'Real Time w/Bill Maher' Recap: 8th Season Premieres with All-Liberal Panel

On his return to Friday nights with the eighth year of the HBO series, Real Time with Bill Maher, the outspoken host bore his weary head into the arms of his first guest, Elizabeth Warren, while sobbing, “I don’t have a question; I just want you to hold me.”

Now, usually when Bill dives head first into a woman’s lap, he’s not confronting today’s hottest issues on his hour-long talk show, nor is he actually looking for someone to just, “hold me.” But, then again, under usual circumstances, the financial institution Bill has his money tied up in, Lehman Brothers, isn’t allowed to go insolvent by a government that has bailed out everyone else on Wall Street; so I think we can give the rebel from-the-waist-down the benefit of the doubt here.

You may be wondering why they’re talking about the 2008 bailout in 2010. Well, it happens that Warren oversees the money trail left by the 2008 Troubled Asset Relief Program as the Chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel on TARP. Unfortunately for you and me, Warren didn’t come bearing good news.

The same practices in the banking industry that brought America to the brink of total financial collapse two years ago are still in play, and will continue to be, despite a bill that was enacted the following Monday, outlawing 10 of those risky practices, according to Warren. She explained that for each of those now-illegal practices, there are already ways of getting around eight of them. Maher aptly compared this lack of reform to the recent death of the Olympic luger as he prepared for Vancouver. “He died, and it’s not like they said, ‘Well, we gotta fix the track. . . .’ They went right back to doing it. And it seems like that’s what our economy is. It’s still as risky as before. We’re still sliding down a mountain on a sheet of ice.”

Maher continued discussing the government’s failures at reform with his panel, which included former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, MSNBC’s Chief Washington Correspondent Norah O’Donnell, and the creator of Family Guy, Seth MacFarlane.

After a few solid minutes of the liberal point of view that everyone at the table seemed to share, which I don’t say to criticize but simply to characterize, Maher bated his fellow satirist, MacFarlane, into recreating a scene from Star Trek. I don’t know how, but he recited it word-for-word, even capturing the start-and-stop cadence of one, Mr. William Shatner; to which Maher replied, “And that’s the problem with the filibuster.” As the Twitterverse would say, “IDK, but LOL.”

Moments like that are exactly why I love this show. You will learn a few things while watching, but you’re guaranteed a load of laughs. Although she made many good points in compliment to Spitzer and even the panel’s customary token entertainer, MacFarlane, Norah O’Donnell’s stout cackle was the most endearing thing about her; that girl can laugh.

Comedian and talk show host Wanda Sykes came out half way through the show to complete the panel, addressing such riveting questions from Maher as, “You’re a black person, let me ask you some black questions.” No one ever said Maher was politically correct, or even racially sensitive, and that’s because he’s not. But, you know what? It works for him because it’s always clear that he’s not coming from a place of hatred or animosity, he’s just being blunt, not to mention damn funny. He doesn’t shy away from homosexual issues either, and didn’t on this show with the openly gay Sykes.

Like everything discussed, the panel reached a consensus opinion on the 9/11 trials, torture, fat people on planes, and the need for reform and for the Democrats to use the power of the majority to achieve that reform.

Although past all-liberal panels have given the feel of piling on when paired with the progressive-minded Maher, each member of this week’s panel was engaging and opinionated enough to bring unique perspective. Again, it always helps when funny man Maher is on his game and has other funny people to work off of, like MacFarlane and Sykes.

Real Time airs every Friday at 10pm EST on HBO. Next week’s guests are Richard Haass, Chrystia Freeland, Reihan Salam, Olivia Wilde and Adam Carolla.