Open-minded

Open-minded

: You have to give Bill Maher points — yes, you have to — when he shows an open-mindedness. Sometimes — when I disagree with him — he can drive me nuts; he makes a sport and a career of it. But sometimes, he swims against the liberal tide. On this week’s show, after having Richard Perle on — displaying his own balls for coming on this show, by the way — Maher says tells his panel that they have to acknowledge that a government has been formed in Iraq and progress has been made: “For all their bullshit and lying and f’ing it up, it still could work.” He then challenges his panel: “Come on, if in three years there are four democracies in the Middle East, you won’t give them that.” When Arianna Huffing complains about the deaths, Maher says, “7,000 died building the Panama Canal.”