Bill Maher's Angry Tea Party Rant

Here's Mary Kate Cary on Bill Maher's essay at today's Los Angeles Times:

Bill Maher, following behind Janeane Garofalo and Robert Shrum earlier this week, continues the left's angry diatribe against the tea party protests in today's L.A. Times. His column is one big, ugly, name-calling screed, moving past the tax day protests to call all Republicans "a socially awkward group of mostly white people who speak a language only they understand.

Ms. Cary quotes Maher at length (he claims Tea Partyers are attacking the "black guy" in the White House), then adds:

Somebody's got to stand up to this kind of attitude, so here it goes. Maher's belittling tone, pervasive sarcasm, and nasty one-liners are just plain mean. The "black guy" line is offensive on a number of levels. Bill Maher has shown himself to be arrogant, snide, and completely outside of the mainstream. As I asked earlier this week, why is the left so angry? What's going on here?

What Maher doesn't seem to get is that while most Americans—including many Republicans and conservatives—personally like President Obama and wish him well, there are plenty of people with legitimate concerns about some of his policies. I find it deeply disturbing that reasonable people who stand up and say they're worried about the amount of taxing and spending are being called racists. There is a battle of ideas going on in America right now—from tax policy to torture memos—and it doesn't have anything to do with the color of anyone's skin.

Exactly.