Maher In Trouble Again Over Military Comments

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A congressman says comedian Bill Maher’s joke about the U.S. military already recruiting all the “low-lying fruit” is possibly treasonous and at should be enough to cancel the show.

Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., took issue with remarks on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, aired May 13, in which Maher joked about the Army missing its recruiting goal by 42 percent in April.

“More people joined the Michael Jackson fan club,” Maher said. “We’ve done picked all the low-lying Lynndie England fruit, and now we need warm bodies.”

“I think it borders on treason,” Bachus said. “In treason, one definition is to undermine the effort or national security of our country.”

In a statement Monday night, Maher defended his support for the American military.

“Anyone who knows anything about my views and has watched my show knows that I have nothing but the highest regard for the men and women serving this country around the world,” Maher said in the statement.

Bachus said he was angered after watching a repeat of the show shortly after returning from a visit to Germany, in which he met with a paralyzed American soldier in the hospital.

“I don’t want (Maher) prosecuted,” Bachus said. “I want him off the air.”

Numerous television stations pulled Maher’s previous show, “Politically Incorrect,” from the air in September 2001 after he said terrorists weren’t cowards when they flew airplanes into the World Trade Center a week earlier.

Credit: Yahoo/AP