Maher Torches Swalwell as Colbert Hides

Adriana Stone 0 1 min read

Maher Torches Swalwell as Colbert Hides

Bill Maher spent part of Friday night going after Eric Swalwell, and he did it in a way that a lot of TV comics would never touch. Maher is no conservative. Nobody is confusing him with a Fox News guy. But he still went there. That alone made the segment stand out.

Maher said he had brought Swalwell on his show more than once, but the former California congressman always gave him bad vibes. He made that plain on air and didn’t try to soften it. “I’ve got to say, we had him on a couple of times. Ask my staff, I never liked him,” Maher said.

He went even harder from there. “I’ve always thought this guy was a f—ing creep. I never liked him and, yet, so many Democrats stood by him, and now that we’re finding out that it was such an open secret.” That is the kind of line that lands because it cuts through the usual TV fog. No spin. No candy coating. Just blunt talk.

Maher also pointed to the bigger problem. These kinds of stories often sit around for years while insiders act like nothing is wrong. He said, “I hear this so many times. … It was an open secret,” and asked, “What is going on here where it takes so long for the open secret to [come out]?” It was a fair question, and an uncomfortable one for anyone who likes to pretend the political class polices itself.

That’s where the late-night double standard jumps out. Maher talked about it. Others didn’t. Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert, who usually have plenty to say when they can score cheap applause against Republicans, reportedly skipped over the Swalwell story entirely. That silence says plenty. When the target is one of their own side’s favorites, the outrage often fades fast.

Swalwell had been a regular guest on the big comedy shows and got plenty of help from that circuit when he was pushing his political ambitions. Now the story has flipped, and the same crowd that loved having him on suddenly has nothing to say. That kind of selective attention is exactly why people roll their eyes at the media game.

Maher at least did the hard thing. He said what he thought. He didn’t hide behind a safe script. And in a media world packed with cowards, that was the most notable part of the night.

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