Bill Maher On Benghazibridge

Watch a video clip of Maher’s Hardball appearance posted online by CRUCIEFICTION:

The New Jersey traffic scandal that’s embroiled Gov. Chris Christie won’t likely hurt his chances if he decided to run for the Republican presidential nomination, said comedian Bill Maher.

The host of HBO’s Real Time With Bill Maher said Tuesday night that it might even have the opposite effect.

“He keeps saying, ‘I’m not a bully,’” Maher said during an appearance on MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews. “Sure he’s a bully, and that’s what they like about him is that he’s a bully. If he’s not a bully, who is he? He’s just Lamar Alexander.”

Maher said Republican voters love candidates like Sarah Palin who bully their opponents.

“Where there (is) the kind of voters who booed the gay soldier, who cheered when somebody said, you know, ‘What, should we just let people die?’ – those Republican primary voters are in every state, and in every state they’re going to like Chris Christie,” Maher said.

He compared the “Bridgegate” scandal to Miley Cyrus’ heavily publicized appearance during the MTV Video Music Awards in August.

“It looks like a scandal when she was twerking at the VMA awards, but it turned out that it just made her a bigger star,” Maher said.

He pointed to the wall-to-wall coverage Christie’s State of the State address received by news networks on Tuesday afternoon.

“He’s just a bigger star than ever right now,” Maher said.

The talk show host said even testimony by former Christie aides would not likely lead to the governor’s downfall.

“I don’t think they’ll ever find a smoking ham, you know, to attribute to Christ Christie directly,” Maher said.

Even so, Maher said the decision to create massive traffic headaches by closing lanes of the George Washington Bridge as political retribution was unprecedented.

“I never knew before of a scandal where an administration — maybe it wasn’t Christie himself – but the administration actually, purposefully inflicted pain upon its own citizens to make a point to other politicians,” Maher said.