Not too long ago, Bill Maher opened the door to the possibility that he’d support Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-KY) forthcoming presidential run, forcing many of us to ask how Maher, who’s otherwise pretty savvy, could be so thoroughly flimflammed by Rand Paul’s duplicity on a long list of issues. As we’ve covered here many times, Paul’s flip-flops make Mitt Romney look like a pillar of steadfast integrity, but for some reason, guys like Maher along with a small faction of the far-left, including Salon‘s H.A. Goodman, are completely blind to Paul’s serial waffling and doofery.
Months later, Maher still hasn’t figured it out. On Friday night’s Real Time, Paul was the opening guest and Maher used the opportunity to repeat his earlier pledge, while repeatedly telling Paul that he’s right (as in correct) on statement after statement, not realizing that whatever Paul says is either purposefully deceptive or that he’ll probably say or do the exact opposite in 5… 4… 3… 2…
Here’s where the love affair reached a climax:
MAHER: I am available to the Rand Paul campaign, but not if I don’t think you’re seeing [the climate change] issue realistically.
PAUL: I think the best way to do this is, [pretending to lose audio feed] Bill I think you’re facing out here. I’m not sure I can hear you’re question. Um, no I’ll give you the straight poop on this.
No, no he won’t.
PAUL: There’s abundant evidence that carbon is increasing and has increased since the industrial age, all I ask for is that the solution has to be a balanced solution, and that you have to account for jobs and jobs lost by regulation. And I’m not against regulation, I think the environment has been cleaned up dramatically through regulations on emissions as well as clean water over the last 40 or 50 years, but I don’t wanna shut down all forms of energy such that thousands and thousands of people lose jobs. Plus, we’re a growing population and as we grow, we need more energy, and maybe cleaner energy will supplant less clean energy over time and it already is, but I don’t think shutting down dramatically one form of energy is a good idea for an economy.
MAHER: Well, that sounds like you’re pretty open to renewable energy, which is great because you know when you use the job excuse, I mean the truth is that new forms of technology create jobs, not destroy jobs. Wouldn’t you agree with that?
PAUL: Yeah, here’s a good example of how we can work together on it. I have a new bill that’s gonna be coming out in the next month or so that’s going to be called The Deregulation of Alternative Fuels. So I’m for trying to get the government out of the way of converting their trucks from diesel to natural gas, or from gasoline to ethanol, try to get the government outta there and let the marketplace take care of this…
You know what this bill probably is?… CONTINUE READING