Is it a claim in vain?
Strategically, some feel he shouldnt even try.
Even the jokes seem less coital, more socially consensual.
Bill Maher on ‘Real Time’HBO
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So will the more mature audiences be as receptive to centrist humor?
Or can comics even deliver it?
Insults come naturally to me, he said, adding: By the way, I find you despicable.
Celebrity stand-ups like Joey Bishop and Garry Shandling were famously nasty to civilians who tried to introduce themselves.
During dinners together, he was steadfastly unsmiling.
As a stand-up, he compulsively has to prove hes sharper than you.
After all, the camera is rolling, even when it isnt.
A rematch is doubtful.
Its recurring theme is a call for unity.
We have to see each other not as mortal enemies but merely as roommates from hell, he argues.
But today Maher says, Why cant everyone live in my world in the middle?
Maher, approaching 70, insists that Joe Biden, 81, is too old to win.
So will Mahers centrism work?
A new centrism may actually be on the rise in Washington, argues David Leonhardt ina New York Timescolumn.
Neoliberalism has failed to deliver.
Its successor might be a mushy moderation from the middle, Leonhardt writes.
I suspect neither Bill Maher nor his audience would be content with mushy.
