Politically Incorrect died in 2002, a lingering casualty of its own political incorrectness.
In the immediate aftermath of September 11, 2001, it was supposed to be unanimous that the terrorists were simply cowards
who hated American freedoms. But only six days after the attacks, Maher and the East Indian arch-conservative Dinesh D'Souza had this conversation on the show:
D'Souza: Bill, there's another piece of political correctness I want to mention. And,
although I think Bush has been doing a great job, one of the themes we hear constantly is that the people who did this are
cowards.
Maher: Not true.
D'Souza: Not true. Look at what they did. First of all, you have a whole bunch of guys who
are willing to give their life. None of them backed out. All of them slammed themselves into pieces of concrete.
Maher: Exactly.
D'Souza: These are warriors. And we have to realize that the principles of our way of life
are in conflict with people in the world. And so -- I mean, I'm all for understanding the sociological causes of this, but
we should not blame the victim. Americans shouldn't blame themselves because other people want to bomb them.
Maher: But also, we should -- we have been the cowards lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles
away. That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it's not cowardly. You're
right.
Sears and Federal Express immediately yanked their ads from the show, and 17 local ABC stations stopped
airing Politically Incorrect. Instead of making its usual profit for the network, Maher's show was suddenly costing
more than it earned. Maher made a semi-apology to people who had misconstrued his remarks, and the show limped along for several
months before the axe quietly fell.
