Channel Surfing: 'CrazyStupidPolitics: Bill Maher Live From Silicon Valley' Bill Maher inaugurated Yahoo's new live comedy Web channel on Thursday night with an hour's worth of his usual scathing political material aimed at the Republican presidential candidates, but what he did at the end of the show may have stung more than any of the jokes: He announced that he was donating $1 million to the super PAC supporting President Obama and urged well-off Democrats to cough up serious money as well. The stunt - apparently serious, though he preceded it with assorted fake announcements, including a marriage proposal and a religious conversion - was a distinct shift from merely bashing Newt Gingich, Mitt Romney and the rest to specific advocacy, with Mr. Maher telling the audience in the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts and on the Internet that though parting with the money hurt, it didn't hurt as much as living under a Republican administration would. Mr. Maher began his show by acknowledging the format, one that a number of comics are exploring as an alternative to television. If you like the jokes, he told the audience, "Don't laugh; just yell LoL; turn your face sideways." Before he plunged into politics, he name-checked the hottest topic of the moment, the Knicks star Jeremy Lin. But then it was on to Mr. Gingrich, Mr. Romney, Rick Santorum and other Republicans, with an occasional detour to bash Mormonism and Roman Catholicism and even tweak the Democrats. Watching that Republicans" fitful, sometimes comical search for leaders over the last few years, he said, has been illuminating. "I've come away with a revelation: There is no bottom," Mr. Maher said. I thought Dan Quayle was the bottom 20 years ago. One candidate particularly incurred his ire. "Newt Gingrich: a man with the moral compass of an opportunistic infection," he said. If this guy was any slimier, you could kill him with a box of salt. Watching a live comedy performance over the Internet, of course, is nothing like being in the auditorium; laughter is contagious. But Mr. Maher heated up as he went along, and his brand of humor - he expects you to be up on current events and to know your history as well - may be well suited to this type of viewing; keeping up with him is really an individual challenge. Of course, he is so caustic and one-sided that Yahoo may have started its new venture by alienating half of its potential viewers. Because Republicans like to laugh too.