One might imagine the possibility of mental health issues afflicting HBO “Real Time” host Bill Maher, but pinpointing an exact diagnosis from his one-hour weekly cable show could be something of a difficult task.
Keith Ablow, a psychiatrist and member of the Fox News “Medical A-Team” took a stab it on Wednesday’s broadcast of “Fox & Friends.” According to Ablow, Maher’s recent on-air blow-up about former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s daughter Bristol and her account of how she lost her virginity is telling.
“[L]ook, this guy needs his head examined so it’s good that you called me in,” Ablow said. “Bottom line is here’s a guy you have to understand, [Bristol Palin’s] book is called ‘Not Afraid of Life.’ Here’s a guy who never saw a life that he didn’t question. For euthanasia, for the death penalty, for abortion – this is somebody who is not affiliated with life at all. No children. So you have to look at him and say you know what, why is he so hostile towards women? He has a deep-seated, it seems, hatred to some extent of women. Frequents the Playboy mansion, all the girls that he dates, the women he dates, they have to be supermodels. The bottom line is you really got to wonder is he projecting on to her?”
Ablow also examined Maher’s strong atheist beliefs and suggested these problems back to his upbringing.
“Anti-religion – don’t forget, he said that suicide bomber at 9/11 were more heroic than American servicemen,” Ablow said. “This is someone very closely affiliated with not loving the birth, not having regard for life and therefore, I would say, having it in for women. He says elsewhere in the tape that basically the way that people are born is that babies drop out of them. He’s very much divorced from the beauty of the birth experience. He doesn’t say Bristol admit it – you had feelings for this young man. No, you were horny. See, he wants to think women are sluts. That’s his view of the world. Interestingly, his mother who happened to have been Jewish, denied her religion until his teen years. Do you wonder what kind of ascendance was in operation in that family. Was the male so far above the female that he’s internalized this?”
Ablow concluded the issues Maher should overcome have to do with his view of women and how he seems to favor death over life.
“Has it in for women, doesn’t like the notion of birth, embraces death, likes suicide bombers – very simple,” Ablow said.