Bill Maher was Gamed…..

It’s unfortunate that Maher allowed himself to get played like this.

In private, many of history’s most brutal leaders have been described by their contemporaries in surprisingly human, even affectionate, terms. In 1957, Herbert Matthews of the New York Times traveled to the Cuban mountains to interview Fidel Castro, then a little-known guerrilla leader. The reporter came back enthralled. “The personality of the man is overpowering,” Matthews wrote. “It was easy to see that his men adored him.” In Matthews’s writing, Castro appears charismatic, open, almost heroic. Che Guevara was even more magnetic. He also had hundreds of people executed after the revolution….

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Private interactions, no matter how pleasant, should never influence how we weigh any leader’s record. Matthews softened his judgment of Castro after their personal encounter, helping shape American perceptions of the Cuban revolution — perceptions that soon collided with reality. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain trusted Adolf Hitler’s private assurances during their meetings, describing Hitler afterward as a man with whom he could “do business” — just before Europe descended into war….

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