Bill Maher said something noteworthy about the WGA strike on last night’s Real Time with Bill Maher: “We’re very narcissistic out here in Hollywood, and I don’t think [the WGA strike is] the most important issue. But writers are important to me. As Paul McCartney once said, I’d rather have a band [to play with] than a Rolls Royce, and I’d rather have my writers than a Rolls Royce. And for sure, corporations are taking over everything and strangling this country and strangling little men. We do need unions more than ever but…

“What I don’t love is an atmosphere that has taken over this town. An atmosphere of witch hunt and threats, and that’s coming from the union and I don’t like that. The analogy is this: liberals criticize the conduct of the Iraq War, whether that was the right move and what it’s led to, and the Bush administration tried to conflate that by saying if you [believe this] then you don’t support the troops. That was a lie then and a lie now.
“In the same way, when I question whether this was the right strike at the right time, and I question the leadership which has not been very consistent…it’s the same kind of deal. You have a situation where these guys, these writers have been led into a situation in which there is no exit strategy, and we may not win this war. So we’re not wrong to criticize it. This is still America.”