Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.

I'm not the world's biggest Bill Maher fan. In fact, I frequently find myself irritated by him if I tune in to POLITICALLY INCORRECT. When Harry was on the show on Oscar night and I went with him, everyone in the green room commented on just how rotten a host they thought he was, and how surprised they were by the half-cocked way he went after Harry.

Still, no one deserves what's going on with him right now. Inside sources at ABC are allegedly saying Maher is "finished" at the network, and advertisers like Sears are pulling accounts from his show. Why? What's all the fuss about?

Well... that depends who you ask. Check this out:

Dear Harry, Moriarty and El Cosmico:

Hi, I'm Basic Alias, an occasional Talk-Backer on AICN. Last week I sent you guys a report on the controversy surrounding a statement Bill Maher made on the Monday, Sep. 17th episode of Politically Incorrect. You never wrote back or posted it on the site, which didn't bother me since you guys get tons of e-mails to shift through each day and it's not like you haven't had your hands full these last couple weeks. Hell, I wasn't even going to press the matter, except I read something in Salon.com that changed my mind.

In a Wire story marked "White House Reprimands Maher," White House Press Secretary Ari Fleisher scolded Bill Maher for his comments and said "There are reminders to all Americans that they need to watch what they say, watch what they do, and this is not a time for remarks like that; there never is."

Two things bothered me about this story. First, doesn't Fleisher work for George "Dubya" Bush? The same guy who's done more to warp the english language than Pootie Tang, and who during an election rally turned to Cheney and referred to a reporter as a "major league asshole" within earshot of the microphones on the podium? When Fleisher said Americans "need to watch what they say, watch what they do," was he referring to all Americans, or just the ones who say things that aren't paid for by Big Oil?

The second thing that bothered me was that the story had the same problem I've found with all the other stories I've read: they refer to the two sentences Maher said, but they never mention the context of the conversation, or the fact that Arianna Huffington, who was a panelist that night, has openly defended Bill's statements.

That's why I'm writing again. To see if you might consider giving my report a second chance. There's more to this story than what's being reported, and I hate to see a good guy like Maher get smacked around like this without the whole truth coming out.

Below is the original e-mail I sent you. No matter what you decide, I just wanna thank you for taking the time to read it.

Recently, an event took place on television that has sparked a lot of controversy, but whenever I check out the on-line articles about it, I find that it's been reduced to little more than sound-bites and fury, signifying little and explaining next to nothing. Therefore, I've taken it upon myself to write up what I consider to be a more in-depth report on the controversy regarding the Monday, Sept. 17th episode of Politically Incorrect.

Does anyone remember when the ads for Austin Powers 2 quoted Roger Ebert as saying that the movie had "big laughs," even though he gave it a thumbs-down review? I bring this up because it involves a very important idea: Context. The way certain words and phrases relate to the rest of a conversation. In this case, certain words were removed from Roger's review, and without the rest of the story it appeared that he was praising the film. The studios get an added up-swing from this in that technically they didn't lie. After all, Roger did say the movie had "big laughs", right?

Keep all this in mind, because it's gonna play a large part of this story.

On the Monday, September 17th episode of Politically Incorrect, host Bill Maher was talking about, what else, the WTC attacks. His guests were Columnist Arianna Huffington (her work can be read in Salon.com), former White House employee Dinesh D'Souza , and Dr. Alan Meenan, the head pastor of the First Presbyterian Church Of Hollywood. An empty chair was left for Barbara Olsen, a frequent guest who, ironically, died on one of the planes while heading to California to do the show that week.

During the show Bill Maher said the following: "we have been the cowards lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it's not cowardly."

Sounds nasty, doesn't it? A lot of people thought so. So many, in fact, that according to Mrshowbiz.go.com (in their September 20th article "Maher apologizes for 'cowards' remark,") both Sears and FedEx pulled their advertising for the show. Mrshowbiz went on to quote the spokeswoman for Sears:

"Bill and his guests have every right to voice their freedom of speech, and we applaud that," Sears spokeswoman Lee Antonio told Reuters. "However, we have the right to air our broadcast advertising where we feel it's appropriate to reach out to our customers."

Bill has since apologized, addressed the issue on his show, and responded on P.I.'s web-page with the following:

"Thank you for the opportunity to clarify my comments made on Monday's Politically Incorrect, which should have been expressed differently.

"In no way was I intending to say, nor have I ever thought, that the men and women who defend our nation in uniform are anything but courageous and valiant, and I offer my apologies to anyone who took it wrong.

"My criticism was meant for politicians who, fearing public reaction, have not allowed our military to do the job they are obviously ready, willing and able to do, and who now will, I'm certain, as they always have, get it done."

If all you know about this story is what you've read here, you may have a lot of questions, many of which are no doubt knee-jerk reactions to the quote: Was Bill saying the military's cowardly? That the government's cowardly? Is he covering his ass by apologizing? Was he praising the terrorists by comparison? What did the other guests think of what Bill said?

This is what context is capable of. You don't know the whole story. You only have sound bites. Small quotes. And limited information can only lead to limited beliefs.

Fuck that.

I went to P.I.'s home web-site...

CLICK HERE IF YOU WANT TO SEE WHAT I SAW!!!

...and pulled up the transcript for that night's show. I've included a couple remarks before and after the quote in question. The results are, to say the least, illuminating:

Dinesh: Bill, there's another piece of political correctness I want to mention. And, although I think Bush has been doing a great job, one of the themes we hear constantly is that the people who did this are cowards.

Bill: Not true.

Dinesh: Not true. Look at what they did. First of all, you have a whole bunch of guys who are willing to give their life. None of 'em backed out. All of them slammed themselves into pieces of concrete.

Bill: Exactly.

Dinesh: These are warriors. And we have to realize that the principles of our way of life are in conflict with people in the world. And so -- I mean, I'm all for understanding the sociological causes of this, but we should not blame the victim. Americans shouldn't blame themselves because other people want to bomb them.

Bill: But also, we should -- we have been the cowards lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it's not cowardly. You're right.

Arianna: You make such an important point. When you talk about the American idea and the American way of life, all, you know, worth dying for. But let us not forget how many innocent civilians we killed when we bombed Yugoslavia to rubble, because we did not want to have a single American soldier die. And now we have over 5,000 innocent civilians die because we were cowardly when it came to our military personnel. And that goes across the board to Iraq, many parts of the country where we bombed innocent civilians.

Alan: I don't think we should get in to the blaming mode, as you've suggested. But it seems to me that blaming is somewhat different from understanding why people hold the animosities they hold. And I think it behooves us, as Americans, to ask ourselves some foundational questions as to what prompted these folks to do what they did.

Fascinating, isn't it? First you learn that Dinesh was the first to bring up that the terrorists weren't cowards. Then you learn that Bill was simply agreeing with Dinesh, and pointing out that while the terrorists are willing to die, we do all we can to keep our soldiers safe so as not to piss off the American public. Finally, not only does Arianna AGREE with Bill, she says that he makes "such an important point" and goes on to discuss the ramification of what Bill described.

I'd love to tell you that things like this don't happen often, but we all know that's a lie. A good example of this can be found in Mick Foley's new book, Foley Is Good, in which he describes how 20/20 not once but TWICE re-edited footage to make him and pro wrestling look bad. By the way, I'd like to mention that the second half of Foley's book, in which he defends the WWF from rather dubious critics, was an inspiration for me to write this.

You see, I think things like this are going to happen more often. With all the flag-waving, ribbon-wearing and incessant a cappella renditions of God Bless America, a mob mentality is being created. An U.S. against Them mentality, and anyone that questions a government decision or has a differing opinion, no matter how well thought out, is going to have an up-hill battle of chest-beating hysteria and misplaced emotion to deal with.

Bill Maher got hit with it this time. He won't be the last, but that doesn't mean we can't do anything about it. Now more than ever, I think people need to take a step back and question what they hear. Don't settle for easy answers to complex questions, and don't just browse through headlines, read the damn articles. And if they sound a little odd, do the research. I did. Think I was wrong to?

I like to end things with a quote of something Bill Maher said at the beginning of the show. I'd also like everyone to consider going to the P.I. web-site and checking out the entire transcript of the episode. There were a lot of smart things said that night. Things like this:

"I do not relinquish, nor should any of you, the right to criticize, even as we support, our government. This is still a democracy, and they're still politicians. So we need to let our government know that we can't afford a lot of things that we used to be able to afford, like a missile shield, that will never work, for an enemy that doesn't exist. We can't afford to be fighting wrong and silly wars -- the Cold War, the drug war, the culture wars, busting television producers at the airport for taking funny mushrooms to Las Vegas while the terrorist-looking guys with the knives get right on.

"We have to outgrow childish and antiquated stuff real fast. Can we? Can we change? Now, I hope, panel, that you'll answer with total candor, because political correctness itself is something we can no longer afford. Feelings are gonna get hurt so that actual people won't, and that will be a good thing. In fact, if this jolting, sobering and horrible event causes us to get a little serious and, in doing so, grow and progress and change, then those poor souls who gave their lives will certainly not have given them in vain."

This has been Basic Alias, reminding everyone who'll listen that when all around you are losing their heads, check yours.

It's a strong piece, and I know feelings are running high on this one. In recent weeks, I've gotten more comments from people about how impressed they were by Talk Back than ever before, and it's because you've been able to discuss some rather heavy topics without breaking down into stereotypical fanboy namecalling. Let's see if you can keep it up on this Talk Back.

And remember... even if you don't like Bill Maher... ESPECIALLY if you don't like Bill Maher... this is important stuff. It could be someone you like next time. It could be someone you agree with. Hell... it could be you.

"Moriarty" out.