Rep. Bachus: Maher's Comments "Border on Treason"

Rep. Spencer Bachus (R. - Vestavia Hills) says that recent comments by Bill Maher on his HBO TV show "border on treason." From the AP:

Republican Rep. Spencer Bachus takes issue with remarks on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher," first aired May 13, 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 in giving a comic twist to his commentary. "We've done picked all the low-lying Lynndie England fruit, and now we need warm bodies." ...

"I think it borders on treason," Bachus said. "In treason, one definition is to undermine the effort or national security of our country."

Bachus said he was appalled after watching a rerun of the May 13 show shortly after returning from a visit to Germany, in which he met with a paralyzed American soldier in the hospital. He has since written to Time Warner, HBO's parent company.

"I don't want him prosecuted," Bachus said. "I want him off the air."

Now, I can't stand Bill Maher. He's pompous, obnoxious, unfunny, and an all-around goob. It goes without saying that his former show, "Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher," was anything but.

But, no how, no way was his latest slap at the U.S. military treasonous, or even close. Unwarranted - yes. Mean-spirited - yes. Deserving of a swift kick in the noogies -yes. But, treasonous - no.

Treason has a very specific definition in the U.S. Constitution:

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.

As James Madison said in Federalist #43:

...as new-fangled and artificial treasons have been the great engines by which violent factions, the natural offspring of free government, have usually wreaked their alternate malignity on each other, the [constitutional] convention have, with great judgment, opposed a barrier to this peculiar danger, by inserting a constitutional definition of the crime, fixing the proof necessary for conviction of it, and restraining the Congress, even in punishing it, from extending the consequences of guilt beyond the person of its author.

There are lots of words and phrases that come to mind in describing Bill Maher, but invoking the word "treason" should be reserved for those circumstances when it truly applies. I like Rep. Bachus, but after 12 years in Congress, he should know better.