The 'Maher mosquito' and the disease of liberal hate

In a Facebook note, Sarah Palin compared Bill Maher to "an annoying little mosquito found zipped up in your tent" and encouraged conservatives to not get distracted by the petty, vulgar attacks of liberals like Maher.

The problem with mosquitos, however, is that many carry diseases like encephalitis, dengue fever, and malaria.

In Maher's case, the diseases are ignorance, hate, and radical liberalism.

On Friday, the foul-mouthed little man demonstrated the height of his intellectual capacity yet again by referring to Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin as bimbos, and attacked John Boehner by saying:

"John Boehner wears bronzer and goes on crying jags. He just feels like a female to me. Maybe liberals should demand to see his penis"

Technically, Maher followed the advice of NOW's Communication Director; He did not use vulgar slang in his attack on Palin and Bachmann. Nevertheless, he proved yet again to be every bit the annoying mosquito in the tent. But consider the response of those in his audience:

BILL MAHER: Well, you know, a birther could be running for president. Michele Bachmann this week threw her hat into the ring kind of. We think she’s going to be running for president. For those who find Sarah Palin too intellectual.

[Laughter and applause]

MAHER: Michele Bachmann for President. As a comedian, all I have to say is where can I donate to this cause?

[Laughter and applause]

MAHER: I love this, if Bachmann and Palin get in, that’s two bimbos, and then there's Mitt Romney, a millionaire, and Newt Gingrich, a professor. We just need a skipper and a buddy – we’ve got “Gilligan’s Island.”

[Laughter and applause]

Maher, a comedian? Who knew?

Still, the laughter and applause by those in the audience speaks volumes, unless Maher's audience consists of paid actors following a script.

Substitute the names Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann with Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama - would the same audience laugh and applaud? Hardly.

In her note, Palin speaks to the obvious double standard faced by conservatives and advises conservatives to ignore the vulgar attacks by intolerant liberals like Maher:

But two decades in politics have taught me that when it comes to picking battles, often it’s best to ignore the truly petty, ugly personal media shots because engaging in a counter argument with disreputable, intolerant people doesn’t vindicate me; it merely gives those people the attention they seek. It wastes my time and it distracts from what we should focus on.

Bob Lynn, a Republican legislator in Alaska and a longtime friend of this examiner, once called this "teaching a pig to sing," explaining, "it wastes your time and annoys the pig."

Like those in Maher's audience, far too many have views of conservatives that are based solely on the bumper-sticker insults of 'mosquitos' like Maher. In other words, they are infected by liberal hate and ignorance spread by the Maher mosquito. If you ask any of them what, exactly, they have against Palin or Bachmann, chances are all they could do is parrot the lines they heard Maher (or mosquitos like him) utter.

Consider Maher's attack on Speaker John Boehner:

BILL MAHER: Well, he's got bigger problems. A new poll shows that one of the major parties in this country - I won't tell you which one - is a majority birther party. That's right, more than half of Republicans now think Obama was born in Kenya. They literally do not know where babies come from.

[Laughter and applause]

MAHER: And that's why they keep demanding to see his birth certificate. And, it’s funny, when they go a little deeper into the polling, they find out this is just based on a general sense. It just feels to them like he's a foreigner. Well, you know, John Boehner wears bronzer and goes on crying jags. He just feels like a female to me.

[Laughter and applause]

MAHER: Maybe liberals should demand to see his penis.

[Laughter and applause]

Noel Sheppard writes at Newsbusters:

What's truly fascinating is not only are there people in this country that find this kind of low-brow humor funny, but like Maher they also think they're more intelligent and sophisticated than everyone else.

What Sheppard is describing is the disease of hate, ignorance, and radical liberalism spread by mosquitos like HBO's Bill Maher.

One can take vaccines to protect against mosquito-borne diseases like malaria and yellow fever. Although there is no shot for the disease of liberal hate, we conservatives have a love for mankind and a desire to see everyone excel and be the best they can be.

Palin is correct when she writes that the insults from the "small-minded are used to distract" from the real issues like rising energy costs, unemployment, America's crushing national debt, and a foreign policy that looks like it was formulated by the Keystone Cops.

Unfortunately, Maher's hate and ignorance is infectious - primarily because it requires no thought or reason - and far too many have caught the fever conservatives call "Palin Derangement Syndrome."

Palin writes:

Let’s just acknowledge that commonsense conservatives must be stronger and work that much harder because of the obvious bias. And let’s be encouraged with a sense of poetic justice by knowing that the “mainstream” media isn’t mainstream anymore. That’s why I call it “lamestream,” and the LSM is becoming quite irrelevant, as it is no longer the sole gatekeeper of information.

Today, diseases like malaria can be dealt with thanks to the miracle of modern science. Diseases like liberal hate and ignorance can be dealt with thanks to new technologies that give conservatives a better way to get their message to the public.

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Joe will discuss this issue - among others - with Craig Shaull at We Are America Radio Monday night at 7 pm Pacific time.