opinion

Column: Bill Maher jabs caucuses before Iowa visit

Bill Maher has made a living skewering sacred cows. So it should be no surprise that he’ll bring a recipe for caucus kebabs when he visits Iowa next month.

“Well, I think Iowa should take one for the team,” Maher said in a phone interview on Tuesday. “You know, one of the problems America has is that nobody ever gives an inch on anything. And at some point, somebody needs to step forward and say, you know what? I’m going to do what’s right for America. Iowa could be that entity to step forward and say, you know what? Maybe this isn’t the best place to start the primary process, because it is not exactly a state that is representative of the nation,” he said.

“I mean, I lived in California. There’s 40 million people here and they’re diverse,” he said. “Why don’t we have it in California?”

There’s no retail politics, he said, “but is retail politics the best way to find out? I mean, does it really matter if you shook their hand in a coffee shop? What the hell does that have to do with how you’re going to run the world?”

Actually, that’s pretty mild sauce compared with what Maher usually dishes up on his HBO political-comedy talk show, “Real Time with Bill Maher.” He will bring his standup routine to Stephens Auditorium in Ames on Nov. 7.

He was less diplomatic about how the mainstream media is covering the presidential campaign. “They’re horrible and they’ve been horrible for a very long time, and they only get more horrible,” he said. “Political coverage is horrible, because they don’t cover policy. They only cover the horse race.”

He said Hillary Clinton makes policy statements every week, but “they don’t give a (four-letter expletive).” Instead, all they report is whether Joe Biden is going to run against her or about her emails, he said.

Despite what he considers ridiculous news coverage of the campaign, Maher said he doesn’t necessarily feel pressure to educate viewers who may be using his show as a news source. He is, however, thinking of people who may be interested in news but don’t have time to watch it.

“I wouldn’t say it’s pressure but when I put the show together, I always think about what should the audience be aware of,” he said. He said the Friday night show wraps up the important events of the week, so viewers “feel like they’re completely caught up.”

Word to the wise: Don’t mention Jon Stewart and “The Daily Show” if you ask Maher about the phenomenon of comedy shows replacing news viewing. He gets a little touchy.

“Well, I was doing this long before Jon Stewart was. I invented this. Other people came in my wake, and my ratings and the number of people that watch me have always been higher than them. So I don’t know why they bring that up,” he said.

Maher also concedes nothing to Donald Trump when it comes to who is more politically incorrect.

“I mean, he’s just been doing this for a few months,” Maher said. “I had a whole show called ‘Politically Incorrect’ for nine years.”

He does, however, consider Trump’s willingness to offend as a key to his popularity. “People do like somebody who is refreshingly honest, even if they’re wrong,” he said. Controversial statements immediately draw an outcry from “the United States of babies where people can’t stand for even one second to even hear something they disagree with.”

Maher had more than a taste of that disapproval last year, when he argued that the Muslim world in general bears some accountability for violence carried out by extremists. He never apologized for it, despite accusations his comments were bigoted. “As F.D.R. once said, I welcome their hatred,” he said. “On that issue, I feel pretty damn good because I feel like I’ve turned a lot of liberals around on that issue.”

He said he thinks liberals have begun to understand that even mainstream Islamic states are theocracies that keep women as second-class citizens and engage in many other practices than run against progressive principles.

It’s strange to hear a liberal comedian admit to having a very similar view as Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson on the question of whether America should elect a Muslim president. But if you can wrap your head around the paradoxes, check out Maher’s show in Ames. Tickets are available at http://www.center.iastate.edu/events/series/bill-maher/