Inside The Crazed Mind Of Bill Maher

Bill Maher doesn't pretend to be an objective journalist; he's a TV columnist who's hung his shingle on the far left side of the street and makes no effort to balance his shows -- the sort of guy who would not look favorably on the reinstitution of the Fairness Doctrine.

Even so, it's shocking to hear the questions he asked of New York Times correspondent Damien Cave, who was answering questions from on location in Baghdad. Here are Maher's questions, courtesy of Noel Sheppard at NewsBusters.org:

• "What is the morale of our troops, because I know President Bush always says that the troops are steadfastly all behind him - uh, I have my doubts. What is your view?"

Not a bad question, really. But when the answer wasn't a shrieking screed against Bush, he posed this one:

• But what about the morale of the insurgents? Is there any doubt among these people that we are not going to outlast them? I mean we do have debates on how long the surge will last. It seems to be a debate about a matter of months, sometimes a matter of years. Come on...these guys are gonna wait us out for as long as it takes. Isn't that the bottom line in Iraq?

If you ever wanted a stetement in the form of a question that the goal of the Left is our defeat, this is it. Turn it around and Maher is saying, "If we can just force our troops out quickly enough, the other side will win, right?"

Once again, Cave wasn't going Maher's way, but Maher didn't give up Instead, he just changed directions:

• If Saddam Hussein were alive and running for president right now, and he used the old Reagan line, "Are you better off now than you were four years ago," do you think that would attract voters?"

Sheppard thinks this question is disgusting, but I think it's fair enough. Stupid, impatient, premature perhaps, but legitimate enough. Again,Cave answered straight instead of Leftist hurl, so Maher wrapped up with:

• Do we have a moral obligation, you think, to this country that we're not living up to now that we've pretty much wrecked it?

What a window in the convoluted mind of a dedicated leftist! Here's Maher questioning the morality of leaving Iraq after asking question after question that sets up his position that we should be leaving. Leaving Iraq would be the ultimate immorality, putting the political comfort and political anger of the impatient anti-war set ahead of the moral obligation we do have to do it right.

Kudos to Cave for refusing to give Maher the answers he wanted. As a NYTimes reporter you might think he'd go along, but he's there, he's seeing what he's seeing, and he's reporting it.

You'll want to read his answers at NewsBusters.