A Christian Liberal is NOT an oxymoron.

Posted by XT on March 11th, 2009 in US News

So Ann Coulter and Bill Maher are having a series of debates – color me uninterested. But this part actually caught my eye:

Tucked into an angular lounge chair in an Art Deco suite above Radio City Music Hall on Monday evening, Ann Coulter, the conservative author, was awaiting her would-be adversary, the liberal comedian Bill Maher.

Anyone who has listened to Maher knows he isn’t a liberal. But don’t take my word for it, take his:

You describe yourself as a Libertarian. Is that even a political designation anymore? I don’t know. There’s no one in the Libertarian Party who breaks through, even to Ralph Nader status. I’ve always thought of it as allowing people to do anything they wanted to do as long as it doesn’t hurt somebody else. Sometimes people say to me, “You’re not a real Libertarian because Libertarians believe there should be no gun control.” I’m not a radical Libertarian, O.K.? Every party has something of a big tent.

Not direct enough? How about this?

The sharp-witted host of HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” and former host of ABC’s “Politically Incorrect” has mentioned his interest in libertarian ideas many times on the show, and has had prominent libertarians — including David Boaz, Charles Murray, Harry Browne, and Russell Means — as guests.

Or this:

With the White House and Congress solidly conservative and the Senate on a constant Democratic deathwatch, these are not the best of times to be teetering left of center. And so the host of ABC’s “Politically Incorrect” has done a rather political thing.

He’s come out as a libertarian.

For Maher, this isn’t a recent phenomenon. Maher had been calling himself libertarian well before Bill Clinton left for Chappaqua, N.Y. And why not? The host of the late-night political discussion program has never been above raising a few eyebrows.

Maher may or may not pass any single person’s litmus test for being a libertarian. But he says he is, so he is. At very least, he is no paragon of liberal values defending the faith against Ann Coulter. He’s just an entertainer who pisses off a lot of people and is trying to stay relevant. Ann Coulter, media whore that she is, is more than willing to help as long as she gets some time in the spotlight, too. So the great left-right debate is really only a debate over how far to the right someone has to be to be included in the chosen few.

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