Bill Maher Quotes

Just because someone thinks he is being attacked by the media doesn't mean he is. Many times the media actually is being fair, and they're attacking for good reason.

Past occurrences have generally shown that there hasn’t been satisfaction from politicians in the manner they were covered [by the press.]

What a contrast, Trump is feisty but flexible. Obama, cool but rigid. But he had no reason to bend. The media already bought into his shtick. His giddy fan base ate up every white-coated lie.

Fox News has changed its slogan from 'Fair and Balanced' to 'See, I told you so!'

I mean, the Ace of Spades example that Jonah Goldberg remembered here (and that made me remember it, too), is that Chris Matthews interview with [Barack] Obama, during the run-up to Obamacare. Not one question about it. And when you stop and think, there never is for the Democrat. The media never questions the substance of anything the Democrats do.

Asking the question whether the mainstream media has a liberal or conservative bias is like asking whether al Qaeda uses too much oil in their hummus. I might think they use a little bit too much oil; some people might think it's a little dry. But the problem with al Qaeda is they want to kill us. And the problem with the mainstream media is that it has these other biases that are much more important.

I think a lot of the media love the game and hate the people who play it.

I remember a prominent conservative media figure, talking to him about prominent liberal media figures that he knew, that he liked. And I questioned him. "How can you trust these people? I mean, these are..." "No, no! They're good guys. In fact, one of them likes you, says you're not a hater." And I was supposed to be thrilled to hear this!I was supposed to be mollified that some liberal media figure had just pronounced I was okay because, after he had listened to me, he had determined I wasn't a hater. I did not take that as a compliment, and I got kind of mad.

So that all the people who say, you know, "All the media hates America." A lot of the media does hate America but this is a case of, actually, the press doing its best, I think, to do the right by national security. So good for them.

I think the press, by and large, is what we call "liberal". But of course what we call "liberal" means well to the right. "Liberal" means the "guardians of the gates". So the New York Times is "liberal" by, what's called, the standards of political discourse, New York Times is liberal, CBS is liberal. I don't disagree. I think they're moderately critical at the fringes. They're not totally subordinate to power, but they are very strict in how far you can go. And in fact, their liberalism serves an extremely important function in supporting power.

The metal press has a certain type of audience, and I think most of them support the magazines' negative focus on me.

I mean, voters had that kind of faith in Barack Obama and they had that kind of faith in Bill Clinton, but people having it in Donald Trump, since they think Trump is a bumpkin to begin with, that anybody who has blind faith in Trump's got to be an even bigger bumpkin.

Because [Donald] Trump sticks to his script and was there to open his golf course, that's what he first began talking about. He didn't open with a statement on the Brexit vote. And so here comes the media - right on cue - and any allies they have, once again lashing out at Trump as incompetent, unaware, insensitive.

What positive change? Why didn't we hear a word about all of Hillary Clinton's good works for the Clinton charitable foundation? I mean, you would think that's where it would all be.But we didn't hear about it.

I've gotten balanced coverage and broad coverage - all we could have asked. ... For heaven sakes, we kid about the liberal media, but every republican on earth does that.

How the media covers [Donald] Trump-Hillary [Clinton]? Who knows yet how it's gonna manifest itself, but I guarantee you a lot of people are thinking - and I made the prediction. Well, it's not a prediction, but I said, folks, it's entirely possible that the media will continue to be sort of hands off on [Donald] Trump.

It's clear the media, of course, always gives you the bad news. And people who rely on the media, like Mr. Trump, think that everything is a disaster. The media always tries to make everything into a disaster, but it's mostly rubbish. It's a point of fact that we're doing extremely well.

It really gets tiresome to be constantly accused of spreading negativity about Barack Obama and the country. He's doing that on his own. We just chronicle it here.

It's just, "Hey,[Barack] Obama's the hero, and he wants Obamacare," and so the coverage is totally devoted to whether or not Obama's gonna get it. Now, in that scenario, who are the villains?Well, your good old, reliable Republicans are the villains, and they are always portrayed as the people trying to deny our beloved hero what he wants.

There's been a lot of talk about how bad the reporting was, particularly with the George W. Bush Administration after 9/11. The general assumption, which I think is a valid one, is that a lot of the major media were on their heels a little bit and prone to share the grief of the nation and to give Bush all the support it could.

I think that Donald Trump has faced an unprecedented avalanche of critical coverage when he was running and frankly, I think, it in part he owes his victory to that.

Obama had the media; Obama had the judiciary; Obama had all kinds of support. At an Obama press conference, typical question, "What enchants you?" I mean, Obama was never challenged seriously by the media.

I'm not going to play pundit on Donald Trump and criticize him. I will say the media's treatment of that illustrates a very, very different - I mean, it dominated the news for a week to 10 days once he was the nominee. In the primary, it didn't get, seemingly, even 30 seconds of news.

I would guess it didn't exactly represent a profile in courage for the vice president to wander over there to the F-word network for a sit down with Brit Hume. I mean, that's a little like Bonnie interviewing Clyde, ain't it?

I think a lot of the Drive-Bys think that Donald Trump embarrasses himself and makes a fool of the GOP and his supporters every time he opens his mouth. And so they certainly want to amplify that as well. I mean, it runs the gamut, like this piece: "The moment of truth: We must stop Trump."