In Which The Devolutionist Is Happy His Lack Of A TV Prevents Him From Watching Bill Maher

Oh, your Devolutionist used to enjoy Bill Maher.  He was smarmy and brooked no bullshit.  The man once went into his audience to physically throw some 9/11 Truthers out of the studio before security could do it.  So it's a little disconcerting that he brings on guests like Andrew Breitbart, who spouts more nonsense in thirty seconds than CNN's entire anchor line-up spouts in a year.  And CNN has Rick Sanchez.

Anyway, your Socially-Networked Devolutionist was reading some quotes from Maher's latest show on Facebook and he saw where Breitbart is pushing the right-wing meme that made its way into the GOP's Pledge to America: conservatives were shut out of the healthcare debate, the congressional town halls were dominated by leftist union members, and so the entire bill must be repealed, and we need to start over with an open and honest debate about the whole issue.

Now, Andrew Breitbart might actually know this is bullshit, but his shtick requires him to pretend otherwise, nay, to shout otherwise as loudly as he can.  But the Devolutionist paid attention to that debate, and he remembers things a little differently.  To wit:

• Five congressional committees wrote versions of the healthcare reform bill that were eventually all merged into one. Those committees all have Republicans on them who were allowed input.  Whether they wanted to give any is another matter.
• Max Baucus, the Democratic chair of the Senate Finance Committee holed up with only Republicans to pound out the SFC's bill.  He was so obsessed with working with the Republicans that his fellow Dems on the committee complained loudly and publicly that he was giving their arguments more weight than he gave members of his own party.
• The town halls were dominated by frothing right wingers screaming about socialism and birth certificates and the end of America.  That is a fact.  One only has to spend a couple of minutes with Google to call all that up.  Hell, the right wingers were bragging about how awesome they were at disrupting town halls.

Judging from the clips of the show on YouTube, Maher did not counter the argument from Breitbart or Amy Holmes, the other right-wing shill on the panel (the third guest was Seth McFarland; one wonders how he could possibly have been expected to do anything more than provide comic relief.)  

Anyway, your Devolutionist brings this up because he nearly got into an internet debate over at Wonkette a couple of weeks ago with a wingnut who claimed to want a debate about the issues - mostly, it seemed, so he could spout some of his hilarious "liberals all suck"-themed insults.  Anyway, here is what the Devolutionist told him:

I remember a year ago when us libs wanted to have an intelligent debate on healthcare reform and we'd say stuff like "Insurance mandates would widen the coverage pool which will result in keeping costs down" and the response was "ZOMG KENYAN FASCIST COMMIE USING HIS LEGISLATIVE MAJORITY TO SHOVE SOSHULIZMS DOWN OUR THROATS! HE TAKES OUR FREEDUMS! WE DEMAND BIRTH SIRTIFFICAT! YARRRRRGHHH RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE!"

And really, that shit has yet to let up. So no, we don't want to have debates anymore. Y'all had your chance. Now fuck off.

We here at the Devolutionist's world headquarters would like to restate our commitment to this sentiment.