This was a fantastic episode. Beyond excised clips, I actually haven't watched Maher in full ever. Despite people lumping him in with the likes of Colbert and Jon Stewart, he came off vastly more unsympathetic and pompous to me, characteristics that have since become more and more highlighted.
Bill Maher is everything that makes centrists useless.
Excellent way to put it. I have nothing but suspicion for any supposed progressives who still consider Maher an authority. He's a smug douche who gets off on looking down on everyone, oppressed or otherwise.
I think I became aware of Bill around the time of his famous argument with Ben Afleck over Islam, and I was confused as to why people thought he was a reasonable person......because he seemed like a wanker.
I'm still pissed that that episode still gets contextualized as Affleck "losing it"/"getting owned", when it was right for him to be baffled and incredulous at the blatant xenophobic and Islamaphobic bullshit the show was eager to pass off as a tolerable stance. Then after that was the shit like the Milo interview, using the N-word, etc. I came to be more and more astounded with each passing day that people who would cape for the dude exist in abundance.