William E. Brock III
18th United States Secretary of Labor
In office April 29, 1985 – October 31, 1987
President	Ronald Reagan
Preceded by	Raymond J. Donovan
Succeeded by	Ann Dore McLaughlin
8th United States Trade Representative
In office 1981–1985
President	Ronald Reagan
Preceded by	Reubin Askew
Succeeded by	Clayton Keith Yeutter
United States Senator from Tennessee
In office January 3, 1971 – January 3, 1977
Preceded by	Albert A. Gore, Sr.
Succeeded by	James R. Sasser
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Tennessee's 3rd district
In office January 3, 1963 – January 3, 1971
Preceded by	James B. Frazier, Jr.
Succeeded by	LaMar Baker
50th Chairman of the Republican National Committee
In office 1977–1981
Preceded by	Mary Louise Smith
Succeeded by	Richard Richards
Personal details
Born	(1930-11-23) November 23, 1930 (age 81) Chattanooga, Tennessee
Political party	Republican
Alma mater	Washington and Lee University
Religion	Presbyterian
Military service
Service/branch	United States Navy
Years of service	1953-1956

William Emerson "Bill" Brock III (born November 23, 1930) is a former Republican United States senator from Tennessee, having served from 1971 to 1977. He is the grandson of William Emerson Brock I, who was a Democratic U.S. senator from Tennessee from 1929 to 1931.

Early life and career[link]

Brock was a native of Chattanooga, where his family owned a well-known candy company. He is a 1949 graduate of McCallie School and a 1953 graduate of Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, in 1953 and subsequently served in the U.S. Navy until 1956. He then worked in his family's candy business. Brock had been reared as a Democrat, but became a Republican in the 1950s. In 1962, he was elected to Congress from Tennessee's 3rd congressional district, based in Chattanooga. The 3rd had long been the only Democratic outpost in traditionally heavily Republican East Tennessee; indeed, Brock's victory ended 40 years of Democratic control in the district.

United States Senator[link]

Brock served four terms in the House and then won the Republican nomination to face three-term incumbent U.S. Sen. Albert A. Gore Sr. in 1970, defeating country singer Tex Ritter in the primary. Brock's campaign was able successfully to make an issue of Gore's friendship with the Kennedy family and Gore's voting record, which was somewhat liberal by Southern standards, and defeated him.

While in the Senate, Brock was a darling of the conservative movement but was less than overwhelmingly popular at home; his personality was somewhat distant by the standards of most politicians. He was considered vulnerable in the 1976 election and several prominent Democrats ran in the 1976 Democratic Senate primary for the right to challenge him. The most prominent and best-known name, at least initially, was probably 1970 gubernatorial nominee John Jay Hooker; somewhat surprisingly to most observers, the winner of the primary was Jim Sasser, who had managed Gore's 1970 reelection campaign.

Sasser was able to exploit lingering resentment of the Watergate scandal, which had concluded only about two years earlier. However his most effective campaign strategy was to emphasize how the affluent Brock, through skillful use of the tax code by his accountants, had been able to pay less than $2,000 in income taxes the previous year; an amount considerably less than that paid by many Tennesseans of far more modest means. Sasser was also aided by the popularity of Democratic Presidential candidate Jimmy Carter in Tennessee as he would win the state by a double-digit margin. Although he started with a 30-point lead in polls over Sasser, Brock would lose his re-election bid by a 47%-52% margin.^[1]

Prior to his Senate re-election run, Brock was among those considered to replace Nelson Rockefeller as President Gerald Ford's running mate in the 1976 election.^[2]

Post Senate career[link]

The official portrait of William E. Brock hangs in the Department of Labor

After leaving the Senate, Brock became the new chairman of the Republican National Committee, a position he held from 1977 to 1981. Upon the election of Ronald Reagan as U.S. president, Brock was appointed U.S. Trade Representative, a position he maintained until 1985 when he was made secretary of labor.

Brock resigned his cabinet post in late 1987 to become the campaign manager for Senator Bob Dole's presidential campaign. Dole, the runner up to Vice president George Bush, was seen as a micro manager who needed a strong personality like Brock to steer his campaign. However, many viewed Brock as a lazy manager who badly misspent campaign funds, leaving Dole without adequate money for a Super Tuesday media buy. Dole and Brock had a falling out, and Brock publicly fired two of Dole's favorite consultants. Dole dropped out of the race in late March 1988 after losing key primaries in New Hampshire, the South and Illinois. Brock became a consultant in the Washington, D.C., area. By this point, he had become a legal resident of Maryland. In 1994 he won the Republican U.S. Senate primary in Maryland over future convict Ruthann Aron, but was soundly defeated (41%-59%) in the general election by Democratic incumbent Paul Sarbanes. Brock is currently a resident of Annapolis, Maryland.

See also[link]

Biography portal

• Bill Brock at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress Retrieved on 2009-03-04
• USDOL biography
• e-archive biography

References[link]

v t e United States Secretaries of Labor Secretaries of Commerce & Labor Cortelyou Metcalf Straus Nagel Secretaries of Labor Wilson Davis Doak Perkins Schwellenbach Tobin Durkin Mitchell Goldberg Wirtz Shultz Hodgson Brennan Dunlop Usery Marshall Donovan Brock McLaughlin Dole Martin Reich Herman Chao Solis

v t e United States Trade Representative Christian Herter (1962) William M. Roth (1967) Carl J. Gilbert (1969) William D. Eberle (1971) Frederick B. Dent (1975) Robert S. Strauss (1977) Reubin Askew (1979) William E. Brock III (1981) Clayton K. Yeutter (1985) Carla A. Hills (1989) Mickey Kantor (1993) Charlene Barshefsky (1997) Robert Zoellick (2001) Rob Portman (2005) Susan Schwab (2006) Ron Kirk (2009)

v t e Republican Party Chairpersons of the RNC Morgan Raymond Ward Claflin Morgan Chandler Cameron Jewell Sabin Jones Quay Clarkson Carter Hanna Payne Cortelyou New Hitchcock Hill Rosewater Hilles Wilcox Hays Adams Butler Work Huston Fess Sanders Fletcher Hamilton Martin Walsh Spangler Brownell Reece Scott Gabrielson Summerfield Roberts Hall Alcorn T. B. Morton Miller Burch Bliss R. Morton Dole Bush Smith Brock Richards Fahrenkopf Atwater Yeutter Bond Barbour Nicholson Gilmore Racicot Gillespie Mehlman Martinez Duncan Steele Priebus Presidential tickets Frémont/Dayton Lincoln/Hamlin Lincoln/Johnson Grant/Colfax Grant/Wilson Hayes/Wheeler Garfield/Arthur Blaine/Logan Harrison/Morton Harrison/Reid McKinley/Hobart McKinley/Roosevelt Roosevelt/Fairbanks Taft/Sherman Taft/Sherman/Butler Hughes/Fairbanks Harding/Coolidge Coolidge/Dawes Hoover/Curtis (twice) Landon/Knox Willkie/McNary Dewey/Bricker Dewey/Warren Eisenhower/Nixon (twice) Nixon/Lodge Goldwater/Miller Nixon/Agnew (twice) Ford/Dole Reagan/G. H. W. Bush (twice) G. H. W. Bush/Quayle (twice) Dole/Kemp G. W. Bush/Cheney (twice) McCain/Palin Romney/TBD (presumptive) Parties by state and territory State Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming Territory District of Columbia Guam Northern Mariana Islands Puerto Rico Virgin Islands Conventions (List) 1856 (Philadelphia) 1860 (Chicago) 1864 (Baltimore) 1868 (Chicago) 1872 (Philadelphia) 1876 (Cincinnati) 1880 (Chicago) 1884 (Chicago) 1888 (Chicago) 1892 (Minneapolis) 1896 (Saint Louis) 1900 (Philadelphia) 1904 (Chicago) 1908 (Chicago) 1912 (Chicago) 1916 (Chicago) 1920 (Chicago) 1924 (Cleveland) 1928 (Kansas City) 1932 (Chicago) 1936 (Cleveland) 1940 (Philadelphia) 1944 (Chicago) 1948 (Philadelphia) 1952 (Chicago) 1956 (San Francisco) 1960 (Chicago) 1964 (San Francisco) 1968 (Miami Beach) 1972 (Miami Beach) 1976 (Kansas City) 1980 (Detroit) 1984 (Dallas) 1988 (New Orleans) 1992 (Houston) 1996 (San Diego) 2000 (Philadelphia) 2004 (New York) 2008 (St. Paul) 2012 (Tampa) Affiliated organizations College Republicans Congressional Hispanic Conference International Democrat Union Log Cabin Republicans National Republican Congressional Committee National Republican Senatorial Committee Republican Conference of the United States House of Representatives Republican Conference of the United States Senate Republican Governors Association Republican Jewish Coalition Republican Liberty Caucus Republican Main Street Partnership Republican Majority for Choice Republican National Coalition for Life Republican National Hispanic Assembly Republican Study Committee Republicans Abroad Republicans for Environmental Protection The Ripon Society Teenage Republicans The Wish List Young Republicans Related articles History 2009 chairmanship election 2011 chairmanship election Bibliography Timeline of modern American conservatism Conservatism Portal

v t e United States Senators from Tennessee Class 1 Cocke A. Jackson Smith J. Anderson Campbell Eaton Grundy Foster Grundy Nicholson Foster Turney Jones Johnson Patterson Brownlow Johnson Key Bailey H. Jackson Whitthorne Bate Frazier Lea McKellar Gore, Sr. Brock III Sasser Frist Corker Class 2 Blount J. Anderson Cocke Smith Whiteside Campbell Wharton Williams A. Jackson White A. Anderson Jarnagin Bell Nicholson Fowler Cooper Harris Turley Carmack Taylor Sanders Webb Shields Tyson Brock I Hull Bachman Berry Stewart Kefauver Walters Bass Baker Gore, Jr. Mathews Thompson Alexander

v t e Cabinet of President Ronald Reagan (1981–1989)   Cabinet Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig, Jr. (1981–1982) George P. Shultz (1982–1989) Secretary of the Treasury Donald T. Regan (1981–1985) James A. Baker, III (1985–1988) Nicholas F. Brady (1988–1989) Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger (1981–1987) Frank C. Carlucci (1987–1989) Attorney General William French Smith (1981–1985) Edwin Meese III (1985–1988) Richard L. Thornburgh (1988–1989) Secretary of the Interior James G. Watt (1981–1983) William P. Clark, Jr. (1983–1985) Donald P. Hodel (1985–1989) Secretary of Agriculture John R. Block (1981–1986) Richard E. Lyng (1986–1989) Secretary of Commerce Malcolm Baldrige, Jr. (1981–1987) C. William Verity, Jr. (1987–1989) Secretary of Labor Raymond J. Donovan (1981–1985) William E. Brock (1985–1987) Ann Dore McLaughlin (1987–1989) Secretary of Health and Human Services Richard S. Schweiker (1981–1983) Margaret M. Heckler (1983–1985) Otis R. Bowen (1985–1989) Secretary of Education T. H. Bell (1981–1985) William J. Bennett (1985–1988) Lauro F. Cavazos (1988–1989) Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Samuel R. Pierce, Jr. (1981–1989) Secretary of Transportation Andrew L. Lewis, Jr. (1981–1983) Elizabeth H. Dole (1983–1987) James H. Burnley IV (1988–1989) Secretary of Energy James B. Edwards (1981–1983) Donald P. Hodel (1983–1985) John S. Herrington (1985–1989)   Cabinet-level Vice President George H. W. Bush (1981–1989) Director of Central Intelligence William J. Casey (1981–1987) William H. Webster (1987–1989) Ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick (1981–1985) Vernon A. Walters (1985–1989) Trade Representative William E. Brock, III (1981–1985) Clayton K. Yeutter (1985–1989)

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (February 2011)

JJ Cale
Cale in 2006
Background information
Birth name	John Weldon Cale
Born	(1938-12-05) December 5, 1938 (age 73) Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, U.S.
Genres	Americana, Cajun, blues, swamp rock, Red Dirt, Tulsa Sound
Occupations	Musician, songwriter
Instruments	Guitar, vocals, piano, keyboards, bass, drums
Years active	1958–present
Labels	Shelter, Mercury, Polygram, Virgin, Rounder, Silvertone
Associated acts	Leathercoated Minds, Eric Clapton, Delaney & Bonnie, Leon Russell
Website	jjcale.com

JJ Cale (also J.J. Cale), born John Weldon Cale^[1] on December 5, 1938, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma,^[1] is a Grammy Award-winning American singer-songwriter and musician. Cale is one of the originators of the Tulsa Sound, a loose genre drawing on blues, rockabilly, country, and jazz influences. Cale's personal style has often been described as "laid back".

His only U.S. hit single, Crazy Mama, peaked at #22 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1972. During the 2006 documentary film To Tulsa and Back Cale recounts the story of being offered the opportunity to appear on Dick Clark's American Bandstand to promote the song, which would have moved the song higher on the charts. Cale declined when told he could not bring his band to the taping and would be required to lip-sync the words to the song.

His songs have been performed by a number of other musicians including "After Midnight" and "Cocaine" by Eric Clapton,"Cajun Moon" by Randy Crawford, "Magnolia" by Jai, "Bringing It Back" by Kansas, "Call Me the Breeze" and "I Got the Same Old Blues" by Lynyrd Skynyrd, "Travelin' Light" and "Ride Me High" by Widespread Panic, "Tijuana" by Harry Manx, "Sensitive Kind" by Carlos Santana, "Cajun Moon" by Herbie Mann with Cissy Houston, and "Same Old Blues" by Captain Beefheart.

Biography[link]

Cale was born on December 5, 1938, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Some sources incorrectly give his real name as "Jean-Jacques Cale". A Sunset Strip nightclub owner employing Cale in the mid-1960s came up with the "JJ" moniker to avoid confusion with the Velvet Underground's John Cale.^{[citation needed]} In the 2006 documentary, To Tulsa and Back: On Tour with J.J. Cale, Rocky Frisco tells the same version of the story mentioning the other John Cale but without further detail.

Discography[link]

Singles[link]

• 1958 "Shock Hop/Sneaky" [45 - as Johnny Cale]^[2]
• 1960 "Troubles, Troubles/Purple Onion" [45 - as Johnny Cale Quintet] ^[2]
• 1961 "Ain't That Lovin You Baby/She's My Desire" [45 - as Johnny Cale Quintet] ^[2]
• 1971 "Crazy Mama" [45 as J.J. Cale], from the album Naturally, peaked at #22 on the US single charts on April 8, 1972.

[edit] Albums^[3]

• 1966 A Trip Down The Sunset Strip (with the Leathercoated Minds)
• 1972 Naturally
• 1973 Really
• 1974 Okie
• 1976 Troubadour
• 1979 5
• 1981 Shades
• 1982 Grasshopper
• 1983 #8
• 1984 Special Edition (a compilation of hits from previous albums)
• 1990 Travel Log
• 1992 Number 10
• 1994 Closer to You
• 1996 Guitar Man
• 1997 Anyway the Wind Blows: The Anthology
• 1998 The Very Best of J.J. Cale
• 2000 Universal Masters Collection
• 2001 Live
• 2004 To Tulsa and Back
• 2006 The Definitive Collection
• 2006 Collected (with bonus tracks) (Dutch release only)
• 2006 The Road to Escondido (with Eric Clapton)
• 2007 Rewind: The Unreleased Recordings
• 2009 Roll On
• 2011 The Silvertone Years (A collection chronicling JJ Cale's music released by Silvertone Records between 1989-1992)

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: JJ Cale

This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links, and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references. (February 2011)

• J.J. Cale Official website
• "To Tulsa and back - On Tour with J.J. Cale" Documentary about J.J. Cale
• VH1: Biography
• Laid Back – Thirty years under the influence of "Cocaine"
• JJ Cale Fan Network
• NPR: June 2004 story
• Rocky Frisco: Rocky Frisco Cale's Pianist
• Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture - Cale, John Weldon
• On his Casio 360 guitar
• To Tulsa and back - On Tour With J.J. Cale

Benjamin Jealous
17th President of the NAACP
Incumbent
Assumed office September 1, 2008
Preceded by	Bruce S. Gordon
Personal details
Born	Benjamin Todd Jealous (1973-01-18) January 18, 1973 (age 39) Pacific Grove, California
Nationality	American
Spouse(s)	Lia Epperson
Alma mater	Columbia University (A.B.) Oxford University (M.A.)
Religion	Episcopalian

Benjamin Todd Jealous (born January 18, 1973) is the current president and chief executive officer of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He is the youngest ever national leader of the organization.^[1]

Early life and education[link]

Jealous was born in Pacific Grove, California and grew up in Monterey Peninsula, California. He holds an A.B. in political science from Columbia University and a master's degree in comparative social research from Oxford University where he was a Rhodes Scholar. Jealous went to York School in Monterey for high school.

He is a member of Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity and is affiliated with the Washington (DC) Alumni Chapter.

Career[link]

Currently, Jealous is President of the NAACP. At the time of his appointment, Jealous lived in Alameda, California, with his wife, Lia Epperson, a law professor at American University, and a civil rights attorney, and their daughter, Morgan.

Prior to his appointment, he was President of the Rosenberg Foundation, a private independent nonprofit venture capital organization.

Previously he served as director of the US Human Rights Program at Amnesty International. While there, he focused on issues such as federal legislation against prison rape, racial profiling, and expose the sentencing of children to life without the possibility of parole. He is the lead author of the 2004 report Threat and Humiliation: Racial Profiling, Domestic Security, and Human Rights in the United States,^[2] which received coverage by major media outlets in most states and on six continents.^{[citation needed]}

Formerly, Jealous served as Executive Director of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), a federation of more than 200 black community newspapers.

During the mid-1990s,Jealous served as Managing Editor of the Jackson Advocate, Mississippi's oldest historically black newspaper. His reporting was credited with exposing corruption amongst high-ranking officials at the state prison in Parchman, and helping to acquit a small farmer who had been wrongfully accused of arson.

He initially came to Mississippi as a field organizer on a campaign to stop the state's plan to close two of its three public historically black universities, and convert one of them into a prison.

Jealous began his career as an organizer with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund working on issues of healthcare access. He is a member of the Asia Society as well as a board member of Northern California Grantmakers and the California Council for the Humanities.

In 2009, Jealous received the John Jay Award for distinguished professional achievement from Columbia College.^[3]

He was also recently announced as the Class Day speaker at his alma mater, Columbia University.

Election controversy[link]

Jealous was elected by the NAACP National Board of Directors in a 34-21 vote. CNN reported that "no one clapped or celebrated," according to one board member after the meeting.^[1] According to CNN, Jealous was the only finalist presented by the search committee to the full board for consideration despite there being other qualified candidates. Although some board members wanted to examine two others whom the search committee identified as finalists, Jealous's supporters, including Chairman Julian Bond, prevented their presentation to the board.^[1]

References[link]

External links[link]

• NAACP Biography
• TheLoop21.com interview with NAACP President Ben Jealous
• Is The NAACP's Relevance Fading? We Think Not. by Benjamin Jealous and Julian Bond for The New Republic.

Bill Maher
Maher at a ceremony to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in September 2010
Birth name	William Maher, Jr.
Born	(1956-01-20) January 20, 1956 (age 56) New York, New York, U.S.
Medium	Stand-up, television, film, books
Nationality	American
Years active	1979–present
Genres	Satire, Political satire, News satire, Observational comedy
Subject(s)	American politics, current events, American culture, pop culture, freedom of speech, environmentalism, religion, human sexuality, recreational drug use, libertarianism, American liberalism, American conservatism
Influences	Steve Allen, George Carlin, Johnny Carson, David Frost, Robert Klein, Don Rickles, Gore Vidal, Lenny Bruce
Notable works and roles	Elliot on Charlie Hoover Host of Politically Incorrect Host of Real Time with Bill Maher Religulous
Website	BillMaher.com

William "Bill" Maher, Jr. ( /ˈmɑːr/; born January 20, 1956) is an American stand-up comedian, television host, political commentator, author, and actor. Before his current role as the host of HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, Maher hosted a similar late-night talk show called Politically Incorrect originally on Comedy Central and later on ABC.

Maher is known for his political satire and sociopolitical commentary, which targets a wide swath of topics including religion, politics, bureaucracies of many kinds, political correctness, the mass media, greed among people and persons in positions of high political and social power, and the lack of intellectual curiosity in the electorate.^[1] He supports the legalization of marijuana and same-sex marriage, and serves on the board of PETA.^[2] He is also a critic of religion and is an advisory board member of Project Reason, a foundation to promote scientific knowledge and secular values within society.^[3] In 2005, Maher ranked at number 38 on Comedy Central's 100 greatest stand-up comedians of all time.^[4] Bill Maher received a Hollywood Walk of Fame star on September 14, 2010.^[5]

Early life and education[link]

Maher was born in New York City, the son of Julie (née Berman), a nurse, and William Maher, Sr., a network news editor and radio announcer.^[6] He was raised in his Irish American father's Catholic religion, remaining unaware that his mother was Jewish until his early teenage years.^{[7][8][9][10]} Due to Maher's father's disagreement with the Catholic Church's position on birth control, he stopped taking Maher and his sister to Catholic church services when Maher was thirteen.^[11]

Maher was raised in River Vale, New Jersey, and graduated from Pascack Hills High School in Montvale in 1974. He received a B.A. in English and history from Cornell University in 1978.^[12]

Early career[link]

Maher began his career as a stand-up comedian and actor. He was host of the New York City comedy club Catch a Rising Star in 1979. Thanks to Steve Allen, he began appearing on Johnny Carson's and David Letterman's shows in 1982. He made limited television appearances including a recurring role in Sara (1985), appeared in Max Headroom (1987), two separate appearances on Murder, She Wrote (1989, 1990), a recurring role in Charlie Hoover (1991) and other productions. He has also appeared in several films, usually in a comic role. His feature film debut was in D.C. Cab (1983), and he also appeared in Ratboy (1986) Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death (1988) and Pizza Man (1991), among others.

Television career[link]

[edit] Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher

Maher assumed the host role Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher, a late-night political talk show that ran on Comedy Central from 1993 to 1997 and on ABC from 1997 to 2002. The show regularly began with a topical monologue by Maher preceding the introduction of four guests, usually a diverse group of individuals from show business, popular culture, political pundits, political consultants, authors, and occasionally news figures. The group would discuss topical issues selected by Maher, who also participated in the discussions.^[13] Jerry Seinfeld, a regular guest on the show, stated that Politically Incorrect reminded him of talk shows from the 1950s and 60s "when guests interacted with each other as much as with the host."^[14]

Politically Incorrect won an array of awards, including an Emmy Award for Outstanding Technical Direction, two CableACE awards for Best Talk Show Series, and a Genesis Award for Best Television Talk Show. Maher earned numerous award nominations for his producing, writing and hosting of Politically Incorrect, including ten Emmy nominations, two TV Guide nominations, and two Writers Guild nominations. ABC decided against renewing Maher's contract for Politically Incorrect in 2002, after he made a controversial on-air remark shortly after the September 11 attacks.^[15] He agreed with his guest, conservative pundit Dinesh D'Souza, that the 9/11 terrorists did not act in a cowardly manner (in rebuttal to President Bush's statement calling 9/11 hijackers cowards). Maher said, "We have been the cowards. Lobbing cruise missiles from two thousand miles away. That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building. Say what you want about it. Not cowardly. You're right." Maher later clarified that his comment was not anti-military in any way whatsoever, referencing his well-documented longstanding support for the American military.^[16][17][18]

In the context of the attacks, some corporate advertisers found the comment too insensitive and controversial. Several companies, including FedEx and Sears Roebuck, pulled their advertisements from the show, costing the show more than it returned.

The show was cancelled on June 16, 2002, and the Sinclair Broadcast Group had dropped the show from its ABC-affiliated stations months prior. On June 22, 2002, just six days after the cancellation of Politically Incorrect, Maher received the Los Angeles Press Club president's award (for "championing free speech"). Maher was on the board of judges one year for the PEN/Newman's Own First Amendment Award.

Maher's remarks after 9/11 were not the first time he had sparked controversy on Politically Incorrect. In the same year, Maher was widely criticized for comparing dogs to retarded children. He apologized for his comments.^[19]

[edit] Real Time with Bill Maher

In 2003, Maher became the host, co-producer and co-writer of Real Time with Bill Maher, a weekly hour-long political comedy talk show on the cable television network HBO. During an interview, Maher told Terry Gross (on NPR's Fresh Air) that he much prefers having serious and well-informed guests on his program, as opposed to the random celebrities that fleshed out his roundtable discussions on Politically Incorrect.^[20]

As with his previous show, Politically Incorrect, Maher begins Real Time with a comic opening monologue based upon current events and other topical issues. He proceeds to a one-on-one interview with a guest, either in-studio or via satellite. Following the interview, Maher sits with three panelists, usually consisting of pundits, authors, activists and journalists, for a discussion of the week's events. In the segment "New Rules" at the end of each show, Maher delivers a humorous editorial on popular culture and American politics.

In late May 2005, Alabama Congressman Spencer Bachus sent a letter to Time Warner's board of directors requesting Real Time be cancelled after remarks Maher made after noting the military had missed its recruiting goals by 42 percent. Bachus said he felt the comments were demeaning to the military and treasonous. Maher stated his highest regard and support for the troops and asked why the congressman criticized him instead of doing something about the recruitment problem.^[21]

Real Time has earned widespread praise. It has been nominated for more than ten Primetime Emmy Awards and six Writer's Guild awards. In 2007, Maher and his co-producers were awarded the Television Producer of the Year Award in Variety Television by the Producers Guild of America.^[22] Maher holds the record for the most Emmy nominations without a win, having been nominated on 22 occasions and not winning once. Eleven of the nominations were for Politically Incorrect, while nine were for Real Time. The other two were nominations for two of his HBO comedy specials: Bill Maher: I'm Swiss and Bill Maher: The Decider.^[23]

HBO announced in July 2011 the show was renewed for a tenth season.^[24]

Christine O'Donnell[link]

On September 17, 2010, Maher aired a clip of Delaware Republican Senatorial candidate Christine O'Donnell from the October 29, 1999 episode of his old show Politically Incorrect on his current show Real Time with Bill Maher,^[25][26] where she discussed that she had "dabbled in witchcraft." This was one of the most notable of numerous controversial statements by O'Donnell that made her the most covered candidate in the 2010 mid-term election cycle.^[27][28]

Political commentator[link]

Maher is a frequent commentator on various cable news networks, namely CNN, MSNBC, and HLN. Maher has regularly appeared on CNN's The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer^[29] and has also been a frequent guest on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews,^[30] The Rachel Maddow Show^[31] and Countdown with Keith Olbermann.^[32] Maher has also appeared as a guest on HLN's The Joy Behar Show.^[33]

Maher hosted the January 13, 2006 edition of Larry King Live, on which he was a frequent guest. Maher appeared as a special guest on the June 29, 2010 edition of the show, on which CNN anchor Larry King announced his retirement.^[34] Maher co-emceed the final show of Larry King Live on December 16, 2010 with Ryan Seacrest.^[35]

Since May 2005, he has been a contributing blogger at The Huffington Post.

Views and beliefs[link]

Politics[link]

Maher and Ingrid Newkirk, founder of PETA. Maher is on the board of directors of the animal rights group.

Maher eschews political labels, referring to himself as "practical".^[36] In the past, he has described himself as a libertarian and has also referred to himself "as a progressive, as a sane person".^[37][38]

Maher favors a partial privatization of Social Security, ending corporate welfare and federal funding of non-profits, and legalization of gambling, prostitution, and marijuana. Maher is a member of the advisory boards for both the NORML and Marijuana Policy Project, organizations which support regulated legalization of marijuana.^[39][40] He describes himself as an environmentalist, and he has spoken in favor of the Kyoto treaty on global warming on his show Real Time. He often criticizes industry figures involved in environmental pollution.^[41]

Maher is a board member of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

Before the 2004 U.S. presidential election, Maher became candid in his stated opposition to the re-election of George W. Bush and in his support for John Kerry.^[42]

Known for protesting against the demonization of the word "liberal", during the campaign Maher criticized Kerry for being ashamed of the word. On his show, the comedian has noted the paradox of people claiming they distrusted "elite" politicians while at the same time wanting elite doctors to treat them and elite lawyers to represent them in court.^[43] Maher supports the death penalty. Since the 9/11 attacks, he has endorsed the use of racial profiling at airports.^[44]

He was originally against the Iraq War, and has summarized his opinion by saying that the United States and the world have had to pay too high a price for the war. He is skeptical of Iraq surviving without civil war.^[45]

In the 2008 U.S. presidential election, Maher announced his support for Barack Obama.^[46] Although Maher welcomed Obama's electoral victory, he has subjected him to criticism once in office for not acting boldly on health care reform and other progressive issues.^[47]

On February 23, 2012, after his 'Crazy Stupid Politics' special streamed on Yahoo! Screen, Maher announced that he was contributing $1 million to Priorities USA, the Obama SuperPAC.^[48][49]

Religion[link]

Maher is highly critical of religion, and views it as not worth the bother. He has referred to himself as an apatheist - a pragmatic atheist - on Scarborough Country on April 24, 2007, and again in July 2011.^[50][51] He has reiterated this stance in subsequent interviews, rejecting both the certitude of the existence, as well as the certitude of nonexistence of deities, concluding, "I'm saying that doubt is the only appropriate response for human beings."^[52] He is an advisory board member of author Sam Harris's Project Reason, a foundation that promotes scientific knowledge and secular values within society.

Maher and director Larry Charles teamed up to make the feature film Religulous (2008), described by trade publication Variety as a documentary "that spoofs religious extremism across the world." It was released on October 3, 2008.^[53][54]

While Maher is critical towards Christianity, he is an outspoken critic of religion as a whole, including Islam. On October 29, 2010, during a Real Time segment, Maher commented on a news story saying that the name Mohammed had become the most popular baby name in the United Kingdom. He asked, "Am I a racist to feel alarmed by that? Because I am. And it’s not because of the race, it’s because of the religion. I don’t have to apologize, do I, for not wanting the Western world to be taken over by Islam in 300 years? Sharia law is being institutionalized in England? Well, then I am right, I should be alarmed."^[55] He later defended his comments on CNN, saying, "And when I say Westerner, I mean someone who believes in the values that Western people believe in that a lot of the Muslim world does not. Like separation of church and state. Like equality of the sexes. Like respect for minorities, free elections, free speech, freedom to gather. These things are not just different from cultures that don’t have them. ... It’s better. ... I would like to keep those values here." ^[56]

Maher received the Richard Dawkins Award for 2009 from Atheist Alliance International "for his efforts to further the values science and reason in the world."^[57]

Maher was ranked first by MormonVoices, a group associated with Foundation for Apologetic Information & Research, on its Top Ten Anti-Mormon Statements of 2011 list for saying "By any standard, Mormonism is more ridiculous than any other religion".^[58]

Health care[link]

Maher has stated that the AMA is a powerful lobbying group and one of the primary reasons why the United States had failed to enact health care reform.^{[59][dead link][60]}

On August 24, 2009, Maher was a guest on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien. On the topic of getting health care reform legislation passed, Maher stated that Obama should forget about trying to get 60 votes for it, "he only needs 51." "Forget getting the sixty votes or sixty percent — sixty percent of people don't believe in evolution in this country — he just needs to drag them to it, like I said, they're stupid; get health care done, with or without them."^[61]

Maher has expressed the view that most illness is generally the result of poor diet and lack of exercise, and that medicine is often not the best way of addressing illness. In an episode of his show about the 2008 presidential candidates' health plans, Maher stated that poor nutrition is a primary cause of illness, and that "the answer isn't another pill."^[62] He also has said:" If you believe you need to take all the pills the pharmaceutical industry says you do, then you're already on drugs!"^[63]

He has expressed his distaste for the pharmaceutical and health care industries in general, on the grounds that they make their money out of curing people who are made sick by consuming unhealthy food that corporations urge upon the public. He maintains that mass consumption of high-fructose corn syrup is a contributor to the rise in frequency of obesity in the United States.^[64]

In a discussion with Michael Moore about the film Sicko, Maher said, "The human body is pretty amazing; it doesn't get sick, usually, for no reason. I mean, there's some genetic stuff that can get to you, but, basically, people are sick in this country because they're poisoned. The environment is a poisoning factor, but also, we gotta say, they poison themselves. They eat shit. People eat shit, and that's, to my way of thinking, about 90 percent of why people are sick, is because they eat shit. Would you agree?"^[65]

On October 9, 2009, on his HBO show, Maher debated the effectiveness of flu vaccinations with Bill Frist and stated, "Why would you let them be the ones to stick a disease into your arm? I would never get a swine flu vaccine or any vaccine. I don’t trust the government, especially with my health." Maher also expressed skepticism about the seriousness of the swine flu and whether completely healthy people could die from it. His comments have generated criticism, and his remarks have been called unscientific and even harmful.^[66]

Maher responded to the criticism, noting, "What I've read about what they think I'm saying is not what I've said. I'm not a germ theory denier. I believe vaccinations can work. Polio is a good example. Do I think in certain situations that inoculating Third World children against malaria or diphtheria, or whatever, is right? Of course. In a situation like that, the benefits outweigh costs. But to me living in Los Angeles? To get a flu shot? No."^[67]

He supports the current abortion laws and giving the terminally ill the right to assisted suicide.

Criticism of 9/11 conspiracy theories[link]

Maher has been a critic of 9/11 conspiracy theories. On October 19, 2007, Maher confronted several 9/11 truthers and had them ejected from his show audience after they interrupted the live show numerous times by calling out from the audience. The incident drew significant media attention and praise from Fox News talk show host and frequent critic John Gibson.^[68]

Personal life[link]

Maher has never married. In 2003, he began dating former Playboy Cyber Girl Coco Johnsen. In November 2004, at the end of their 17-month relationship, she sued him for USD $9 million for "pain and suffering" for alleged "insulting, humiliating and degrading racial comments." Her suit^[69] stated that Maher promised to marry her and father her children, support her financially, and purchase a Beverly Hills home. Her suit also alleged that she quit her job as a flight attendant and occasional model to be with him. Maher's lawyers in their response filed on November 23, 2004, in Los Angeles Superior Court said Maher is a "confirmed bachelor, and a very public one at that" who "never promised to marry [Johnsen] or to have children with her."^[70]

Maher's filing stated that, after the relationship had ended, Johnsen "launched a campaign to embarrass, humiliate, and extort ridiculous sums of money from Bill Maher." Johnsen accused another former boyfriend of rape and kidnapping in 1997, and the charges were later dismissed for lack of evidence.^[71] Her lawsuit against Maher was dismissed on May 2, 2005.

Maher next to his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in September 2010

Maher enjoys his bachelor status and states that he does not want to get married. On his website, he is quoted as saying, "I'm the last of my guy friends to have never gotten married, and their wives — they don't want them playing with me. I'm like the escaped slave — I bring news of freedom."^[72]

In 2005, he began dating Karrine Steffans, best-selling author and former hip hop model.^[73][74][75] When commentators suggested there was a pattern to his dating because both his girlfriend and former girlfriend were black, Maher said, "People say I'm into black women. Robert De Niro is into black women. I'm just into women who are real, and they happen to be black."^[74]

From 2009 to 2011, Maher dated the neuroscientist and science educator Cara Santa Maria.^[76]

Credits[link]

Bibliography[link]

• True Story : A Novel, 1994 (ISBN 0-7432-4251-3)
• Does Anybody Have a Problem With That? Politically Incorrect's Greatest Hits, 1996 (ISBN 0-679-45627-9)
• Does Anybody Have a Problem with That? The Best of Politically Incorrect, 1997 (ISBN 0-345-41281-8)
• When You Ride Alone You Ride With Bin Laden: What the Government Should Be Telling Us to Help Fight the War on Terrorism, 2003 (ISBN 1-893224-90-2)
• Keep the Statue of Liberty Closed: The New Rules, 2004 (ISBN 1-932407-47-2)
• New Rules: Polite Musings from a Timid Observer, 2005 (ISBN 1-59486-295-8)
• The New New Rules: A Funny Look at How Everybody but Me Has Their Head Up Their Ass, 2011 (ISBN 0-39915-841-3)

Filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Bill Maher

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Bill Maher

• Official website
• Bill Maher on Twitter
• Bill Maher on Myspace
• Bill Maher at the Internet Movie Database
• Works by or about Bill Maher in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Bill Maher on National Public Radio in 2004
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Bill Maher on Charlie Rose
• HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" site
• 2006 Maher Interview with The A.V. Club
• 2009 Maher Interview with writers at the Religulous DVD release
• Bill Maher collected news and commentary at The New York Times

David Brock (born November 2, 1962) is an American journalist and author, the founder of the media group, Media Matters for America, and a Democratic political operative.^[1] He was a conservative journalist during the 1990s^[2] gaining notoriety for his book The Real Anita Hill and authoring the Troopergate story, which led to Paula Jones filing a lawsuit against Bill Clinton. At the start of the Presidency of George W. Bush his views shifted significantly towards the left. He founded Media Matters for America, a non-profit organization that describes itself as a "progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media."^[3]

Background[link]

Brock was born in Washington, D.C., and adopted by Dorothea and Raymond Brock.^[4] He has a younger sister, Regina. Brock's family was Catholic and his father held strong conservative beliefs.^[4]

Brock grew up in Wood-Ridge, New Jersey, where he went to Our Lady of the Assumption School, and later attended Paramus Catholic High School in Paramus, New Jersey.^[5] He then attended the University of California, Berkeley, where he worked as a reporter and editor for The Daily Californian, the campus newspaper, sometimes expressing conservative views. He was an intern at The Wall Street Journal. He graduated from Berkeley with a B.A. in history in 1985.

In 1986 he joined the staff of the weekly conservative news magazine Insight on the News, a sister publication of The Washington Times. After a stint as a research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, in March 1992 Brock authored a sharply critical story about Clarence Thomas's accuser, Anita Hill, in The American Spectator magazine. A little over a year later, in April 1993, Brock published a book titled The Real Anita Hill, which expanded upon previous assertions that had cast doubt on the veracity of Anita Hill's claims of sexual harassment.

The book became a best-seller. It was later attacked in a book review in The New Yorker by Jane Mayer, a reporter for The New Yorker, and Jill Abramson, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal. The two later expanded their article into the book Strange Justice, which cast Anita Hill in a much more sympathetic light. It, too, was a best-seller. Brock replied to their book with a book review of his own in The American Spectator.

In the January 1994, issue of The American Spectator, Brock, by then on staff at the magazine, published a story about Bill Clinton's time as governor of Arkansas that made accusations that bred Troopergate.^[2] Among other things, the story contained the first printed reference to Paula Jones, referring to a woman named "Paula" who state troopers said offered to be Clinton's partner.^[2] Jones called Brock's account of her encounter with Clinton "totally wrong," and she later sued Clinton for sexual harassment, a case that became entangled in the independent counsel's investigation of the Whitewater controversy and eventually led to the impeachment of the president. The story received an award later that year from the Western Journalism Center, and was partially responsible for a rise in the 25-year-old magazine's circulation, from around 70,000 to over 300,000 in a very short period.^{[citation needed]}

Shift to the left[link]

Three years later, Brock surprised conservatives by publishing a somewhat sympathetic biography of Hillary Clinton, titled The Seduction of Hillary Rodham. Having received a $1 million advance and a tight one-year deadline from Simon & Schuster's then-conservative-focused Free Press subsidiary, Brock was under tremendous pressure to produce another best-seller. However, the book contained no major scoops. In Blinded by the Right (2002), Brock said that he had reached a turning point—he had thoroughly examined charges against the Clintons, could not find any evidence of wrongdoing, and did not want to make any more misleading claims. Brock further said that his former friends in right-wing politics shunned him because Seduction did not adequately attack the Clintons. He also argued that his "friends" had not really been friends at all, due to the open secret that Brock was gay.^[6]

In July 1997, Brock published a confessional piece in Esquire magazine titled "Confessions of a Right-Wing Hit Man," in which he recanted much of what he said in his two best-known American Spectator articles and criticized his own reporting methods.^[7][8] Discouraged at the reaction his Hillary Clinton biography received, he said, "I . . . want out. David Brock the Road Warrior of the Right is dead." Four months later, The American Spectator declined to renew his employment contract, under which he was being paid over $300,000 per year.

Writing again for Esquire in April 1998, Brock apologized to Clinton for his contributions to Troopergate, calling it simply part of an anti-Clinton crusade.^[2] He told a more detailed story of his time inside the right wing in his 2002 memoir, Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative, in which he settled old scores and provided inside details about the Arkansas Project's efforts to bring down Clinton. Later, he also apologized to Anita Hill.

In 2001 Brock accused one of his former sources, Terry Wooten, of leaking FBI files for use in his book about Anita Hill. Brock defended his betrayal of a confidential source by saying, "I've concluded that what I was involved in wasn't journalism, it was a political operation, and I was part of it. . . . So I don't think the normal rules of journalism would apply to what I was doing."^[9]

Brock directly addressed the right-wing "machine" in his 2004 book, The Republican Noise Machine, in which he detailed an alleged interconnected, concerted effort to raise the profile of conservative opinions in the press through false accusations of liberal media bias, dishonest and highly partisan columnists, partisan news organizations and academic studies, and other methods. Also in 2004, he featured briefly in the BBC series The Power of Nightmares, where he stated that the Arkansas Project engaged in political terrorism.

About the same time he founded Media Matters for America, an Internet-based progressive media group "dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media."

Brock announced in 2010 that he was forming a super-PAC, American Bridge, to help elect liberal Democrats, starting with the 2012 election cycle.^[10] In describing Brock's intentions for the super-PAC, The New York Times referred to Brock as a "prominent Democratic political operative"^[1] (mirrored by The Washington Post's characterization of him as a "former journalist-turned-political operative")^[11] and New York Magazine referred to Brock's "hyperpartisanship."^[12]

On February 27, 2012, it was revealed Brock had paid his domestic partner $850,000 "after being threatened with damaging information involving the organization’s donors and the IRS – a deal that Brock later characterized as a blackmail payment".^[13]

Books[link]

• The Real Anita Hill: The Untold Story. Free Press, 1993. ISBN 978-0-02-904656-2
• The Seduction of Hillary Rodham. 1996, Free Press. ISBN 978-0-684-83770-3
• Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative. 2002, Crown Publishing Group. ISBN 978-1-4000-4728-4
• The Republican Noise Machine: Right-Wing Media and How It Corrupts Democracy. 2004, Crown. ISBN 978-1-4000-4875-5
• Free Ride: John McCain and the Media with Paul Waldman. 2008, Anchor. ISBN 0-307-27940-5
• The Fox Effect: How Roger Ailes Turned a Network into a Propaganda Machine with Ari Rabin-Havt. 2012, Anchor. ISBN 978-0-307-94768-0

References[link]

External links[link]

• Media Matters for America
• David Brock at the Internet Movie Database
• Appearances on C-SPAN
  • Booknotes interview with Brock on The Real Anita Hill, June 13, 1993.
• Works by or about David Brock in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Anti-Drudge, Brock Profile in Guernica Magazine
• Right-Wing Journalism dialog with David Brock and Tucker Carlson, Slate (June 25, 1997)
• David Brock, "His Cheatin’ Heart," The American Spectator (January 1994) (The "Troopergate" Story)