January 1, 1995
pp 6C

I have to confess that when the Comedy Central network launched "Politically Incorrect" in July 1993, I thought it would never fly. The format just made no sense: Take public figures, pit them against people perceived to be their ideological opposites, and make a comedy out of it all. Just how funny can it get when you match Christopher Buckley with Sister Souljah? Answer: Hilarious, if the host is Bill Maher, one of the hottest properties on television today and the reason why "Politically Incorrect" won an ACE award for best cable talk show.

On each "Politically Incorrect" episode, Maher and his guests--I've been on three times--discuss sociopolitical issues, but the show is no "Meet the Press." About half the guests work in politics or journalism; the others are mostly actors, actresses and stand-up comics. Maher is content to let the Kinsleys and Sununus aim for the jugular; he goes for the funny bone. Pity the guest who cannot laugh at himself--for he is not only out of place on this show, but Maher will proceed to dissect him mercilessly.

What about the host himself? Maher pokes fun across the political spectrum, but his personal leanings are mostly left of center. On CNBC's "Talk Live" in February 1994, he stated, "'Politically correct' meant, to me, something that gave liberals a bad name. . .I like to be liberal." Maher deliberately targets conservatives and conservative policies. After the Republican sweep of the 1994 elections, he informed the Los Angeles Times that "when you have conservatives in power, it's better for comedy because they make the kind of authority figures that you want to stick a pin in."

The Speaker of the House is among the conservatives Maher likes to deflate. On a December 1994 "Tonight Show," Maher, talking about a homeless man shot by police across from the White House, quipped, "Newt said it was a good start on the homeless problem...(Gingrich also) had a special Christmas message. He said Mary should not have had the boy Jesus unless she had a good home for him. And, you know, that's because he's into family values."

More recently, at the Radio & Television Correspondents' Association dinner, Maher joked that Sen. Phil Gramm "wanted to show he was so tough on immigration, he's having his own wife deported." After he was criticized for his joke, Maher said, "I'm not sorry I made a pointed attack on the Republican position on immigration."

Maher has also thrown in several jabs at Ronald Reagan. In a 1994 "Tonight Show" interview, Maher claimed, "Reagan said you could raise the defense budget, lower taxes and balance the (budget). He was too stupid to lie about it. He called it 'trickle down.' I mean, they were actually saying, 'We're pissing on you.'"

Maher has a weakness--the occasional desire to pontificate seriously on his show. And when he does, he is even more bizarre. Perhaps his wackiest moment came not long after Christopher Reeve's riding accident, which tragedy Maher used as the premise for this dead-serious-animal-rights screed: "If you get on the back of a horse...that's animal abuse. You put that bit in his mouth, you nail stuff to his shoe, you make him jump over things he's scared of, then he should throw you off his back...Do you think that's the way God intended a creature to be, with metal nailed to the bottom of his foot? Do you think it hurt Jesus when they put nails through his hands?"

That anomalous rant aside, guesting on "Politically Incorrect" can be a pleasant experience even if you're a conservative. One repeat guest, author Arianna Huffington, remarks that Maher "has demonstrated that the most effective weapons against political correctness...are satire, parody and humor, and he's the master of the art, making all guests, whether liberal or conservative, welcome."

Maher is no boorish kneejerk liberal. He supports the death penalty, and, in an April "Politically Incorrect" discussion about former Secretary of Defense Robert MacNamara's book on Vietnam, the conversation revolved around MacNamara's statement that "all our sacrifices (in Vietnam) were for nothing." Maher objected, "I have to take exception to that. I don't think all the sacrifices were for nothing in Vietnam...Ronald Reagan was right (that) the Soviet Union was an evil empire. If we hadn't stood up to Communism somewhere, it would have been a lot worse."

It would be instructive for people to recognize the similarities between Maher and Rush Limbaugh. In their jokes, both mean often combine cutting humor with a political point. Most liberals become apoplectic at Limbaugh's satire; conservatives should react to Maher more reasonably, recognizing that you can (usually) appreciated his wit without (virtually ever) buying into his ideology.

Copyright 1995 by Indianapolis Business Journal.