Maher gets it right this time

This is a clip from Bill Maher's HBO show, Real Time With Bill Maher. The comedian and political commentator is pretty far out there, a little too left for me on some issues. A few weeks ago, he insinuated that it's too bad that Dick Cheney didn't get killed in Afghanistan, which I found outrageous.

However, sometimes Maher gets it right. In the clip above, I loved his line about e-mailing himself a copy of the Constitution, hoping the Bush Administration will read it. Hey, the truth hurts, Mr. President.

Maher has some great points about sacrifice, too. The only people who are really sacrificing are the soldiers and their families. You know who else is sacrificing? Future generations who are going to have to pay off the debt this war is ringing up. (Count me and the rest of my fellow Generation Xers among them.) When you take into account the requests for expenditures, right now the tab is at about $500 billion. Who's thrilled with have a trill? I know I'm not, especially considering what it's accomplished, which thus far, is killing 3,200+ Americans, and little else.

I also loved Maher's point about "who watches the watchers." The most troubling thing to me about the PATRIOT ACT isn't that it's (arguably) a great tool to catch terrorists. Hey, we need tools to catch these scumbags. My chief concern is that there are bound to be abuses without strict Congressional oversight, and we're seeing evidence of that now. There are no perfect systems in place to keep us safe and to catch every person, individual or country who wishes us harm, but we can sure as hell try to get the best system(s) in place. This administration and the Republican-controlled Congress over the past six years has failed to do that. Let's see if the Democrats can deliver.

Well done, Mr. Maher.