Bill Maher And Stephen Colbert Had A Deliciously Passive-Aggressive Chat About Faith And Politics

Since taking the reins at The Late Show, Stephen Colbert hasn’t been afraid to inject a little intellectual rigour into a medium traditionally dominated by puff-piece interviews, silly games and enjoyable but mindless fodder of the kind that Jimmy Fallon does so well. His first few weeks in the chair David Letterman vacated earlier this year featured heavyweights like Ban Ki-Moon, Bernie Sanders and Elon Musk, and since then he’s sat down with former President Bill Clinton and Malala Yousafvai.

Last night Colbert invited comedian, political commentator and fellow TV host Bill Maher on for a chat, and what transpired was an argumentative, passionate and at times tense interview — something almost unheard of in late-night-variety-show land.

Maher is both beloved and reviled for his unapologetic brand of atheism and liberalism, his sweeping generalisations of religion in general and the Muslim faith in particular, and his outright nastiness towards people he disagrees with. Muslim academics like Reza Aslan have criticised Maher for making “facile arguments” and drawing erroneous links between things like female genital mutilation and Islam, while progressives like Ben Affleck have called Maher’s attacks on Islam “gross and racist”. Maher is almost the left-wing version of the conservative blowhard Stephen Colbert became so famous for lampooning.

The simple fact Ben Affleck pointed out to Bill Maher & Sam Harris that is almost never included in US discourse pic.twitter.com/smgaw8Qmcy

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) October 5, 2014

Colbert himself, by contrast, is a far more nuanced and diplomatic figure. Where Maher denounces to provoke argument, Colbert questions to provoke discussion. Where Maher approaches debates as a battle to be won, Colbert uses humour and openness to disarm. Last night those two very different styles clashed, and it was fascinating to watch.

Maher certainly spent a great deal of time and effort trying to rile Colbert up. At one point Maher dismissed Colbert’s Catholic faith as “intellectually embarrassing myths from the Bronze Age” confected by “men who didn’t know what a germ or an atom was, or where the sun went at night”. Colbert, through a grin that seemed slightly forced, jokingly responded that his religion “teaches [him] humility in the face of this kind of attack,” before joyfully riffing that he “could eat a big bowl” of the kind of abuse Maher was serving up.

Colbert rarely uses his charm to antagonise, but when he does it works to devastating effect — it was Colbert who succeeded in visibly getting under Maher’s skin, rather than the other way around. Wearing a delightful shit-eating grin, Colbert needled Maher mercilessly, with the latter finally conceding that “this guy gets to my shit”. It was a masterclass in the limitations of using shouting and long-winded lectures as tools of argument, and in the effectiveness of simply giving your opponent enough rope. Both Colbert and Maher use laughter with knives as their weapon of choice, but Colbert is far better at it.