Bill Maher takes funny swipe at Republicans’ proclivity to be wrong with their pronouncements
Bill Maher had some fun with Republicans in several segments today. He first tackled the issue of pronouncements by Republicans on the the likely outcome of Obama’s economy. They were wrong. He then used his New Rule to show how wrong many different GOP predictions were.
Bill Maher explained a possible reason why Republicans continue to push for known failed policies. It is based on the ‘sunk cost fallacy’, the more you sink money into something, the more you have to believe it.
“I’m not saying that Republicans are like psychics,” Bill Maher said. “Psychics are right sometimes — whereas trickle-down economics has never been right. And yet Republican voters keep buying into it even though that girlfriend has been dead since the 80s.”
Bill Maher pointed out that Dick Cheney was back in the news. “Yes, Dick was also making predictions about Obama’s Iran deal,” Maher said. “Even though about Iraq he had said ‘there is no doubt Saddam has weapons of mass destruction’ and ‘We will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.’ You have to give it to Republicans. They have big balls. They are just not Crystal Balls. … You would think at some point Meet the Press would say ‘Let’s stop booking Dick Cheney and get someone more credible like a bag of fortune cookies.”
Bill Maher then goes on to enumerate bad predictions by former GOP candidates.
Mitt Romney: “If President Obama is reelected you will not be able to get a job.” Unemployment is now lower than it was under Reagan.
Mitt Romney: “If you bail the car companies you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye.” They were bailed out and doing better than ever.
Donald Trump: “When Obamacare takes effect in 2014 expect it (unemployment) to go even higher.” It did not kill jobs.
Sarah Palin: “My baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s death panel.” Of course there were never death panels.
Rand Paul: “It will lead to bankruptcy in the states.” Did not happen.
John Boehner: “will bankrupt the nation.” Of course it did not. What it has done is bring the cost curve down.
Lidsey Graha: “The legacy for Medicare is going to be devastating.” Of course it never came to fruition.
Tom Cockburn: “There will be no insurance industry left in three years.” “Here is what actually happened,” Maher said. “The insurance company got richer. Black kids got inhalers. John Boehner has to pay more taxes on hos tan.”
Newt Gingrich: If you want $10 a gallon gasoline, … Barack Obama should be your president.
Wayne Lapierre: A reelected Barack Obama would “erase the Second Amendment from the Bill of Rights and excise it from the U.S. Constitution.” It did not happen.
Rick Santorum: If gay marriage became the law of the land “our country would fall.” It has not fallen.
And now for Bill Maher’s most prescient analysis. “You know for a party that is so anti-gay,” Maher said. “They sure pull a lot of stuff out of their a$$.”