Bill Maher demonstrates

How to make a nation of idiots.  Here he is, putting the best spin on the Bergdahl story.  I'm willing to wait to opine on that story until we know more.  But I can tell there's something that smells in all this.  But America?  Not worth caring about.  Why?  Enter Bill Maher.  Like Stewart, Colbert, and other post-modern pundits, their job is to basically attack the Right, and then say 'nothing to see folks, get back to your apps, porn, sex, whatever...'  

It works.  Apathy is the latest American pastime.  Note how the bulk of his little spiel isn't dealing with Obama or the White House at all.  It's actually mocking and attacking Conservatives.  At the end, despite the headline, he gets around to saying that Obama probably did act illegally.  Think on that.  Ask Nixon what used to happen when people got around to saying the president probably did do something illegally.  But that was then.  This is now.  

He waves it aside as an almost footnote to a screed aimed mostly at the two foundations of comedic punditry: attack Conservatives/who cares.  That's one way that the media has of dodging the bias label.  Time and again advocates of the Left will say 'Hey!  We talk about these issues!'  Yeah, like this.  Like the Clinton Perjury Scandal.  

Remember that?  To this day, advocates in the media will insist the media tore into Clinton.  Really?  Sure, they covered the scandal in four parts:

1. Shock that Clinton lied under oath to thwart a sexual harassment investigation,and the likely ramifications.
2. The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, in which the media turned it on the Republicans and tired to scientifically prove that an affair in the Oval Office was impossible.
3. The Dress, in which the press was livid at the realization that they had been played like fools by the Clinton Machine.
4. Reality, in which the press realized the man they had helped elect and reelect was in danger, and went into battle mode, attacking once again the Republicans, and convincing America that nobody believed in silly things like character, truth, morals, honesty under oath as long as the president gave us what we wanted.

Yep, they covered Clinton alright.  Just like they're covering Bergdahl now.  Not as clumsily and lamely as Maher to be sure, but the proportions, and the tactics, are about the same.