Bill Maher Shows How Unintelligent He Really Is

I am quite sure that most of you are aware of George Will’s masterful dissection of Bill Maher’s statement;

“I could criticize America in general for not attacking this problem [dependency on fossil fuels] in the Seventies. I mean, Brazil got off oil in the last thirty years we certainly could’ve.”

If not, I have provided a video of the interaction from ABC’s, “This Week.” I have also provided some statistical data that illustrates Brazil’s consumption and production of oil.

From the EIA: According to the Oil and Gas Journal (OGJ), Brazil had 12.6 billion barrels of proven oil reserves in 2009, second-largest in South America after Venezuela. The offshore Campos and Santos Basins, located on the country’s southeast coast, contain the vast majority of Brazil’s proven reserves. In 2008, Brazil produced 2.4 million barrels per day (bbl/d) of oil, of which 76 percent was crude oil. Brazil’s oil production has risen steadily in recent years, with the country’s oil production in 2008 about 150,000 bbl/d (6 percent) higher than 2007.

There isn’t much difference between 2005 and 2006, and while the percentage of oil consumption includes fuel ethanol, it is clear that Brazil did not “get off” oil. Bill Maher also conveniently forgot the following;

From The Wall Street Journal:

“Unfortunately, the Obama Administration is financing oil exploration off Brazil.

“The U.S. is going to lend billions of dollars to Brazil’s state-owned oil company, Petrobras, to finance exploration of the huge offshore discovery in Brazil’s Tupi oil field in the Santos Basin near Rio de Janeiro. Brazil’s planning minister confirmed that White House National Security Adviser James Jones met this month with Brazilian officials to talk about the loan.

“The U.S. Export-Import Bank tells us it has issued a “preliminary commitment” letter to Petrobras in the amount of $2 billion and has discussed with Brazil the possibility of increasing that amount. Ex-Im Bank says it has not decided whether the money will come in the form of a direct loan or loan guarantees. Either way, this corporate foreign aid may strike some readers as odd, given that the U.S. Treasury seems desperate for cash and Petrobras is one of the largest corporations in the Americas.”

It seems that Maher, for far too long, has spouted his rhetoric without the benefit of an intelligent rebuttal. Clearly Mr. Will is beyond Maher on practically every intellectual plane, so how does Maher respond? With the corresponding answer;

“I want to make sure I read that, I know I didn’t just dream that.”

And he has the audacity to call the American people dumb? Brad Schaeffer sums it up perfectly;

“One gets the feeling that Maher himself is just smart enough to paradoxically understand how much of a fool he looked at the hands of Will–who in turn actually appeared to be enjoying helping Maher self-destruct.

“So thank you Bill Maher for exposing yourself on a national stage as the ideologically pompous but intellectually vacant pontificator you are. It must have been a gut-wrenching moment when you were actually challenged to back up your outlandish assertions and accusations against the right you make so freely on HBO. George Will showed that, though you may be a star in the far-left sky, you are not even ready for the minor leagues of informed (key word) political discourse…let alone “the show.” Your rants against conservative ‘ignorance’ have been revealed today for what they are: the pot calling the tea kettle black! And one thing is for sure. George Will’s beloved Chicago Cubs have a better shot at winning the World Series than he does of ever being invited to appear as a panelist on Real Time.”

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