Bill Maher to Rewrite That Hack Bill Maher in His New Book

New rule: Bill Maher’s rules are made to be broken.

At the end of every Real Time with Bill Maher, the “centrist” satirist delivers his closing editorials about whichever issue he feels most strongly about that week directly into the camera in a segment known as his “New Rules.” On Maher’s show, his opinions are somehow considered unimpeachable, but, in print, his closing remarks have been criticized as callous, uninformed and a litany of other labels. Like most political comedians who have convinced themselves that everyone to their left or right on the political spectrum is a special kind of stupid, Maher is typically unwilling to walk back any of his assertions when added context and additional information missing from his editorials contradicts his claims — that is, until he began writing his upcoming book, the fittingly self-winkingly titled, What This Comedian Said Will Shock You.

The only way that this book could shock me is if there’s an electric current running through every page that features the word “woke.”

“Some of the smartest commentary about what’s happening in America is coming from a comedian — this comedian being Bill Maher,” publisher Simon & Schuster wrote about the man who famously praised the 9/11 hijackers for their bravery. “If you want to understand what’s wrong with this country, it turns out that one of the best informed (sic) and most thought-provoking analysts is this very funny pothead.” The publisher says that Maher “reviewed more than a decade of his editorials, rewriting, reimagining and updating them, and adding new material to speak exactly to the moment we’re in” to ensure that his latest book is his most well-researched and accurate entry yet.

It’s a shame that Maher, who has been an important voice in the vaccine skepticism community since long before the breakout of COVID-19, couldn’t have devoted the same time he spent rehashing his own opinions on researching the established facts of science and history that contradict so many of the editorials that he’s remastered. From the description his publisher put out, this book is looking to be less of a “here’s what I got wrong and how my opinion has changed” kind of compilation and more of a “let’s add more modern pop-culture references to my takes on comic book movies” update.