Bitter, Unapologetic Bill Maher

It was announced on Thursday that Bill Maher was going to apologize for the lies in his rant about Pope Benedict on his April 11 show.

Liberal talk show host Bill Maher, whose controversial comments about the pope drew fire from the Catholic community, is planning to apologize Friday night for falsely accusing Pope Benedict XVI of being a Nazi, the Catholic League announced Thursday.

Catholic League President Bill Donohue received a phone call Thursday from an HBO executive regarding comments Maher made last Friday on HBO's "Real Time With Bill Maher."

Apparently, that was a ratings ploy.

What Maher said on his April 18 program was less of an apology and more of an ambush.

Comedian Bill Maher stopped short of apologizing Friday night for accusing Pope Benedict XVI of being a Nazi, but he said he'd refrain in the future from drawing that connection.

"I will never make 'the pope is a Nazi' joke again," Maher said on his HBO show, "Real Time With Bill Maher."

Maher then returned to criticizing the Catholic Church for its clergy sex abuse scandal, saying the pope would be in jail if he were the executive of a chain of day-care centers where similar abuse was found.

...On his latest show, he explained that the Nazi comment was "a joke. We were in a comedic context," but he acknowledged that he was "technically" wrong.

"You got me," Maher said. "The pope was not a Nazi when he was a teenager. He was in the Hitler Youth, which meant that he said the oath directly to Hitler and not to the Nazis, which is sort of worse."

He then noted that teenagers were forced to join the Hitler Youth, often against their will.

NewsBusters provides the transcript of what was promised to be an apology from Maher:

Last week, I got into some trouble with the Catholic League, not the first time...Not my biggest fans...because I said in our little essay ending the show, I said, "The Pope," and I looked at it again, I looked at the words carefully, "used to be a Nazi." Okay, now first of all, it was a joke, okay? We were in a comedic context. I said, "He used to be a Nazi, and he wears funny hats, and ladies, he's single." So, right away, we're in the context of a joke, okay, and "used to." Okay, but, you know, you got me. The Pope was not a Nazi. When he was a teenager, he was in the Hitler Youth, which meant that he said the oath directly to Hitler and not to the Nazis, which is sorta worse!

But, but wait a second, the thing that argues for their side of this is that, you know what, he was coerced into that. He was a teenager. I wouldn't blame any teen, he was a fourteen-year-old kid in Nazi Germany, of course he's going to do what they tell him to do. So, on that score, you know what my Catholic friends, I will never make the Pope is a Nazi joke again, because you're technically right, okay, and also because it distracts from the main point.

And the main point I was making was that if the Pope instead of a religious figure was the CEO of a chain of nationwide daycare centers, who had thousands of employees who had been caught molesting children and then covering it up, he would have been in jail.

Maher sounds so bitter.

I think he's clinging to his bigotry and anti-Catholic views because he feels let down by the government. Bashing Pope Benedict and the Catholic Church, and in effect, all practicing Catholics is a way to explain his frustrations.

I believe Maher thinks Pope Benedict is a criminal. I believe that he considers the Catholic Church to be a cult of child predators. He's probably sincere when he says that stuff.

In the end, however, I think it's all about ratings. Being controversial gets him attention. He goes for shock value as a deflection from his inadequacies as a performer. I think Maher pushes the limits of decency for his personal gain. That's his shtick.

Of course, it's also possible that Maher really is a bigot and enjoys hurling his hate-filled rants.

Either way, it's bad.