By Eric Groves
In case you missed Bill Maher’s statement (and subsequent back peddling and groveling for forgiveness in the media) on terrorism, I’ll share it with you. On his late night TV show, Politically Incorrect, he said in response to the September 11th terrorist attacks, “We have been the cowards, lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That’s cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it’s not cowardly.” With unwavering predictability, so screamed the public, “How could he? Why the nerve of this un-patriotic bastard! We’ll never watch his dreaded show again! Stella honey, get the phone! I’m calling ABC to demand this nazi’s show is removed for good!!” Get the picture? Soon after phone lines were over-saturated with calls, advertisements for Maher’s show dried up, and mindfully, Maher went on his pleading binge with the media. Folks, his groveling was unwarranted and Americans every where, especially those claiming to be rallying around our great nation at this time should be ashamed of themselves.
Now, I could give a rat’s behind if you actually agree with Maher’s comments or not, and it’s likely that a great many of you do not (Uh, remember, we have “Freedom of Speech” last I heard). I don’t like the way he said it, And I applaud the fact that he had the guts to say it publicly. He SHOULDÑno he MUSTÑhave the right to make this statement. This is America! We were founded on the very principles that ALLOW Maher’s statement. Not once did he say the military were cowards, he was referring to Congress and the President and their past actions against terrorism. He was specifically referring to an incident in 1998 when we pharmaceutical plant thinking they were making chemical weapons.
And let me ask you this, all of those thousands of “patriots” who were calling for a public lynching of Maher, where were they the next day when the stock market reopened? They were apparently on their cell phones with their brokers telling them to get their hard-earned money the hell OUT of the American stock market! And FAST! Now THAT’S patriotism! It only caused the worse market slump since 1940, those days called “The Great Depression.” Meanwhile, civic leaders were imploring people to show courage and to spend money to boost the economy to show we won’t bow to terrorism. Nice steadfastly loyal response, John Q. Patriot. This is the very hypocrisy that should make you sick.The whole premise here is very frightening if you think about it. The very freedoms the public are clamoring for a war to support are the very ones they are violating when they behave like this over comments they disagree with. Ah, the irony of it all. Patrick Henry once said, “Give me liberty or give me death.” I guess a more appropriate quote for today’s pathetic society today should be, “Give me high yields on my stock portfolio, and say what we want you to say or go to hell.”
Eric Groves is a junior English major and a columnist for The Louisville Cardinal.
