JJ reminded me of a post I intended to write over the weekend about last week’s Real Time with Bill Maher.
I appreciate Maher’s goal of bringing folks from the world of entertainment and the general political intelligentsia together to discuss the issues of the day. Ideally, such an effort would foster a debate capable of cutting across multiple demographics that would reach a wide audience. However, there are moments when this experiment runs painfully awry. We saw such an instance this past week when Maher’s three panelists were the esteemed Salman Rushdie and Christopher Hitchens….and Mos Def (whose name I assume is short for “most definitely”).
To say this was an intellectual mismatch would be an understatement. Now, I don’t knock Mos Def for his inability to match wits with Rushdie and Hitchens. After all, they are two of the brighter bulbs around – insightful and cunning agent provocateurs with a sometimes dangerous gift for words. Most of us would resemble mental midgets when compared to those two. My problem is that Mos Def has too high an opinion of himself, so much so that he actually dominated the discussion with largely incoherent dribble, stealing from us an opportunity to hear the thoughtful ruminations of the other panelists. If Mos Def had more of a social IQ, he would’ve been switched on to the idea that he didn’t have much substance to add to the discussion and should therefore sit back, listen and pick his spots. This way, the audience could actually learn something while he would also come off as thoughtful (and respectful in the presence of genius). Instead, the discussion was hijacked by an ignoramus with a horrendous signal-to-noise ratio, and we were robbed of a chance to enjoy the musings of two truly great minds.
There have been other examples of this in the past (I recall Chris Rock having a similarly bad performance), and so I’d suggest that Maher do two things: 1) do a better job of vetting his guests; and 2) do a better job of managing the discussion. The fact that he allowed Mos Def to run roughshod was a failure of the moderator above all else.
I still love the show, even if Maher’s political agenda sometimes makes me cringe (particularly when it comes to fiscal issues). And as much as I love Rushdie and Hitchens, my favorite guest so far has got to be Corey Booker, the mayor of Newark, NJ. What a thoughtful, articulate and passionate guy. He’s exactly the type of leadership we need in government today. And Maher should invite him back every chance he gets.
