Politics

Maher attacks New York Times, Chris Matthews for shaming Weiner and Spitzer

Jeff Poor Media Reporter
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On his Friday night HBO program “Real Time,” Bill Maher harshly criticized The New York Times and MSNBC “Hardball” host Chris Matthews for their denunciations of former New York Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer and former New York Democrat Rep. Anthony Weiner.

Maher first attacked the Times, noting that while it will make comparisons to these candidates past indiscretions and reality TV star Kim Kardashian’s life, the Times remains fascinated with those lifestyles.

“I’ll just say one more thing, and then we’ll get off of this, which is that as gross as [Anthony Weiner] is, I find it even grosser the way the media tut-tuts, points fingers, shames people, makes them go on shaming tours,” Maher said. “I’ve seen [Eliot Spitzer] have to go on to every show and have people point their finger. ‘How dare you?’ Please, The New York Times wrote in an editorial, ‘Mr. Spitzer, like Mr. Weiner, is a political animal’ — like, who in politics isn’t? Of course. Obama is a political animal. Everybody who is in politics — ‘who clearly finds it hard not to have an audience for these two charter members of the Kardashian Party.’ I looked up Kim Kardashian on the New York Times website. They mention her 1,700 times. Just saying, they’ve written her name in articles about her that many times.”

Next, he set his sights on Matthews, author of “Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero,” for his condemnation of Weiner. Maher noted that Kennedy, the subject of Matthews book, and former President Bill Clinton, another subject of Matthews’ affection — they both had their own share of sexual indiscretions.

“My friend Chris Matthews, I like him a lot. I see him endlessly talking about how awful — he went on and on for a whole year about his book about John F. Kennedy. He loves Bill Clinton. Never stops kissing his ass. Those two guys did things way worse. I mean, Kennedy was so much more reckless. He was screwing the mafia mistress, East German spies, 19-year-old White House secretaries two at a time in the pool. Bill Clinton, Paula Jones and Kathleen Willey — true, you know, sexual harassment. There just seems to be no sort of consistency in the media.”

(h/t Newsbusters)

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