Matt Taibbi vs Bill Maher
We go behind the scenes of Matt's appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher last week
Bill gave Matt a list of questions before the show. Then, live on air, he hit him with everything else.
Today, Matt rehashes the debate and says everything Bill wouldn’t let him say.
With the help of our time-traveling friends at the Vanguard, it’s “Redux Time with Matt and Katie.” The debate: Russiagate. Bill believes it all. Matt calls BS. Everyone’s coming out firing.
This debate leads into another fight: Aaron Maté’s debate with Michael Isikoff on Russiagate and Assanggge.
It’s a fiery episode that comes with a warning: you might get caught in the crossfire. So pick your side: Taibbi or Maher. It’s a showdown.
Subscribe to watch it here.
Matt thought he didn't do well against Maher (Matt's words). I think he did quite well under the circumstances. This is particularly true after reading above that Matt was given a list of questions and then asked other things live.
Bonus point awarded to Matt for not calling Maher an idiot when Maher made the non sequitur, "9/11 didn't cost much either" and Bonus point taken away for not calling Maher out on that non sequitur. First: comparing a terrorist attack to buying Facebook ads is insulting to the people who lost their lives on and after 9/11 and second: 9/11 was a years- possibly decades-long plan to indoctrinate and vet a large group of potential suicide bombers who could learn to fly planes, get them to the US, integrated enough not to be arrested, trained in flying planes, etc., etc. We're talking millions of dollars over decades to kill hundreds of thousands (we have to include Afghans and Iraqis in a true accounting of 9/11) compared to $50k in Facebook ads (pre-election) and zero deaths.
Unfortunately, if you're going to do clown car TV, I think you need to bring your own set of clown tools to the show. This means a few prepared laugh lines or sound bite zingers: "Look, I get it! Neoliberals really WANTED to believe there was something there, and they were extremely disappointed when after 2 years of digging, Mueller didn't find anything." The implication that you'd have to be a neolib to swallow Russiagate would probably land on Maher.
"Russiagate is this generation's WMDs" is actually the perfect zinger, but Maher tried to co-opt it by saying it first, then waving his arms, moving the goalposts, shouting "oh come on!" etc.
It could also be fun to preempt the show's format by acknowledging "I know this show isn't about nuance, or detailed discussion of the issues, but..." or "I don't have a 5-second sound bite for this, but..." and then follow it up with a sound bite like "that's not collusion."
At the risk of sounding like Giuliani (or DJT himself).