(Newser)
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With conservatives increasingly comparing the strategy of President Obama to the playbook of Saul Alinsky, Bill Maher has two angry responses: "One, why would you invite my outrage by suggesting such a specious link? ... And two, who the fuck is Saul Alinsky?" In a clip picked up by Mediaite, Maher notes that the Alinsky meme is going mainstream, with Newt Gingrich recently ranting that the current election represents "American exceptionalism versus the radicalism of Saul Alinksy." Deadpans Maher, "if Newt hates him, he's probably a divorce lawyer."
So Maher Wikipedia-ed "Alinsky" and found the problem: "He liked black people," said Maher. "Alinsky also fought slum lords and taught poor people to band together to improve their lives—or what Mitt Romney calls 'a divider.'" The bigger point is how Republicans create fictional opponents completely divorced from reality, like "Barack X," "an Islamo-socialist revolutionary who's coming for your guns..." Maher contends that while liberals were perhaps shrewish in their hatred of George Bush, they hated him for things he actually did, like the economy, Iraq War, and torture: "That was the real guy."
