Maher: Show 'to keep everybody honest'
LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Comedian Bill Maher has rebounded from the cancellation of his ABC talk show "Politically Incorrect" with another current events forum on HBO.
"Real Time with Bill Maher" is set to debut on the cable network February 21. HBO is a division of AOL Time Warner, as is CNN.com.
At a meeting Tuesday of the Television Critics Association, the 46-year-old comic described the show's goals this way: "To keep everybody honest; to note that what public figures say, they then have to do; and when they don't, to point out that discrepancy and to mock it."
"Politically Incorrect" went off the air in late June, after ABC executives said they would fill its midnight time slot with a program starring comic Jimmy Kimmel that is scheduled to begin January 26.
Although the program had suffered declining ratings in recent years, Maher accused the network of canceling it because he made a remark in the days following the September 11 attacks that characterized previous U.S. military actions as cowardly.
"We have been the cowards, lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away," Maher said on that September 17, 2001, show. "That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it's not cowardly."
ABC said Maher's comments had nothing to do with the show's cancellation.
As Maher came under widespread criticism for the remarks, sponsors began pulling ads. He later said he meant U.S. politicians who authorize long-distance attacks, and not the soldiers who carry them out, are the cowards.
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