it was so unexpect-ed—and because it took aim at the man himself...

...He snarled...

...Granted, the show has not been cancelled yet...

...And I feel it...

...I fear that kind of didactic . . ." Innes trailed off...

...For 40 years, the entertainment business has been self-consciously provocative...

...I'm an actress on a TV show...

...My country is a lot more important to me...

...Then Maher's own temper got the better of him again...

...The author thanks Brent Baker and the Media Research Center for research assistance...

...In no way was I ever intending, because I never think this way, to say that the men and women who defend our nation are anything but courageous and valiant...

...But six days after the attack was not the time for it, and Politically Incorrect—Exhibit A for America's lack of seriousness about news and world affairs—was certainly not the place...

...And we have to do it...

...We were saying if you want to stick your head in the sand and say everything's perfect and just hold hands and sing 'God Bless America,' nothing is gonna change...

...At one point, in an excruciating display of false modesty, Maher even offered himself up as a martyr to the national need "to vent...

...But I hope not...

...The First Show: Maher began Monday night's broadcast by posing a question: "Can we change...

...But what will they have won...

...The times have changed...

...But a people reeling from a real shock, and preparing for more to come, doesn't need false shocks...

...But I am as devastated as anyone was...

...The Tuesday Show: Maher began his second show of the week with a disquisition intended to answer some critics—and to demonstrate what a wonderful guy he really is: "I received a lot of messages about the show I did last night—most of them positive...

...I hear you...

...Once again, the point he was making—presumably having to do with Bill Clinton's 1998 decision to bomb a building in Khartoum that turned out to be unrelated to Osama bin Laden—was not in itself objectionable...

...The nation is sobered, and show business is groping for ways to serve sober customers when for decades it has been dedicated to the proposition that the American people want to be inebriated by their entertainment...

...I think we can be respectful to the fallen while still moving forward...

...It involves speaking out...

...It's extremist to believe in things that your rational mind knows is not true...

...Maher concluded by reading a tribute to himself from Rob Schneider, the former Saturday Night Live performer who earned a degree of fame with his sketch about an office boy "makin' copies...

...And smiled knowingly...

...In peacetime, he continued, "batting around controversial issues and thinking outside the box is okay...

...As evidence, he pointed to an empty chair on the stage of his set...

...My bond with that audience who have always counted on me never to pull a punch and I hope I have never let them down...

...A lot of people now think that patriotism means just marching in lockstep and shutting up and I'm sorry . . . [but] I am not unpatriotic to question how our government has handled the situation in the past...

...By Thursday, a significant number of local stations that carried the show had cancelled it outright or preempted it temporarily...

...It was for Barbara Olson's sake, in part, that we had to "change...

...Then, mindful that perhaps his words might be misunderstood, D'Souza quickly qualified his remarks, "Americans shouldn't blame themselves because other people want to bomb them...

...And I feel sincerely sorry about that...

...It never has been...

...And then people will have died in vain...

...Does a nation at war really want to hear even its most beloved celebrities opine on matters of life and death—not to mention the roots of terrorism, the terrain of Afghanistan, and the theology of the Taliban—when even a performer as able as Laura Innes doesn't know the meaning of the word "didactic...

...Getting serious means not "busting television producers for taking funny mushrooms to Las Vegas while the terrorist-looking guys with the knives get right on...

...Contrary to the conventional wisdom, there will always be room for a good laugh...

...His outrage mounted even as the target of his outrage became ever more inconsequential...

...The events of September 11 may well have made him, his show, and an entire subsection of American entertainment culture an instant anachronism...

...This may truly be one of the last times I have to talk to my audience," he said morosely...

...America had to grow up, get serious, and fast...

...Incorrect's broadcasts became the future of Politically Incorrect and, not coincidentally, the future of Bill Maher...

...And my country...

...Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, [that's] not cowardly...

...No, Maher said, the most important things are: "Honesty...

...But my response to that particular quote, my reaction is, I admire his strength, I feel myself enormously patriotic, but I am so afraid of the polarization of that kind of remark...

...Bill Maher, the edgy provocateur who was expressing disgust for America only four days earlier, was now wrapping himself in the flag to salvage his career...

...Late Monday night September 17, six days after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Politically Incorrect returned to the air...

...It is in this context that Maher's remarks about American cowardice proved so offensive to those watching the show—and so threatening to the corporate well-being of Federal Express and Sears that they pulled their ads...

...And I suspect that what really horrified his viewers and caused a campaign to be initiated against him was his body language...

...Can a broadcast network and its sponsors really take a chance on offending a population under attack, especially when the offense is being given on one of its least important and least-watched shows—and especially when the offense is primarily being given by the host himself...

...We all like to have wars...

...They were in way over their heads, and they knew it...

...When he spoke the words "hits the building," Maher lightly smashed one hand into the other hand...

...One hand represented an airplane on which Americans were riding to their deaths...

...That has to be a first and I think that's a pretty studly move...

...Guest Dinesh D'Souza led Maher into his epic mistake by saying he wanted to object to those who say that "the people who did this are cowards...

...But we have it...

...Several of the panelists on the program demurred...

...In a tone of finger-wagging disgust, he averred: "We can't afford to be fighting wrong and silly wars—the Cold War, the drug war, the culture wars...

...He wagged his finger...

...Politically Unforgivable Bill Maker's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week BY JOHN PODHORETZ In the space of five days, a man named Bill Maher, who hosts a late-night program called Politically Incorrect on the ABC network, underwent a kind of public nervous breakdown on national television...

...But it's not going to make you popular...

...How can the network do otherwise after an ominous warning about the limits of free speech—"All Americans . . . need to watch what they do, and this is not a time for remarks like that"—from the mouth of the president's spokesman...

...But suddenly he saw a new role for himself—as a sacrifice on the altar of national fury: "If destroying this show would provide a venting for the anger out there, I would gladly do that for my country in its time of need...

...It seeks to attract buyers with flash and sizzle, with offerings that are exciting to their audiences because in large measure they promise to offend or shock or bewilder other people...

...How could he grasp it...

...During Maher's week of horrors, there were three celebrity panelists: the actresses Alfre Woodard and Laura Innes and the actor Stephen Collins...

...It had been preempted by news broadcasts the previous week...

...He sneered...

...But calling America a nation of "cowards" following the worst foreign attack on its soil since the War of 1812 was...

...Then he was reduced to sucking up to the network, which was probably in shock almost as severe as Maher's at the turnaround in his fortunes: "I gotta say I appreciate this network keeping this show on tonight without any sponsors...

...Stephen Collins: "A week ago, I didn't know Afghanistan was already in ruins...

...He then connected the dots between his contempt for religion and his scorn for missile defense...

...That is what we were doing and if we have to go down for it, so be it...

...And unfortunately, the clock is ticking...

...Nonetheless, the story of Bill Maher indicates the limits of an industry that is now without a sense of how to sell its wares to the American people...

...Maher wasn't paying close enough attention to see the escape hatch D'Souza had provided him...

...I kind of forgot to ask, 'Can I change?'" he said, ruminating on the question he had asked at the outset of the first disastrous show of the week...

...Not true," he said, then added, "We're the cowards...

...By Friday, ABC was airing the show with no national sponsors whatsoever...

...It seemed that he was directing his rage not at the terrorist act that had killed over 6,000 people, but at the United States and its unwillingness to "get serious...

...He was prepared to suffer the death of his career for the sake of The Truth, he told us...

...It's not often you can watch a television personality deal his own career a fatal blow and then watch him try desperately to talk his way out of it...

...But we all sit here in terror of being thought of as unpatriotic...

...And if they want me to give it a shot, and try to forge some way of having an open discussion . . . without opening wounds, I will try to do that...

...But you know, America has had a death in the national family, and I feel that by doing what I always have done, I kind of added to the national trauma...

...Because we—the survivors—have a responsibility to do nothing less than ensure that our civilization continues and moves forward...

...There is something to this latter criticism, of course...

...We can start to move into the direction in the world where we can police ourselves...

...Remember, this show is supposed to be funny...

...From there, Maher went on to deliver his views on the nature of religion...

...On the morning of September 11, conservative activist and author Barbara Olson had been flying to Los Angeles to appear on Politically Incorrect when her plane was hijacked and hurled into the Pentagon...

...You can, after all, give a eulogy at a funeral pointing out the flaws and weaknesses in the dearly departed...

...But the story of Bill Maher's nightmare week is also an object lesson in the kinds of changes that are being forced on America's entertainment culture as a result of the September 11 attacks...

...And I feel terrible about that...

...The other hand represented one of the towers of the World Trade Center, where 6,000-plus people were murdered and 4,500 were injured...

...Religion is extremism," he said...

...The concept of Politically Incorrect is to give celebrities (mostly of the second and third rank) a chance to opine on current events alongside a pundit or two (usually of the hotheaded left or right...

...Maher agreed...

...The spectacle had its voyeuristic fascinations, certainly...

...But then Maher demonstrated he had no intention of changing himself...

...That is a terrible burden...

...The opinion he was expressing, however crudely, is well within the range of acceptable opinion...

...on the brink of something historic in the world...

...By Wednesday, he had lost two major sponsors...

...And I apologize to anyone who took it the wrong way sincerely...

...And because of an irresponsible complaint issued against it by Ari Fleischer, ABC is almost obliged to keep it on the air for a while longer...

...And that comes from the deepest part of me...

...The Friday Show: A dozen network affiliates had stopped showing Politically Incorrect, including ABC's station in Washington, D.C...

...People have said, 'What can we do, now is the time, they understand their vulnerability.' We all like to have wars but this is something new...

...Maher's feelings swelled, as if to an unheard chorus humming the "Battle Hymn of the Republic": Also, I feel a responsibility for this show to be what it has always been—a place where people can come and express their ideas openly in a way they can't in other places...

...Maher was using the tragedy as an opportunity to climb up on two of his traditional hobbyhorses—his support for drug legalization and his anger at conservative attacks on Hollywood...

...Over the course of the week, the subject of Politically John Podhoretz is a columnist for the New York Post and a contributing editor to THE WEEKLY STANDARD...

...And in speaking about the current situation, they all looked pained, worried, and frightened...

...But his tone, demeanor, and affect were not within the range of acceptable conduct for someone with access to network TV only days after an attack on the United States...

...It doesn't come from anyone asking me to say it—because I love my country very much and it eats at me, this idea that I somehow made it worse...

...They suggested that were anything to happen to Bill Maher and Politically Incorrect, "the terrorists will have won...

...The Wednesday Show: Panicked by the news that Federal Express had pulled its sponsorship of the show, Maher began by backpedaling furiously: "These are sensitive times, and I should have been more clear when . . . I said, 'we have been the cowards.'" The problem, according to Maher, was his use of the first-person plural...

...We were saying don't do that, do the patriotic thing, call attention to what has been the problem in the past and how do we fix it in the future...

...But if I can't, I don't blame anybody but myself...

...There's lots of religions and one of them is a missile shield in space [that] is going to protect us, which is ridiculous...

...The reference here was to the airport drug bust of Aaron Sorkin, the man behind The West Wing...

...The proximate cause of Maher's self-inflicted injury was a remark he made about how, since the United States lobbed cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away back in 1998, "we're the cowards...

...He looked as though he might hold his breath until he turned blue...

...I just have never been good at grieving in public...

...There is little room for a program whose major theme is that the news is nonsense and that you don't need to know anything about a subject to express your opinion of it on national television...

...Maher used his network platform to express defiance, injury, cravenness, hurt, anger, terror, self-righteousness, pomposity, and puzzlement at his sudden transformation into a liability for his employers and a lightning rod for criticism...

...Here is the crux of the dilemma for ABC...

...He can't...

...But he needn't blame himself...

...On that episode, Maher said something that offended viewers...

...For while he was speaking these words, he brought his hands up...

...And I think we have to...