Bill Maher's show heats up: Hersh, Scarborough and Frank

By Stone Martindale Mar 3, 2007, 17:50 GMT

HBO's Bill Maher's show last night was a no miss, especially as Massachusett's congressman Barney Frank and MSNBC's host Joe Scarborough went a bit head to head over who had the floor to speak.

We wouldn't be surprised if Scarborough's threat to TIVO and actually count talk time minutes between himself and Frank will be dissected on his own talk show, as they sniped at each other while making their points as a bemused writer, John Ridley, looked on and carefully timed his interjections.

Maher had via remote feed the Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter, Seymour Hersh, who had enlightening findings regarding the administration's hell bent fixation on Iran and its nuclear capabilities. 

Hersh mentioned to "Real Time" that John Negroponte’s decision to resign as National Intelligence Director was made in part because of the Bush administration’s covert actions including the indirect funding of radical Sunni groups - some with ties to al Qaeda - to counter Shiite groups backed by Iran.

Hersh also discussed with Bill that the Pentagon has established a special planning group to plan a bombing attack on Iran and U.S. military and special-operations teams have already crossed the border into Iran in pursuit of Iranian operatives.

According to Hersh, the Bush administration, with Saudi Arabia, is secretly funding radical Sunni groups - some with ties to al Qaeda - to counter Shiite groups backed by Iran. Stunning Billl Maher and his panel, Hersh stated this is being done without any Congressional authority or oversight.

Maher's panel discussion moved to the attempted assassination of Vice President Cheney last week, and Maher asked his panel why it was necessary for the Huffington Post to remove comments by readers concerning their disappointment that he didn't fall victim to a bomb blast.

While not condoning the real possibility of Cheney's planned demise, Maher did point out he felt that many more service men and women would live as a result of the VP not surviving a bomb blast.