OpinionMedia Bias

Crenshaw Destroys Maher: Why Late Night Avoids Conservative Guests

The rising Republican star shows how facts, context, crush comedy narratives

Rep. Dan Crenshaw may have inadvertently killed any chance of him chatting with Stephen Colbert or Jimmy Kimmel.

The Texas Republican appeared on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” Friday. The two had a sober conversation about a number of topics, including election tampering and the current pandemic.

Maher bombarded Crenshaw with a series of tough, targeted queries. Crenshaw, a former Navy SEAL who lost an eye during a tour of duty, didn’t flinch.

Did anyone expect otherwise?

Rep. Dan Crenshaw: Fortitude | Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO)

Instead, Crenshaw calmly rebuffed Maher’s point, piece by piece. Crenshaw drew upon his own experiences on the Hill, revealing the gaping flaws in Maher’s logic with good ol’ common sense.

It wasn’t pretty. Still, Maher deserves credit for inviting the representative on his show in the first place. And that’s what’s most important about the exchange. Maher previously invited Andrew Breitbart, Buck Sexton, Steve Bannon and Ben Shapiro on his program.

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Yes, “Real Time with Bill Maher” remains hopelessly imbalanced. Maher is a committed liberal, and the vast majority of his guests are, too. But he’s willing to open the show’s format just enough to allow fresh views to be heard.

And that’s what got him into trouble.

Here’s betting the bookers behind “The Late Show,” “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” “The Daily Show” and other late night talkers caught a snippet of their exchange. They all made a similar mental note.

Do NOT under any circumstance book Rep. Crenshaw. Period.

Can you blame them?

They’d rather invite Democrats on the show for toothless conversations peppered with DNC talking points.

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Late night TV is uniformly progressive and consistently corrupt. Witness a “Daily Show” clip that went viral showing conservatives downplaying the current pandemic earlier this year. That gotcha moment neglected the chorus of left-leaning pundits and media outlets that did the exact same thing.

Corrupt.

Now, would any of those shows invite Crenshaw on their show, especially now? Not a chance. It’s the same reason Shapiro won’t be yukking it up with Kimmel any time soon. Shapiro would rhetorically clean the late night talker’s clock. Rush Limbaugh would leave Trevor Noah clutching his RBG doll.

What about Dan Bongino? He’d be ratings gold for any late night show, but the brand damage would be severe.

These shows would rather regurgitate their progressive talking points and let supine reporters repeat them sans fact checks. They couldn’t let their well-paid hosts get pummeled by better informed guests.

It’s like a boxing manager making sure a fighter gets “tomato can” opponents.

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Crenshaw is part of a new wave of conservatives. They’re more media savvy than their predecessors, live on social media and are keenly aware of just how biased pop culture is.

Of course that includes the media.

When “Saturday Night Live’s” Pete Davidson made a weak, incendiary attack on Crenshaw the new politician handled it like a gentleman. Davidson, in turn, looked like the “before” picture from a Charles Atlas ad following the incident.

Even more important?

Crenshaw grasps is something Breitbart told us years ago. It isn’t fun, or easy, but sharp conservatives must enter the lion’s den to debunk progressives on their own turf.

He did just that, to Maher’s detriment. Chances are he won’t get the chance to do it directly again.

8 Comments

  1. Others have noted the difference here was the lack of an audience — Maher couldn’t simply go to a cliched line about (name your evil conservative thing here) in order to win cheap applause from the studio audience, made up mostly of angry progressives. Colbert, Kimmel and any of the other late night hosts would face the same dilemma, only worse, since they’re totally locked into Democrat talking points, where Maher will occasionally invite guests outside of the liberal safe zone, like Crenshaw (or even initiate things outside of the safe zone, as Maher has done numerous times by slamming radical Islam).

    Crenshaw only possibly gets an invite to the other late-night shows after the studio audiences return, so instead of a one-on-one discussion with the host, its a one-on-251 or so battle, where the host knows the audience will side with them no matter what asinine claim they might make.

  2. That’s a guy? WTF?

    He should have thanked Crenshaw for not snapping his neck like a pencil,

  3. Losing the election would be losing our county, Bill
    I notice all the Trumps slanders emitted like a tropism without any context or examples

  4. It troubles me deeply that so many of my fellow human beings place any stock in, and waste so much time on, such drivel as late night “talk” shows.

  5. Mr. Crenshaw’s insistence that Mr. Trump is an “optimist” made Crenshaw seem like he didn’t know the meaning of the word!

    “What is the purpose of having White House News Conferences when the Lamestream Media asks nothing but hostile questions, & then refuses to report the truth or facts accurately,” Trump wrote.

    “They get record ratings, & the American people get nothing but Fake News. Not worth the time & effort!”

    On Thursday the US leader stunned viewers by saying doctors might treat people infected with the coronavirus by shining ultraviolet light inside their bodies, or with injections of household disinfectant.

    “Then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks (the virus) out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning? Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs,” he said.

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-says-briefings-not-worth-time-disinfectant-gaffe-233715195.html

    Nevermind the fact that there were witnesses there to confirm EXACTLY what he said. Those of you who “follow the leader” will find some incomprehensible, illogical way to justify this latest display of total lack of competence. I just wonder, if WE are the ones who need to stop drinking the “Kool Aid” when are you guys going to stop drinking the “Pine Sol”, “Mr Clean” and the “Clorox”?

  6. bill is writing a certified eulogy of the world trade center bombers that extols their bravery and honor. Soon to made into a tv series.

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