LOS ANGELES -- Bill
Maher can add "security guard" to his job description alongside comedian and
political commentator.
Maher on Friday night helped security remove a rowdy protester from the
studio during his weekly HBO show "Real Time with Bill Maher," and
it was all captured on live television.
Maher was talking science during one of his weekly panel discussions when a
protester in his audience stood up, held up a smuggled-in sign reading "9/11 is
a cover up fraud" and shouted comments to the same effect.
The host tried to shout down the audience member, who only became more
agitated.
"Do we have some (expletive) security in this building," Maher yelled, "or do
I have to come down there and kick his (expletive)?"
When security reached the man's aisle and the man resisted leaving, Maher ran
into the seats and helped them push him out the door, shouting "Out! Out!
Out!"
Several other protesters, sprinkled throughout the audience, then stood up
and shouted.
"This isn't the Iowa Caucus, OK, we're not here to debate," Maher shouted
with most of his audience cheering him on. "This is the problem with live
television."
The incident was shown live on the East Coast, and the network appeared to
show the entire affair unedited for the taped-delayed West Coast version.
After the instigators were ejected, Maher told his panelists — MSNBC's Chris
Matthews, Los Angeles Times columnist Joel Stein and Congresswoman Sheila
Jackson — that they often linger outside his studio to share 9/11 conspiracy
theories with him and try to get into the show.
"It's the only time I defend Bush," he said.
"I'm thinking about firing my audience department," he added.
Regular audience members found the ruckus thrilling.
"We picked a very exciting night to be here," Eliot Stein, a 54-year-old high
school teacher, said via cell phone.
"There's few live TV shows anymore, and here you got to see, it was like a
movie. It was great."
Phone and e-mail messages left with HBO officials late Friday were not
immediately returned.
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