What has Meet the Press come to?

If I were a serious journalist and was asked to be on a serious news panel with a foul-mouthed comedian like Bill Maher, I would just refuse.  I mean, what has Meet the Press come to?  Bill Maher claimed this morning that Brazil had gotten complete off oil in the last 30 years and why couldn't the USA do the same?  Not only is Maher wrong, he's so gloriously wrong in a way only a comedian being taken seriously can be:

Brazil is the eighth largest consumer of oil in the world burning 2.372 million barrels a day. That places them ahead of Canada, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Mexico, France, Great Britain, Italy, and Spain.

Furthermore, according to the CIA, Brazil is the thirteenth largest producer of oil in the world putting them ahead of Iraq, Kuwait, Algeria, Nigeria, Angola, Libya, and Great Britain.

Brazil's government forces its people to use an ethanol mixture with gasoline just as America does, but the majority of that mixture is gas.