For those who wish to witness how difficult it must be to defend this administration and the GOP these days, try to catch a repeat showing of Bill Maher's weekly show on HBO. David Frum is a featured guest and for most of the program you get to watch him trip over his words, stammer, stutter and backpedal as he tries to come up with coherent, much less convincing, verbiage to explain (away) past and present GW and GOP actions. To a point, you eventually pity him as he sits there, with bits of sweat building on his brow, eyes focused down, looking at no one as he fuddles around, desperately trying to sound profound. Mind you, he's not getting attacked from all sides (his other guests: a Dixie Chick, who spends most of her time wiping her hair from her eyes, and an overly-polite Wes Clark). In fact, Maher often looks to help him out with answers, undoubtedly realizing Frum is struggling, much.

Frum is a painful train wreck to observe. What becomes obvious is these guys hold beliefs that most often are not challenged -- and when they are, exposed for the nonsense and hypocritical BS that they are, we see a truly pathetic display of verbal gymnastics. Honestly, I don't know why these guys show up -- they should stick to the softballs thrown to them on FOX.

That said, Maher himself is disconcertingly heading down the road Dennis Miller took, i.e. seeming to switch sides and defend Bush for reasons that Maher does not make clear. I say this because with most of Maher's positions, he typically offers up very convincing bullet points as to how he arrived at his opinions. However, when it comes to some of these latest concessions to GW, much of this sound logic is missing and it begins to look like he's simply throwing curveballs to spice up the show and irk his audience. It's OK to switch sides, but please stay consistent with how you got there.

As for Dennis Miller, he went from a very good show on HBO, to a rightwing-ish nobody on CNBC, last seen huckstering for NetZero in a 100%-without-humor commercial. Maher take note.