Bill Maher . That is if you take anything Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AK) says seriously. Bachus is up in arms over a Maher sketch on his HBO show Real Time in which Maher points out the Army missed its recruiting goal by 42 percent in April.

"More people joined the Michael Jackson fan club," Maher said. "We've done picked all the low-lying Lynndie England fruit, and now we need warm bodies." See, Senator Bachus, that's something called "comedy."

Bachus clearly doesn't see the humor:

"To characterize the men and women currently serving and risking their lives in Afghanistan and Iraq as low lying fruit is reprehensible," said Congressman Bachus (conveniently forgetting that Maher was a) a comedian and b) the army has been to recruit ineligible Americans into the service because the all-volunteer is splitting the seems because of Iraq.

The Congressman continues:

"I think it borders on treason. In treason, one definition is to undermine the effort or national security of our country. I don't want (Maher) prosecuted. I want him off the air."

Did Maher undermine the "effort or national security of our country? I don't recall Bill Maher taking the country to war on false pretenses. Maybe Rep. Bachus needs to focus some of obviously pent up anger in the direction of the White House. Whatever you think of that, clearly Maher has not heeded the call of the administration for citizens to censor what they say and do.

Maher responds on Ariana Huffington's "The Blog" in typical scathing fashion:

First, I had never heard of Congressman Bachus before this. Now lots of people have heard of him. You're welcome, Congressman, glad I could help get your Q rating up.

By the way, are we sure he's really a Congressman? Maybe he's just a guy with a fax machine. You know how fact checking goes these days.

I could go on and on, but this is too ridiculous, so I'll just say this: I'm not a congressman, I'm a comedian. There's nothing I can really do to help or hurt our troops (although anyone who's watched my shows or read my books in the last twelve years knows I'm a pretty ardent supporter of the military).

But a congressman, there's someone who can actually DO SOMETHING to help our troops. In fact, a case could be made that it's a lot more treasonous for someone in his position to be wasting his time yelling at a comedian. Shouldn't he be training his outrage at such problems as troops not having enough armor? Wouldn't that ACTUALLY support our troops more? And citizens of this country who claim to support our troops should write this man and tell him GET BACK TO WORK! DO SOMETHING THAT ACTUALLY COULD MAKE A DIFFERENCE TO SOLDIERS IN IRAQ!

And by the way, these "comments" were part of a longer, scripted comedy piece in the modest proposal tradition. I can see why administration supporters would want to deflect attention away from the gist of the piece, which was this: now that we can't meet our recruiting goals, maybe it's the people who were so gung ho for this war to begin with who should step up and go fight it. But of course it's always easier to distract people.

Finally, I would direct the Congressman to chapter 3 of my book "When You Ride Alone, You Ride with bin Laden." The accompanying poster shows a soldier, a cop, a fireman, and a teacher, and says, "We Say They're Our Heroes...But We Pay Them Like Chumps."

Maybe that's something else he could look into when he gets done with me.