CENSORSHIP AFTER 9/11

[Doug Millison]

CENSORSHIP AFTER 9/11: THE BILL MAHER 'COWARD' COMMENT

One of the controversies that's been intriguing to watch since the
events of 9/11 involves a comment made by Bill Maher on his "Politically
Incorrect" TV show.  It sounded antiAmerican to many and prompted ABC to
consider cancelling the program.

The show in question was the first of "Politically Incorrect" to go on
the air after ABC's round-the-clock coverage of the airplane attacks on
the World Trade Center and Pentagon. By the time Maher came back on -
September 17 -  President George W. Bush, with the Congress and the
media solidly behind him, had brought the country to "a state of war."

Maher used his opening monologue, then, to reestablish the basis of his
program - the bringing together of diverse celebrities who exchange
different views that often go against the grain of current thinking.

"I do not relinquish, nor should any of you," he said, "the right to
criticize,
even as we support our government.  Feelings are gonna get hurt so that
actual people won't, and that will be a good thing."

Maher thought the stage was thus set for another evening of contentious
behavior in which opinions would clash and perhaps some brainstorming
would occur, and the audience would leave with plenty of new ideas.

In that context, about halfway through the program, conservative writer
Dinesh D'Souza  said that "although I think Bush has been doing a great
job, one of the themes we hear constantly is that the people who did
[the hijacking] are cowards...Not true. Look at what they did.

"First of all, you have a whole bunch of guys who are willing to give
their life. None of 'em backed out. All of them slammed themselves into
pieces of concrete . . . These are warriors. And we have to realize that
the principles of our way of life are in conflict with people in the
world . . . "

To this, Maher replied: "But also, we should -- we have been the cowards
lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That's cowardly."

Another guest, columnist Arianna Huffington, agreed: "Let us not forget
how many innocent civilians we killed when we bombed Yugoslavia to
rubble, because we did not want to have a single American soldier die.
And now we have over 5,000 innocent civilians die because we were
cowardly when it came to our military personnel."

[You can find the complete transcript at
.com/primetime/politicallyincorrect/transcripts/transcript_20010917.html
],

Accusations about American military decision-makers taking the easy way
out by shooting missiles from far away, even if the wrong target was
hit, were nothing new to political talk shows and caused little ruckus
before 9/11.

But after 9/11, "Maher's crime," as the Los Angeles Times observed,
"would seem to have less to do with what he said than where he said it."


Before he knew it, Maher had lost two sponsors (Federal Express, Sears
Roebuck) and three ABC affiliates (one of them in Washington D.C.).
Michael Eisner, chairman of Walt Disney Co., which owns ABC, expressed
disapproval. Conservative talk show host Dan Patrick called on his
listeners to complain.

"If Maher didn't understand that he was speaking to a changed America,"
the L.A. Times observed, "the backlash he caused that night gave him a
crash course - in the politics of speech at a time of fervent
patriotism, in the skittishness of network TV during a national crisis
and in the potential for a comment, after it orbits out into the media
ether, to return in its most incendiary form."

A Tendency for Censorship

But worst of all for the rest of the nation, George W. Bush's spokesman,
Ari Fleisher, told the Associated Press that Maher's comment was "a
terrible thing to say, and it's unfortunate . . . There are reminders to
all Americans that they need to watch what they say, watch what they do,
and this is not a time for remarks like that; there never is."

Whoa. When the press secretary of the White House tells "all Americans
that they need to watch what they say," observed The Skeptic at
http://www.UnquietMind.com , he shows a "tendency for censorship" that
jeopardizes the "pair of freedoms that America is supposed to be about -
freedom of speech and the press."

Soon, though, unlikely allies for Maher emerged. Arch-conservative David
Horowitz wrote at http://www.frontpagemagazine.com that "Bill Maher's
'Politically Incorrect' may be the first casualty of the war against
terrorism. This would be a travesty of the war effort and a blow to
freedom in this country, which would weaken not strengthen our national
security."

And, irony of irony, George W. Bush himself seemed to agree with Maher's
comment. According to Newsweek, Bush explained his plans for war to a
group of senators by saying that "when I take action, Iím not going to
fire a $2 million missile at a $10 empty tent and hit a camel in the
butt. Itís going to be decisive." LBJ would have been proud of language
like that. No coward he.

Bush made a similar remark elsewhere about the war to come: "It will not
look like the air war above Kosovo two years ago, where no ground troops
were used and not a single American was lost in combat."

Maher ended up apologizing to his viewers (read: the network) by saying
that "in no way was I ever intending, because I never think this way, to
say that the men and women who defend our nation in uniform are anything
but courageous and valiant, and I apologize."

After that he took his mea culpa and went on the road, offering
variations of the apology on six nationally syndicated radio talk shows,
Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor," "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" and
other broadcast interviews. Apparently Jerry Springer was on vacation.

Americans and Their Polls

A final way to make a point in the United States is to turn to that
pillar of grassroots democracy, the Internet petition, and this is what
supporters of Bill Maher have done. By now  many thousands have
submitted  their names to the list at
http://www4.PetitionOnline.com/promaher/petition.html to stop ABC from
cancelling "Politically Incorrect."

And what a treat it is to peruse the many succinct and convincing
comments  about democracy and censorship these signers offer: "The show
is called 'Politically Incorrect.' I enjoy diverse opinions. Leave the
show alone." What eloquence in such  spare prose! "It is not un-American
to speak dissent against the government. On the contrary, the right to
speak out is fundamentally what makes us American." Bravo!

Similar comments roll out in wave after wave, some all in caps ("FREE
SPEECH IS THE FOUNDATION OF THIS COUNTRY" and some  geared toward the
events of 9/11 ("The right to express unpopular views is what makes
America the great nation she is. To cancel 'Politically Incorrect'
because of Maher's comments is to play into the hands of the terrorists
who would destroy our society' ").

At the same time, democracy has been called a messy, chaotic process,
during which  Americans can be downright pesky when they get a hankering
to play around. It should be no surprise that Osama bin Laden has signed
the petition many times ("Thank you Bill. I like your show") as have
Jane Fonda, Bart Simpson and Gary Condit ("Thank God something has taken
the heat off me").

Perhaps most heartening is the "Freedom of Speecher" who takes a stand
for or against every side possible in this controversy: "Bill Maher is
welcome to speak on any street corner. I am welcome to boycott any
company that pays him to nauseate me on my own television."

Petitions, initiatives, letters, votes, posters, interviews, talk shows
- they're all part of a big, heartening process that's going to save
Maher's show and  capture something larger - something that deserves all
caps and a little flag-waving of its own: "THE CORRECT RESPONSE TO VIEWS
WITH WHICH WE DISAGREE IS MORE SPEECH - NOT SUPPRESSION. LONG LIVE OUR
BELOVED FREE COUNTRY."

--from:
HOLT UNCENSORED

To New Readers: "Holt Uncensored" is a free online column about books
and the book industry written by former San Francisco Chronicle book
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pat at holtuncensored.com

 Holt Uncensored #269
Tuesday, October 2, 2001
Doug Millison - Writer/Editor/Web Editorial Consultant
millison at online-journalist.com
www.Online-Journalist.com