However one labels his political bias, Maher may host a poltical show but he's not a journalist. He's an "entertainer" with a Limbaugh-class ego attached to a somewhat better intellect and broader education. This is far from the first time he has derailed a pertinent question to an interesting guest in favor of his adolescent self-absorbtion with pot jokes, sexual innuendo, and how having a Catholic education damaged him forever.
Napolitano's awkward performance gave me the impression she was over-prepped for the "comedic" repartée that sometimes occurs on Maher's show. When he bowed, scraped and actually let her finish entire sentences without interrupting, both were knocked off their rhythms. (At least either she or her staff actually did a little homework before she went on the show.)
Overall I'm quite disappointed in Napolitano so far (as, probably, are the TSOs I chatted with last February, who seemed to anticipate a quick end to the War on Liquids as eagerly as I). I would have liked to hear a serious answer to Maher's poorly-set shoe "question," which he redirected to joke about bras and she witlessly followed. The one high point was her recognition that real security is an endeavor shared by all using the systems, without mention of "See something, say something." It's worth remembering that her first professional encounters with terrorism were both domestic: the Kingman connections to the Oklahoma CIty bombing, and the still-unsolved fatal Arizona Amtrak derailment the following year.
BTW, TK (and congrats on the new arrival!), having watched her public speaking style throughout her Arizona career, from US att'y to AG to governor, I doubt she was either overtired or drunk. Being born in NY and degree'd in California/Back East is not a fast-track position in Arizona politics. Non-native politicians, especially female ones who need be wary of being depicted as "shrill," tend to deaden and Westernize their speech to barely this side of John Wayne. Silly, but many of the electorate fall for it.