A few weeks ago, Bill Maher opined that President Obama had not yet appeared on his show, that he'd appeared on so many other shows. So he started a White House petition calling for Obama to appear on his show.
The deal is, if you get over 100,000 people to sign the petition, the White House will reply. Over 320,000 people signed Maher's petition. So the White House did
respond. Given that they were responding to a comedian, the response has a bit of humor in it.
Thanks to every one of you who signed the We the People petition asking the President to appear on Real Time with Bill Maher. With more than 320,000 signatures, Bill has once again demonstrated he knows how to inspire and motivate his viewers!
Plenty of us around here watch Real Time because we admire Bill's passion for spreading the science on climate change, asking tough questions about money in politics, and trying to burst "the bubble" where some of our politicians -- and too many of our nation's critical political debates -- exist.
The President's communications team thinks strategically about scheduling presidential interviews, and we have made a concerted effort over the last couple of years to broaden the array of venues where the President appears -- from talking to young people about health care on "Between Two Ferns" and a post-State of the Union conversation with YouTube stars, to a CNN Town Hall on gun violence and an interview with Mic.com on the Iran deal. Consistent with this approach, we'll keep in mind Bill's open invitation for a presidential appearance and give it the respectful consideration that Bill and his large audience deserve.
Thanks again for raising your voices (we know Bill always raises his). We hope you'll continue to use the platform to call on the Administration to address the policies and priorities you care about.
-- The We the People Team
P.S. Before we forget, happy belated 60th birthday, Bill! You haven't lost a step, and the gray hair makes you look, dare we say it, presidential. We hope our card didn't get lost in the mail.
Me, I'd love to see Bill talk to Obama about some of his favorite issues. Maybe he'll even light up and offer him a joint, like he did on his February 12th show guests.
Rob Kall is an award winning journalist, inventor, software architect,
connector and visionary. His work and his writing have been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC, the HuffingtonPost, Success, Discover and other media.
Check out his platform at RobKall.com
He is the author of The Bottom-up Revolution; Mastering the Emerging World of Connectivity
He's given talks and workshops to Fortune
500 execs and national medical and psychological organizations, and pioneered
first-of-their-kind conferences in Positive Psychology, Brain Science and
Story. He hosts some of the world's smartest, most interesting and powerful
people on his Bottom Up Radio Show,
and founded and publishes one of the top Google- ranked progressive news and
opinion sites, OpEdNews.com
more detailed bio:
Rob Kall has spent his adult life as an awakener and empowerer-- first in the field of biofeedback, inventing products, developing software and a music recording label, MuPsych, within the company he founded in 1978-- Futurehealth, and founding, organizing and running 3 conferences: Winter Brain, on Neurofeedback and consciousness, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology (a pioneer in the field of Positive Psychology, first presenting workshops on it in 1985) and Storycon Summit Meeting on the Art Science and Application of Story-- each the first of their kind. Then, when he found the process of raising people's consciousness and empowering them to take more control of their lives one person at a time was too slow, he founded Opednews.com-- which has been the top search result on Google for the terms liberal news and progressive opinion for several years. Rob began his Bottom-up Radio show, broadcast on WNJC 1360 AM to Metro Philly, also available on iTunes, covering the transition of our culture, business and world from predominantly Top-down (hierarchical, centralized, authoritarian, patriarchal, big) to bottom-up (egalitarian, local, interdependent, grassroots, archetypal feminine and small.) Recent long-term projects include a book, Bottom-up-- The Connection Revolution, (more...)
