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William "Bill" Maher, Jr., (born January 20, 1956,
in New York City, New York) is an United
States|American comedian, actor, writer and
producer. He is most well known for being the host
of Politically Incorrect and currently the Home
Box Office|HBO talk show Real Time with Bill
Maher. He is known for his libertarian views.

==Early life and career==
He was raised in River Vale, New Jersey|River
Vale, New Jersey, and graduated from Pascack Hills
High School in Montvale, New Jersey.  Maher is the
product of a "mixed" marriage (Jewish mother,
Roman Catholic father), and in his early stand-up
routine, he said that he would bring a lawyer to
confession:  "Forgive me, Father, for I have
sinned... I think you know Mr. Cohen..."  He
received his Bachelor of Arts in English
language|English from Columbia University in 1978.


Maher has a substantial career as a stand-up
comedian and still occasionally tours.  He was
host of the New York City comedy club Catch a
Rising Star in 1979.  Thanks to Steve Allen, he
began appearing on Johnny Carson and David
Letterman's shows in 1982. 

He has appeared in several films, usually in a
comical role.  His feature film debut was in D.C.
Cab (1983), and he has also appeared in Cannibal
Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death (1988) and
Pizza Man (1991).  He has also appeared in a
number of guest roles on television shows,
including Newhart, Murder, She Wrote, Roseanne (as
a boudoir photography|boudoir photographer), and
Married... with Children.

==Media==
===Talk show host===
Maher is most notable as the former host of
Politically Incorrect, which aired on the Comedy
Central television network and later American
Broadcasting Company|ABC. Maher is also currently
the host of Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO.

ABC decided not to renew Maher's contract for
Politically Incorrect in 2002 after he made a
controversial Broadcasting|on-air remark, in which
he, along with guest Dinesh D'Souza, objected to
the President of the United States|President and
others calling the September 11, 2001
attacks|September 11 Terrorism|terrorists
cowardly:
quotation|We have been the cowards lobbing cruise
missiles from 2,000 miles away. That's cowardly.
Staying in the aircraft|airplane when it hits the
building, say what you want about it, it's not
cowardly.|Bill Maher|Politically Incorrect (2002)

During the era of the Vietnam War, the alleged
cowardice of American "carpet bombing" from high
above a target was standard mantra of anti-war
protestors.  However, in the context of the
sensitive aftermath of the attacks, such a remark
was deemed too controversial for some financial
supporters.  Although some pundits, including
conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=252
67, supported Maher, pointing out the distinction
between physical and moral cowardice, companies
including FedEx and Sears Roebuck pulled their
advertisements from the show, costing the show
more than it returned.  The show was subsequently
cancelled on June 16, 2002.  On June 22, 2002, six
days after the cancellation of Politically
Incorrect, Maher received the President's Award
(for "championing Freedom of speech|free speech")
from the Los Angeles Press Club.

Maher's comment about the cowardice of terrorists
briefly followed another controversial comment he
made on Politically Incorrect where he compared
mentally handicapped children to canines:
quotation|But I've often said that if I had
— I have two dogs — if I had two
retarded children, I'd be a hero. And yet the
dogs, which are pretty much the same thing. What?
They're sweet. They're loving. They're kind, but
they don't mentally advance at all... Dogs are
like retarded children.|Bill Maher|Politically
Incorrect (2002)
ABC was likely still dealing with the fallout from
this statement when it decided not to renew
Maher's contract.

In 2003, Maher became the host of Real Time with
Bill Maher on the HBO cable television network, a
debate show somewhat similar to Politically
Incorrect, but with a narrower selection of
guests.

Since May 2005 he's been a contributing blogger at
The Huffington Post.

===Press coverage===
In 1997, during filming of an episode of the game
show Pictionary, Erik Estrada accidentally punched
Maher in the face in a moment of exuberance,
knocking him out cold briefly. 

According to court documents obtained by The
Smoking Gun, in November 2004 Maher was sued for 9
million dollars by his ex-girlfriend, Nancy
Johnson a.k.a. "Coco Johnsen", for palimony. 
Johnson claims that Maher did not fulfill promises
made to her and that he physically and verbally
abused her.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/1111041coco1.
html  Maher publicly refuted her allegations on
Larry King Live on November 23, 2004.  His lawyer
responded to the lawsuit with a claim that Maher
is a "confirmed bachelor" and never promised to
marry or support Johnsen and that California law
doesn't allow for the palimony suit brought by Ms.
Johnsen.  On May 2, 2005, a superior court judge
dismissed the lawsuit.

In late May 2005, Alabama Congressman Spencer
Bachus sent a letter to Time Warner's board of
directors requesting Real Time be cancelled due to
remarks Maher made about low military recruiting
numbers on the May 13, 2005, episode which Bachus
felt were demeaning to the military and in bad
taste.  Maher's comment was "More people joined
the Michael Jackson fan club. We've done picked
all the low-lying Lynndie England fruit, and now
we need warm bodies." Maher responded by
reiterating his support for the troops and asking
why the Congressman criticized him instead of
actually doing something about the problem.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/bill
-maher/fruit_1561.html

==Worldview==
===Political views===
Maher describes himself as a libertarian and
celebrates libertarian figures such as Larry Elder
(who has stated on his radio show that Maher is
not a true libertarian) and P.J. O'Rourke. Some of
his stances, including privatizing social
security, ending corporate welfare, and 
legalizing War on Drugs|drugs, gambling,
prostitution, and pornography are distinctively
libertarian. He supported Bob Dole in the U.S.
presidential election, 1996|1996 U.S. presidential
election and is a close friend of conservative
pundit Ann Coulter. He has expressed disdain for
many of the liberal positions regarding hate
crime, sexual harassment, etc. as being "things
that make women nod". However, he also holds many
Social Democrat positions that are in direct
opposition to libertarian ideology, such as
government regulation of corporations, foreign
aid, public school|public schooling, a ban on
homeschooling, campaign finance reform (which he
has since repudiated, saying "OK, we tried it, it
didn't work"), nature
environment|environmentalism, supports affirmative
action, supports minimum wage laws, supports
strict gun control, supports income redistribution
through higher taxation as a means for the wealthy
to pay for some of the advantages they enjoy as
Americans, supports government funding for
abortion, and supported Ralph Nader in the U.S.
presidential election, 2000|2000 U.S. presidential
election.

 disputed

Many people believe he was a vegan and publicly
supports PETA, an organization that works for
animal rights, and has expressed his distaste for
the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries in
general, on the grounds that they make their money
out of curing people who are made sick by
consuming the unhealthy food that society urges
upon the public.  On the August 11, 2005, episode
of Larry King Live, Bill Maher announced he is not
a vegetarian and eats meat rarely.   He claimed he
is still a board member of PETA and supports
animal rights.

Prior to the U.S. presidential election, 2004|2004
U.S. presidential election he became very
forthright in his opposition to the reelection of
George W. Bush and his support for John Kerry as
the best candidate to defeat Bush, rather than the
candidate most in agreement with Maher's views,
going so far as to publicly kneel on his show,
with director Michael Moore, and beg Nader to drop
out of the race. As a result, he has often been
called a liberal.  Maher often says that the word
"liberal" has been unfairly demonized, and during
the elections he criticized Kerry for being
ashamed of the word.  Maher himself seems
comfortable with being called a liberal, though he
is sometimes called a "libertine socialist" by
political commentators such as Jonah Goldberg.
Maher also supports the death penalty, though most
liberals do not, and abortion and euthanasia,
though most conservatives do not, often stating
his position semi-humorously as "I am pro-death".
In expanding on this statement, he reveals his
concern that the size of the human population has
already led to significant damage to the earth's
ecology, so that he is in general in favor of
anything that would tend to reduce the size of
said population.

He was originally opposed to the war in Iraq, but
has become less skeptical of it since the Iraqi
legislative election, 2005|Iraqi election of 2005.
 He continues to criticize the administration for
using bad intelligence leading up to the war, and
for what he perceives as mis-management of the
war.

Maher responded to the claims that liberals are
"out of touch" with conservative morality and the
idea that this led to George W. Bush's re-election
and the success of the Republican Party in the
2004 general election by saying "Stop saying that
blue state people are out of touch with the morals
and values of the red states. I'm not out of touch
with them, I just don't share them."

===Religious views===
Maher is opposed to organized religion.  He has
described religion as a neurological disorder that
spreads guilt and hatred among people while
offering nothing in return.  In two separate
appearances on Real Time, atheist comedian George
Carlin and Maher alleged that organized religion
is a cause of many of society's problems, and that
the practices of organized religion are mired with
hypocrisy.  Maher credited Carlin's views as
inspiration for him to speak out against organized
religion.

Maher has said many times that religion works
under the guise of morality, but that its tenets
generally have nothing to do with morality; that
religious prohibitions are being confused with
moral law.  In Maher's view, just because a
religion prohibits the consumption of pork or
decries homosexuality, that does not mean that
consuming pork or being homosexual are immoral
acts.  Instead, Maher argues that an immoral
person is one who harms others; an activity which
harms another individual such as murder or rape
would be an immoral act.  This is also a
traditional libertarian position.

Maher opposes religious monuments such as The Ten
Commandments being placed in or near court houses,
saying that this would violate the separation of
church and state. He has countered the assertion
of conservative Christians who claim that American
law is based on the Ten Commandments by saying
that of the ten, only two (the prohibitions on
murder and theft) apply to American law.  The
other commandments, he argues, such as honoring no
god before the Judeo-Christian God, keeping the
Sabbath holy, or honoring thy mother and thy
father, are not American laws at all.

Maher has stated on several appearances of Larry
King Live that he does, indeed, believe in God,
but that organized religion is nothing more than
tradition and superstition.  He asserts that
organized religion provides answers to questions
that   "cannot possibly
be answered".  Questions such as "Where do I go
when I die?" or "Is there a heaven?", he says, are
impossible to answer.  By claiming to have the
answers, Maher argues, organized religion is
dishonest and it "stops people from thinking".

==Credits==
===Bibliography===
*Does Anybody Have a Problem With That?
Politically Incorrect's Greatest Hits, 1996 (ISBN
0679456279)
*Does Anybody Have a Problem with That? The Best
of Politically Incorrect, 1997 (ISBN 0345412818)
*True Story : A Novel, 2002 (ISBN 0743242513)
*When You Ride Alone You Ride With Osama bin
Laden|Bin Laden: What the Government Should Be
Telling Us to Help Fight the War on Terrorism,
2003 (ISBN 1893224902)
*Keep the Statue of Liberty Closed: The New Rules,
2004 (ISBN 1932407472)
*New Rules: Polite Musings from a Timid Observer,
2005 (ISBN 1594862958)

===Filmography===
*Tomcats (movie)|Tomcats (2001) (uncredited) ....
Carlos
*Bimbo Movie Bash (1997) 
*Don't Quit Your Day Job (1996) .... Comic's Table

*Say What? (1992) .... Host 
*Pizza Man (1991) .... Elmo Bunn 
*Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death
(1989) ... (aka Jungle Heat or Piranha Women in
the Avocado Jungle of Death) .... Jim
*Out of Time (movie)|Out of Time (1988) ....
Maxwell Taylor 
*House II: The Second Story (1987) .... John 
*Ratboy (1986) .... Party Guest 
*Club Med (1986) .... Rick 
*Rags to Riches (1986) (aka Foley and the Girls
From St. Mags) .... Freddie
*D.C. Cab (1983) (aka Street Fleet) .... Bill

===Television===
*I'm Swiss (HBO)
*Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO)
(2003–Present) .... Host
*Politically Incorrect (Comedy Central and
American Broadcasting Company|ABC)
(1994–2002) .... Host 
*Charlie Hoover (1991) .... Elliot 
*The Midnight Hour (1990) .... Host 
*Hard Knocks (1987) 
*Sara (TV show)|Sara (1985) .... Marty Lang

===Special appearances===
*MADtv (2005) .... himself

==External links==

*http://www.billmaher.com/ Bill Maher's official
website
*http://www.hbo.com/billmaher/ HBO's "Real Time
with Bill Maher" site
*imdb name|id=0005175|name=Bill Maher
*nndb name|id=399/000022333|name=Bill Maher
*http://dir.salon.com/ent/tv/feature/2001/08/01/ma
her/index.html Is Bill Maher a libertarian? by
Dann Halem
*http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,157435,00.htm
l Bill Maher's Remark About Army 'Borders on
Treason,' Lawmaker Says (foxnews.com)