Bill Maher is an enigma [View all]

[Quixote1818]

One moment he will go to the wall defending someone like Trayvon Martin with incredible passion and sincerity and the next moment he might call Michael Brown a "Thug".

He certainly isn't a perfect liberal but he would be considered a very bad conservative. I think he has some backward and insensitive positions that border on racism and sexism and may even cross the line (this is possibly because he is on a show where he gets ratings by pushing the envelope) but he has aligned himself more with liberals than conservatives because that is where he really is and he defends minorities a lot more than he doesn't. His comment about Michael Brown to me is extremely offensive and a big disappointment along with some very sexist things he has said but his passionate defense of Martin and other minorities as well as other women I think is a genuine side of him which is admirable. I think he is 70% good hearted and 30% insensitive and shallow. He is an enigma who we can't put in a perfect liberal package like we could probably do with Al Frankin or Gavin Newsom. He is more like Chris Matthews than our real liberal heroes. But that doesn't mean we dump him completely. He has apologized and hopefully he will learn from this.

None of us are perfect and yes Maher deserves to be hammered for using the N word and for many other things he has said over the years. However, I am still going to watch his show because I think he is by far a net positive for liberal causes and for looking out for minorities and women's issues. We just need to continue to criticize him when we think he is wrong or sounding bigoted.