We all knew Katie Porter was brilliant and fearless from her informed, pointed questions to Trump cabinet members like the hapless Ben Carson of REO, Oreo infamy.
But she is also fearless and hilarious.
I “hate watch” Bill Maher. I realize that despite his protestations, he has subcutaneous racism and sexism just beneath the surface. But he can be funny, sometimes has worthwhile guests and his “New Rules” can also be funny. (Not tonight, though.) Of course, this goes along with cringeworthy guests like Andrew Sullivan and tonight’s Bret Easton Ellis, and his obsession with the “woke” left, which he attacks through cherry picking tweets and extreme and unrepresentative tales of “political correctness.”
Tonight, Rep. Katie Porter was on and she “killed” every time she spoke, making her points with clarity and humor. When they got to a discussion of Biden's flip flop on the Hyde Amendment. Maher said he's pro-choice, but has mixed feelings because his mother was advised, after a difficult first birth, not to have another child. She did anyway, and it was little Bill. So Maher made the faux-existential argument: What if she'd chosen not to have him and he was never here? This argument always intrigues me -- if that happened, how would you know you were never here? Could you miss yourself? Would others miss you? If your non-existent self fell in a forest, would it really have happened?
Skipping these questions, Porter said, “Well, Bill, your mother made a choice, and we all are living with the consequences of it.”
The crowd went nuts. Maher was speechless. Charles Blow put his head on his desk in an attempt quell uncontrollable laughter.
Katie Porter has a bright future. I hope she stays in politics rather than going on the road with Sarah Silverman and Michelle Wolf