Before I launch into the topic at hand, a few words of bemusement over the apparent eagerness of some folks to go off on one or two lines in a long article, rather than first sitting back and at least trying to view the entire piece in proper context. Hell, maybe even try to understand a position different from one’s own.

Case in point: Any article about HBO “Realtime” host Bill Maher.

It matters not to some people what Maher says, only that he said it. Before I began to write this piece, I stopped by my colleague Alex’s piece from Saturday night, titled Bill Maher Is Still Giving Them Fits: Liberal Host Defends Florida’s So-Called ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill, and read a few comments, after first reading the article and understanding Maher’s argument.

Here’s just one paraphrased comment from the comments section:

Warning: contains coarse language

Maher is an atheist leftist. He changes with the wind. And he’s an f**king liar. He’s just like any Dem politician.

Except Maher is not “just like any Dem politician.” Read back through the myriad of Maher pieces on RedState, and name ONE prominent Democrat who has come anywhere close to the positions Maher has taken, his consistency, and the number of times he has ticked off the left.

OK, the rest of the story…

On this week’s episode of “Realtime with Bill Maher,” as reported by The Wrap, the acerbic host tore into the political expediency of both the Democrat Party and the Republican Party, and their efforts to use Vladimir Putin’s brutal invasion to rack up cheap political points with their respective peanut galleries.

That said, lest anyone’s hair is already on fire, Maher also said “it’s worth asking” why Putin chose to launch the Ukrainian invasion during the Biden administration rather than on Trump’s watch.

We’ll get there in a minute. But first, Maher’s one-size-fits-all beatdown.

Don’t make World War III all about you. Watching the reactions to war in Ukraine these past few weeks, it’s become obvious that America in this age suffers acutely from a particular disease of the mind, which is: Everything proves what we already believed and everything goes back to the thing we already hate.

Lemme repeat that last line: “Everything proves what we already believed and everything goes back to the thing we already hate.” If you disagree with that observation, you are deceiving yourself. Period.

I could add multiple examples to Maher’s below observation. So could you.

All issues today: Pandemic, war, whatever, become a stress test for our reflexive partisanship. Can you take a vastly complex situation that is 100 percent not about your thing and somehow still make it about your thing? Our answer is, ‘Watch me.’

As in “Hold my beer,” to keyboard warriors as they spring into reflexive action.

As to the respective parties, Maher noted that Republicans “naturally” blamed the invasion of Ukraine on Joe Biden because they believe he is the “worst president ever.” Maher also joked that Democrats feel the Russian invasion of Ukraine happened because they believe Donald Trump was the “worst president ever.”

Stop the tape.

At least try to understand what Maher was saying. (Ahem. Bottom line: It is the stuff partisan politics, partisan politicians, and partisan political loyalists are made of. Always has been, always will be.)

And then, Maher’s question about the timing of Putin’s invasion:

If Trump is somehow connected to Putin’s unprovoked war against Ukraine, why didn’t he invade while Trump was in office? It’s at least worth asking that question if you’re not locked into one intransigent thought.

I got this one. Because Putin knew damn well it wouldn’t be wise to challenge Trump’s warnings. As did “Little Rocket Man,” the mad mullahs in Tehran, and ChiCom dictator Xi Jinping.

Yet, Biden? How many times did the most inept president in modern history warn Putin of sanctions in the months leading up to the invasion? How many times did clueless Secretary of State Antony Blinken make a complete fool out of himself, saying, time-after-time, that sanctions imposed “too soon” lose “leverage” with an adversary? How’d that all work out, my Democrat friends?

To be fair, Maher also referred to one of Trump’s recent answers when asked about the invasion of Ukraine and why Putin pulled the trigger, quoting the Donald: What went wrong was “a rigged election.”

While I understand Trump’s herculean attempt at extrapolation and dot-connecting, I also believe we have reached a point in this country where usually-rational people — on both sides of the political aisle — have twisted themselves into irrational knots. Nothing is ever their guy’s fault. Everything is always the other guy’s fault.

That, America, is a complete crock of crap.