Bill Maher managed to goad outspoken Trump Deranged Hollywood progressive Rob Reiner into a spectacular demonstration of what his lockstep ideology does to brains. From Newsbusters, which generously watches Maher’s HBO show so I don’t have to:
BILL MAHER: Let me ask you a more nuanced question about, is it okay to have a conspiracy to get rid of Trump. This came up this week because my friend Sam Harris was on a podcast and he said—
ROB REINER: What do you mean a conspiracy to get rid of Trump?
MAHER: I’m going to tell you.
REINER: Okay. Thank you.
MAHER: He was talking about—
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR: I’m going to defer to my lawyer here.
MAHER: Truer than you know. They were talking about Hunter Biden’s laptop which was a story and now all the mainstream press has finally admitted it was a real story, it was a real laptop with, now look, let’s not pussyfoot around this, he was selling the influence of his father, Joe Biden.
I mean, most political sons do, but let’s not pretend that, at least, wasn’t going on. I mean the guy, some guy from China gave him after a dinner, an $80,000 diamond, after dinner as one does.
REINER: Yeah.
MAHER: If you are Naomi Campbell, but it doesn’t usually happen. Okay, so, Hunter Biden’s laptop was buried by the press, even the head of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, said that was a mistake. They buried this story because they remembered what happened with James Comey and the letter 11 days before the 2016 election. Comey said we have to reopen this email investigation with Hillary Clinton and it probably was the—I mean, she ran a horrible campaign, didn’t go to Wisconsin, we know all that. This is probably the last thing that sunk her.
So, Sam Harris says it was appropriate– “it was appropriate– for Twitter and the heads of big tech and the heads of journalistic organizations to feel that they were in the presence of something that is a once-in-a-lifetime moral emergency,” meaning Trump.
So, he’s saying it’s okay to have a conspiracy to get rid of somebody as bad as Trump. It’s a little bit of a thorny question because once you go down this road, this is sort of where we are in this country, the other side is so evil, anything is justified in preventing them from taking office, is it?
REINER: No, no, you know it’s not justified? Using armed violence to try to kill people in the Capital. That’s not justified.
MAHER: Answer this question. Is it, was it, answer this question—
REINER: What is the question?
MAHER: –was it appropriate. The question [crosstalk] is was it appropriate bury the Hunter Biden –
REINER: You’re talking about the press doing that?
MAHER: He’s saying that’s what they did and that is what they did, they buried the Hunter Biden story before the election because they were like we can’t risk having the election thrown to Trump, we’ll tell them after the election.
REINER: And we know for fact that that’s what they did?
MAHER: Of course, you don’t follow this?
REINER: No, but, I’ve been saying that you know for a fact that’s what they did, I don’t know what they did.
MAHER: I know, because you only watch MSNBC.
REINER: No, that’s not true. That’s not true.
MAHER: Well, then you would know about this.
REINER: I do know about that.
MAHER: Well, you’re acting like you don’t.
REINER: I do—I do know about that. I do watch Fox, but the point is we’re going to prove now that the press played, you know, tried to—
MAHER: They’re admitting it!
REINER: The press is admitting it?
MAHER: That’s not—yes, that’s not even an issue anymore, they’re saying yes we basically did this because we didn’t want this to throw the election. Yes?
KLOBUCHAR: I don’t know that they’ve all said this and I believe strongly in the First Amendment—
MAHER: Well, the New York Times definitely didn’t–
KLOBUCHAR: My dad was a reporter, I believe in it and I think you have to make sure you’re treating people fairly, but I think Rob’s point here is we are dealing with a man who used to be the president right now who literally tried to lead an armed insurrection and that’s why we are so focused on this right now.
Observations:
1. Maher is, of course, right, but he’s ethically estopped from making this argument. Before he decided that exposing the Left’s unethical plots to take out Trump would get his show some publicity, Maher had said on his show, during Trump’s Presidency, that crashing the economy to defeat Trump was “worth it.”
2. The depressing thing is that Rob Reiner isn’t stupid. You can’t be stupid and direct perceptive films and clever films like “Stand By Me” and “The Princess Bride.” (“Pearl Harbor,” “Jurassic World: Dominion” and “Don’t Look Up!,” maybe, but not those films.) Yet here he is denying media bias, and making pathetic retorts like “You know it’s not justified? Using armed violence to try to kill people in the Capital. That’s not justified” when you can’t rebut a damning fact. So many once intelligent people are like Reiner now.
3. Isn’t that frightening? Don’t some Americans, the ones who aren’t too far gone, hear a celebrity talk like that and think, “Wait…I’m on the same side as that guy? Do I sound like that? What’s happened to me?”
4. Is the current strategy to deal with the news media’s undemocratic efforts to deceive the voting public now to pretend that the Hunter Biden laptop story was the only flagrant example? The news media buried Biden’s obvious cognitive decline. It buried the sexual harassment accusation against him. It buried Trump’s successes, and never explained the legal and Constitutional problems with both impeachments. And, of course, it never admitted that it hyped the Russian Collusion lie, among other deliberately Trump-busting coverage.
5. Senator Klobuchar’s mealy-mouthed deflections are typical of her. And yet many Democrats, especially women, told me that she was their favorite Presidential candidate. ‘I believe strongly in the First Amendment”—”…that’s great, Amy, and so what? The issue isn’t whether the news media can publish whatever they want to. The issue is whether it is right, fair and ethical to deliberately try to manipulate the news to defeat a candidate they don’t like. Then she apes Reiner’s January 6 fantasy: “a man who used to be the president right now who literally tried to lead an armed insurrection.” No, he literally didn’t, and if Maher was the truthiteller he pretends to be, he should have called her on it. Moreover, January 6. 2020 was after the news media’s plot to defeat Trump was complete. Good thinking there, Senator.
Ethics Alarms 
Freedom of speech does not mean blanket freedom to slander and defame. A minor point to many progressives, I’m sure. And though the press can print anything it chooses, it is doing itself a great disservice: why else would the NY Times ask me again and again to resubscribe? They need the readership, but who wants to read it???
On a personal note, Rob Reiner may be very smart and creative, but the adoption of his insane progressive ideas has ruined him. (Seen any recent, lovely, creative Reiner movies lately?) A friend of mine is very bright, a lawyer, but a progressive as well. It is clear she has lost 25 IQ points in the process: in anything but politics she remains incisive, interesting and fun. Enter politics and she’s an instant moron, parrotting back the latest progressive nonsense. This I can barely put up with: what scares me is that she is a dedicated voter.
It is so tempting to excuse the Capitol riot based upon what the media did.
It could be argued that reasonable person would say we shouldn’t be destroying other people’s property, but these are not reasonable times.
Yes, I’m trying to decide if this is a new rationalization for the list: What happened after my misconduct justifies my misconduct.” It’s especially outrageous when one’s conduct had a major role in triggering the events that are no being used as justification.
Is that on the list already? I don’t think so. It’s kind of a reverse consequentialism…
It is whataboutism.
It’s one I don’t see often, but seeing it at all is surprising, considering how stupid it is. “Aha, your retaliation reveals your treachery!” It’s one thing to enact a preemptive strike out of paranoia, thus creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s another thing to blame the other person for striking back.
Perhaps it falls under victim blaming? “Vilification of the vengeful victim”? “Not allowed to defend oneself”?
Or possibly a retroactive version of 2A: “They had it coming”. In this case, their response to “it” is what retroactively justifies “it”.
The Leftist media’s attitude about Biden’s election might be summed up as, “Well, if they’re going to be such bad sports about losing, I certainly don’t regret cheating.”
“Cheating a bad sport” is a pithy name for a rationalization, although the concept covers non-cheating situations, so maybe there’s a more general phrase.
Jack Marshall wrote, “Yes, I’m trying to decide if this is a new rationalization for the list: What happened after my misconduct justifies my misconduct.” It’s especially outrageous when one’s conduct had a major role in triggering the events that are no being used as justification.”
Isn’t that a form of consequentialism, the doctrine that the morality of an action is to be judged solely by its consequences.
It’s a little different, perhaps not different enough. In this case, the action is unequivocally unethical, but the argument is that because subsequent events showed that the victim was deserving of harm, the original conduct magically loses its unethical nature.
When the discussion talked about the son, Hunter Biden, using the influence of his father, Joe Biden, I thought the conversation between Bill Maher and Rob Reiner, son of Carl Reiner, was going to go in a completely different direction.
-Jut
“… but I think Rob’s point here is we are dealing with a man who used to be the president right now who literally tried to lead an armed insurrection and that’s why we are so focused on this right now.”
To me, this remark by Klobuchar is the headline of this ethics debacle. There is no truth to the statement, and under no interpretation of the events of 1/6 did Trump lead an insurrection, armed or otherwise. It’s just a plain, deliberate, slanderous lie. Spoken by anyone other than a politician, it would be actionable as such.
So much for treating people “fairly.” If her father actually believed in that, he utterly failed to communicate it to his daughter. Either that or she just kicked it to the curb when it became inconvenient. How fair is it to slander Trump on live TV? Would her father have approved?
Since Maher did not call her on it, the rest is meaningless drivel. And yes, as you say, Maher is ethically estopped from making this argument. He might as well join Klobuchar.
It could be argued that since these are not reasonable times, an armed insurrection would be justified.
The words were “tried to lead ……” not necessarily that he succeeded. It must have taken guts to refuse to drive the President to the Capital, if that reporting is right. If so, I wonder whether that ‘refusal’ could have been ethical?
Reiner hasn’t directed anything since before Trump was elected. Coincidence, or did the Orange Man break ol’ Meathead’s brain so badly that he’s no longer capable of making films?
I think the problem for Reiner was a long losing (or “blah”) streak beginning with the mega-bomb “North” in ’94, making “A Few Good Men” his last really good, really successful film. Then he settled into acting, like playing Leonardo DiCaprio’s father in “The Wolf of Wall Street.”