Richard Tillman on Real Time with Bill Maher September 30, 2010

Richard Tillman on Real Time with Bill Maher

By Guest Contributor
September 30, 2010

I know I’m late to post this, but it’s too good not to share. Pat Tillman‘s brother Richard Tillman appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher last week to talk about the documentary The Tillman Story. The movie tells how the military manipulated Pat’s death and used it as war propaganda.

You rarely hear about Pat’s atheism in the mainstream media, but Pat never shied away from it. Richard shares those beliefs and he held nothing back during his interview with Maher.

The good part really begins at the 5:30 mark.

Money quote:

I don’t go into your church and say this is bullshit, so don’t come to my brother’s service and tell me that he’s with god.

(via onegoodmove — Thanks to Joe for the link!)

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  • Michelle

    Richard Tillman is my god now, or should I say Fuckin’ Richard Tillman.

  • That actually isn’t the money quote, the money quote immediately precedes that, but I won’t spoil it. Just watch the clip. Pure poetry.

  • I think it would have been more powerful if he hadn’t used the word “fuck” at the funeral. Using language like that just gives the believers in the audience a easy excuse to ignore his message.

    Besides, only John Cleese can get away with saying “fuck” at a funeral.

  • i don’t have any problem with the use of the word “fuck.” we’re talking about war here, is the word “fuck” so offensive you can overlook wanton death and destruction as if those were merely garden party games?

    i hate to say it, but this is why if you’re an atheist, you pretty much have to be progressive. or leftist. whatever. you get in bed with even “good” fiscal conservatives and this is what they do to your fucking dead corpse. talk about disrespect. i feel sorry for Tillman’s family. like i feel sorry for the Afghan families who had their wedding parties bombed and their daughters sold into slavery by taxpayer funded mercs. it’s just a mess. obama, who is technically a conservative, should be ashamed to be allowing it to continue.

  • Claudia

    From what I’ve read of the Tillmans, the word “fuck” is pretty much as integral to them as is their nonbelief. In any event I think it’s probably wise to be forgiving of the words of a man at his brothers funeral.

    It took balls to stand up in front of all those powerful people and tell them the harsh truth. My fucking hat’s off to you, Richard.

  • A Portlander

    Beyond his awesome show of family solidarity in the face of a massive coordinated snow job, this guy interviews really well. Hope he catches the bug for high-profile media atheism, I wouldn’t mind being represented in the public sphere by somebody like that.

  • TXatheist

    I hope you will see the movie, The Tillman Story.

  • Richard Tillman needs his own talk show. His camera presence is solid and he thinks on his feet. I’d watch.

  • muggle

    “Since I’m on national televeision, I’ll do the same…” lol, that was the money quote for me.

    I’m also glad he mentioned the others who this has happened to also. A local woman here was shot in the back of the head and the military’s ruling it suicide. How is anyone supposed to believe that horseshit? A suicide awkwardly manuveurs the gun to the back of the head before shooting themselves. Even if it is physically possible — which I highly doubt — it’s not very fucking probable.

    In any case, I’m glad the Tillman family is speaking out. And, yes, I have got to see the movie and I’ll definitely agree that he has stage presence and I hope he uses that and continues to speak out.

    Iason, are you kidding me? Frankly, it came across as more genuine for the emotional expression of the eff word. It would have sounded fake and having an agenda if he had been able to censor that out of there.

  • DreamDevil

    A bit of a nitpick at the friendly fire stats. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure the percentage of FF has gone up not due to more FF but rather due to soldiers having a significantly lower chance of being killed by the enemy today compared to WW2.

    Remember: Lies, damn lies and statistics.

  • Liz

    I like that he calls his mom a bad-ass and his dad a bad-ass and his brother a fuckin’ bad-ass. A family full of bad-ass people.

    I can only hope my son talks about me like that when he grows up.

  • VXbinaca

    Actually if you compare the number of soldiers in WWII, Vietnam and Iraq 1, FF has gone down.

    21 percent of the WWII force is a lot of guys. Vietnam had less soldiers involved and the Gulf War was a minor outting in terms of numbers of boots on the ground.

    In the Gulf War, our IFF transponders weren’t linked up with the British, so theres many instances of us popping each others turrets off or firing on a squad here and there.

    So FF has gone down when you look at numbers instead of percentages. Especially since maybe 200 coalition soldiers died in the Gulf War, fifty percent of the deaths warrants looking at the training and tactics but in terms of numbers isn’t staggering. You should see training deaths every year in the US in just the Army alone.

    And Richard Tillman is fuckin’ awesome.

  • Alex

    Gee, I didn’t think he interviewed all that well. It seemed like Bill had to lead him to water over and over and he still barely took a sip. He was witty a few times despite talking about an obviously emotional subject. But it does not change the gravity of the Pat Tillman story at all. As usual, when a story is unlikely to lead to an approval rating bump for a politician, they are not all that interested in investigating. Who wants to be seen convicting patriotic soldiers for killing an uppity atheist from an uppity atheist family with the nerve to be successful and unapologetic?

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