Maher: Obama 'too white' for libs

Seems like, everywhere you look, comedians are apologizing for offensive jokes about the day’s news.

Not Bill Maher.


“You’re not going to find me apologizing,” Maher told POLITICO. “I have been doing this for so long and, having gone through so many tribulations, including the firing, I’m inoculated. I’ve been through this. You cannot scare me anymore. I’m playing with the house money, and I’m not going to apologize.”

( PHOTOS: Bill Maher's 15 fiercest GOP jabs)

The host of HBO”s “Real Time,” which returns from its summer hiatus tonight, has found himself, his comedy and his opinions in the spotlight more than ever before, thanks, in part, to having inserted himself into the political process in a major way. In February, Maher contributed $1 million to Priorities USA Action, a super PAC supportive of President Barack Obama’s reelection. As a result, he’s been billed as a campaign operative of sorts, and, accordingly, the White House has even had to field questions about Maher and the appropriateness of some of his remarks.

Deterred? Hardly. Maher’s putting his foot on the gas pedal.

About Obama, he told POLITICO: “In many ways — especially for progressives — [Obama] is too white for them. He plays golf, he’s too cozy with bankers. But when it comes to knowing how to fight, he’s black” — referring to the tough campaign Obama is running against the Republicans.

( PHOTOS: 18 'wars' on [fill in the blank])

About Paul Ryan, Maher says: “He’s not an intellectual. They said the same thing about Newt Gingrich. Somehow Newt Gingrich and Paul Ryan — these giant intellectuals — somehow they had the same great idea: Give more money to the rich people. What’s his big idea? Rich people should stop paying taxes and poor people should start looking for food in the woods. Can you name one area where he and Sarah Palin disagree on anything? So how come he’s this giant intellectual? The Ryan budget is a budget in the way that my doodle on a cocktail napkin is a blueprint for NASA.”

Maher says he finds the increased scrutiny that he’s now facing rather humorous.

“Part of it is that anytime somebody on the right says something that garners controversy, they want to have a false equivalency,” said Maher. “So I’m an easy guy to trot out. It’s never equivalent, of course. But that’s the game they play.”

And it’s a game that means more publicity for Maher.

( PHOTOS: Romney and Ryan, BFFs)

“It certainly doesn’t hurt me,” said Maher. “I know that Fox News is obsessed. Sean Hannity is obsessed. I should get a f—-ing restraining order, he’s practically stalking me. I pull fewer punches and therefore they have more fodder to work with. I think it’s a symbiotic relationship.”

Still, Maher finds the current environment for his brand of edgy political humor to be a frightening one.

“It’s a very chilling atmosphere,” said Maher. “You see this comics in nightclubs — it’s the next thing to practicing in front of your mirror at home — and that was always sacred.” But now because comedian routines seem to be filmed wherever they go and uploaded to YouTube, “I think they’re scared.”

“I think it’s very dangerous when people can’t even in small comedy clubs be wrong, be bad, be over the line,” said Maher. “That’s what stand-up comedy is all about, pushing the edge. In the age of mass emailing and so forth, you can just push a button and it’s easy to do that and it makes advertisers think that more people are riled up than they really are and that’s very unfortunate.”

And don’t even get him started about Twitter.

“Can we stop declaring tweets to be proclamations of law?” said Maher. “They’re f—-ing brain farts. They’re half-baked thoughts.”

“If you don’t like something, move on. It’s not the end of the world if your feelings are bruised for two seconds. Change the channel.”

That’s exactly why, in a move that surprised many, Maher came to the defense of Rush Limbaugh in the wake of the radio host’s controversial remarks regarding Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke on the topic of contraception.

“Even though what I thought he said about Sandra Fluke was horrendous, I didn’t like that people were trying to make him go away,” said Maher. “I was just doing for him what he had done for me.”

Maher recalled that, after he got in hot water in 2001 for comments that compared the cowardice of the Sept. 11 hijackers with that of the U.S. military, Limbaugh came to his defense. “He was one of the first people to say — first of all, he said I was right. We may disagree but we got to stick together on that as broadcasters.”

Maher said he doesn’t expect his show to change much as it enters the home stretch of the presidential election, but he welcomes the fresh material the campaign delivers each week, like the notion that this campaign could be the nastiest ever. Maher says history is rife with mudslinging but offers one explanation for why this campaign might appear to be more contentious.

“I think what’s different this time is that we’re so used to the Democrats being pussies about campaigns and not fighting and bringing a knife to a gun fight. This year, what’s different is that the Democrats are bringing a gun to a gun fight and it’s about friggin’ time. I can’t get too upset about some of the stuff that Obama or his super PACs are running, even if they’re not completely fair. Is it really fair that he’s accusing Mitt Romney of killing your wife? Not really. But you know what? It’s just deserts. To have them say, ‘How dare Democrats go into the gutter’? They’re just joining you in the gutter. You invented this sh—.”