I've never cared much for Bill Maher. Not that I've followed his career so closely, but he seemed to be a fairly run-of-the-mill standup until he found politics, at which point he became a self-styled Mort Sahl. Politically Incorrect never worked at all for me, as I couldn't wade through all the dross (what does Chad Lowe think about oil leases?) to get to the nuggets of entertainment. And the entertainment factor came more from laughing at the ignorance of celebrities or hoping that Ann Coulter would diet down past 0 pounds and disappear.
There's a smugness to Maher, a Bushian smirk that is no less irritating when it accompanies views closer to those I hold. If you find the look-at-me attitude of Dennis Miller obnoxious, you can't really get behind the even more extreme 'tude of Maher.
This doesn't mean he doesn't have a point from time to time. The comment that got him kicked off ABC, while remarkably ill-timed, struck me as at the very least within the realm of discussion. I'm not pro-drugs at all, but there's nothing wrong with asking whether this country has its priorities in order when it locks up people for possession while ignoring other, more-critical issues.
So I was curious when I came across Maher's When you ride alone you still ride with bin Laden: What the Government Should Be Telling Us to Help Fight the war on Terrorism - and Still Isn't (2007). (This book is essentially identical to the 2002 book with a similar title.) Would I find him as insufferable in print, without the smart-aleck looks and the self-laughing, or would I be able to focus on what he's saying?
Well, my answer is no, it really is his manner I dislike. The book is OK. It's not very funny; to be fair, I find very few of the political humor books funny at all, not anything by Al Franken, not the book by Jon Stewart and his staff (Ann Coulter I find funny, but not in a good way). These topics do not lend themselves to humor, our failures to uphold the Constitution, our skewed national priorities, our willful indifference to the environment.
So, to me, a book like this will rise or fall on how well it makes its points, on whether there is any chance it will motivate some to action or change any minds. And on this scale, this book is probably not successful. It will be read by Maher fans, who will likely already share many of his opinions.
I found the first two-thirds of this slender (165 pages, with about a quarter devoted to modern updates of WWII posters) volume fairly standard rhetoric. We're hated by others, they want to destroy us, we aren't doing what we must to get ready, either through our government or personally. The first essay of the 33 that really grabbed me didn't come until page 105, where Maher talks about how Americans saw 9/11 as something unique to human experience. The contrast to other cultures, in which random violence is common, and our wrapping ourselves in the flag and God are insensitive and ignorant.
Following this are intermittent bursts of effectiveness, but there is a lot of repetition. If this book were a blog, it would be pretty good; it loses some stature when placed between two hard covers.
The most effective point may come from the title. That this book still holds up five years after it was written, that Americans still have not had to sacrifice, that oil is still used as if it were infinite, that our culture is still focused on self-actualization, is the most savage indictment in the book.
There's a smugness to Maher, a Bushian smirk that is no less irritating when it accompanies views closer to those I hold. If you find the look-at-me attitude of Dennis Miller obnoxious, you can't really get behind the even more extreme 'tude of Maher.
This doesn't mean he doesn't have a point from time to time. The comment that got him kicked off ABC, while remarkably ill-timed, struck me as at the very least within the realm of discussion. I'm not pro-drugs at all, but there's nothing wrong with asking whether this country has its priorities in order when it locks up people for possession while ignoring other, more-critical issues.
So I was curious when I came across Maher's When you ride alone you still ride with bin Laden: What the Government Should Be Telling Us to Help Fight the war on Terrorism - and Still Isn't (2007). (This book is essentially identical to the 2002 book with a similar title.) Would I find him as insufferable in print, without the smart-aleck looks and the self-laughing, or would I be able to focus on what he's saying?
Well, my answer is no, it really is his manner I dislike. The book is OK. It's not very funny; to be fair, I find very few of the political humor books funny at all, not anything by Al Franken, not the book by Jon Stewart and his staff (Ann Coulter I find funny, but not in a good way). These topics do not lend themselves to humor, our failures to uphold the Constitution, our skewed national priorities, our willful indifference to the environment.
So, to me, a book like this will rise or fall on how well it makes its points, on whether there is any chance it will motivate some to action or change any minds. And on this scale, this book is probably not successful. It will be read by Maher fans, who will likely already share many of his opinions.
I found the first two-thirds of this slender (165 pages, with about a quarter devoted to modern updates of WWII posters) volume fairly standard rhetoric. We're hated by others, they want to destroy us, we aren't doing what we must to get ready, either through our government or personally. The first essay of the 33 that really grabbed me didn't come until page 105, where Maher talks about how Americans saw 9/11 as something unique to human experience. The contrast to other cultures, in which random violence is common, and our wrapping ourselves in the flag and God are insensitive and ignorant.
Following this are intermittent bursts of effectiveness, but there is a lot of repetition. If this book were a blog, it would be pretty good; it loses some stature when placed between two hard covers.
The most effective point may come from the title. That this book still holds up five years after it was written, that Americans still have not had to sacrifice, that oil is still used as if it were infinite, that our culture is still focused on self-actualization, is the most savage indictment in the book.
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