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Real Time with Bill Maher (from safesearching.com/billmaher)
HBO
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT
March
19, 2004
"REAL
TIME WITH BILL MAHER"
BILL MAHER
[COLD OPEN MOCK "BUSH-CHENEY '04" CAMPAIGN AD:]
VOICE OF GEORGE W. BUSH: I'm George W. Bush and I approve this message.
AD VOICEOVER: Senator Kerry claims that world leaders want him to be president. But listen to what these presidents and prime ministers have to say about President Bush:
ALEKSANDER KWASNIEWSKI, Poland: "Weapons-shmeapons, he's good people." [laughter]
PERVEZ MUSHARRAF, Pakistan: "Bush is nuke-tastic! You gonna buy those fuel rods or just look at them?" [laughter]
VICENTE FOX, Mexico: "He takes a long nap every afternoon. What's not to love?" [laughter]
JEAN-BERTRAND ARISTIDE: "I couldn't have been overthrown by a nicer guy." [laughter]
KING ABDULLAH BIN AL-HUSSEIN, Jordan: "He thinks I'm Jerry Mathers from 'Leave It to Beaver." [laughter]
TONY BLAIR, Great Britain: "Arf! Arf! Rrrrufff!" [laughter] [applause]
[OPENING CREDITS]
[applause, cheers, standing ovation]
BILL MAHER: Thank you very much. Oh, please, you're too kind. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. Please, please. I know it's not for me. You're excited. It's the one-year anniversary of the war! [laughter] That's got people – it is the one-year anniversary. President Bush and Dick Cheney shared a quiet dinner to celebrate, and then they paged through their scrapbook of made-up intelligence. [laughter] It was very romantic. [applause]
Now, in honor of the one-year anniversary in Iraq, Colin Powell paid a surprise visit to our troops there, and I think he's getting a little cocky. He used one of Saddam's old palaces to tape an episode of "Cribs." [laughter] [applause] And at the end, "Get the fuck outta here!" Remember? [laughter]
Now, maybe the President's anniversary present is going to be we're going to get Ayman al-Zawahri. As you know, he is surrounded, apparently, on the Pakistani border. That is Al Qaeda's number-two guy. He is tied to the first World Trade Center bombing, to 9/11, to the attack on the Cole. But what really got us angry about this guy is he said, "Fuck!" at the Golden Globes. [laughter] [applause] So he is outta there.
But the President is having a little trouble keeping the coalition together. Spain seems to be opting out. The President of Poland, one of our key allies, said this week that he was –[laughter]—it's true – he said – he said, quote, "We were taken for a ride on the weapons of mass destruction." Wow. Now I know Bush and Powell and Cheney, they're all out there trying to make the case for war. But you know what? When the Polish figure out the gag, it'sÉ[laughter] [applause]
This President of Poland, he said he has got half a mind to take Poland's 1,500 soldiers out of Iraq just as soon as they finish that lightbulb project. [laughter] [applause] We kid the Polish people.
Well, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has refused – now, did you hear this – to recuse himself from the case involving Dick Cheney, simply because he went duck hunting with Dick Cheney. He said – this is the quote – he said, "If it is reasonable to think a Supreme Court Justice can be bought so cheap, then this nation is in deeper trouble than I thought. And besides, I already cashed the check." [laughter] [applause]
On the other side of the aisle, John Kerry, Democratic candidate, he is taking some—[applause]—easy, let's stay bipartisan [laughter]—he is taking some time off at his home in Idaho from the campaign. The newspaper said he was, quote, "Snowboarding down Mount Baldy." Boy, you'd think the Secret Service could come up with a better code name for oral sex, couldn't you? [laughter] [applause] "Mount Baldy? [laughter]
Kmart says that sales – sales of Martha Stewart products have been unaffected by her conviction. Wow! Although they are having trouble moving the Robert Blake Pasta Maker, they will admit. [laughter]
Martha Stewart actually is holding up pretty well, they say, although Courtney Love—[audience reacts]—did you see that? She got arrested in New York for throwing a mic stand at a guy. Authorities say if her behavior gets any more reckless, they may have to bring in Bobby Brown to slap the shit out of her. [laughter] [applause]
And finally, minorities, you'll be happy to hear this: the census report is back. They say by the year 2050, whites in this country will be a minority. [applause] And yet, somehow, they say all the black parts on "Saturday Night Live" will still be played by one guy. [laughter] [applause]
All right, you're a good group. We've got a good show. We've got David Frum, Eddie Izzard, Gore Vidal is here. And I'll be talking to Russell Simmons about voting.
But first up tonight is the man who re-energized the Democratic Party. From Burlington, Vermont, please welcome the former governor of that state, Howard Dean! [applause] [cheers]
Wow! You hear that ovation, governor? That's got to make you feel good.
HOWARD DEAN [via satellite]: I should have come on the show before the Iowa Primary. [laughter]
MAHER: Right. I mean, that's got to make you feel good. But on the other hand, where were they when they needed you, huh?
DEAN: That's right. If I had a vote for everybody who came up and congratulated me in the airport, I'd be the nominee, not John Kerry.
MAHER: Right. [laughter] You know, it does seem to me that every election, every election cycle, there is one candidate who makes me and a lot of people in this country go, you know what, there's a guy who's keeping it real. And that guy never wins, whether it's John McCain, whether it's John Anderson. You remember Paul Tsongas from your neck of the woods. People say they want straight talk, but that's not really straight talk itself, is it?
DEAN: You know something? I saw a survey – I'm not making this up – that showed characteristics that people want in presidents. And, you know, they have to be tall, good looking and all that stuff. One other thing is – one of the things on this list, in third place, is they cannot be straightforward. They've got to lie a little in order for the people to think they ought to be a good president. It's pretty appalling, isn't it?
MAHER: So was that your big mistake? You didn't lie enough?
DEAN: No, I'm going to take lying lessons, and this administration I know I can learn that from. [laughter] [applause] [cheers] This is a great audience, Bill! This is a great show! [laughter] Maybe I'll put cable in my house after this. [laughter]
MAHER: But you must feel a little like Moses, because, you know, Moses, he led the people to the Promised Land, but he never saw it himself. [laughter] And maybe that's not a bad thing. I mean, it's 3,000 years later, Moses is still very well spoken of. [laughter]
All right, I want to ask you a little bit about what's going on with terrorism, because you famously said when we got Saddam Hussein it did not make us any safer. Now we look like we're closing in on al-Zawahri, which means, I think, we're probably close to Bin Laden. If we get to one or both of them, would you say the same thing? Not safer?
DEAN: No, that I do think will help. Osama bin Laden and al-Zawahri really are terrorists. Saddam Hussein was a horrible person, but he had nothing to do with Osama bin Laden. It's one of the great falsehoods this administration has spread—[applause]—along with the nuclear weapons are around and weapons of mass destruction are right nearby, and we're buying uranium from Iraq and all that kind of stuff.
But, you know, our real enemy is Osama, and that's where we should have been concentrating our money and our troops in the first place. And if we had, maybe we wouldn't have lost 200 Spaniards' lives last week. [applause]
MAHER: I know you said that, but doesn't the beef that the Islamists have with Spain go way back before George Bush? I mean, they were mad at them from 1492 when they got kicked out of Grenada.
DEAN: Yeah, but you know, who's to blame for that? They got into Grenada, too. They weren't born there. So, you know, if you start going back to 1492, about who conquered who, we can get in a lot of trouble in this world. I think we ought to just see where we are today and try to do the right thing by each other.
And, you know, you can't blame George Bush for losing 200 lives in Spain, because the terrorists did that. But you can blame George Bush for telling that we needed to go to Iraq to save our own country, when it just plainly wasn't true. And we should have been spending that money trying to get Osama bin Laden. [applause]
MAHER: Okay, but it is the one-year anniversary here, and progress has been made in Iraq. Let me ask you this: if – I mean, history – you're a student of history – history looks in the long range. Okay, say this experiment, this big experiment of turning Iraq into a democracy, say it works, and in 10, 15, 20, 50 years, Iraq is a democracy; it has influenced other countries in the region to be democracies, and because of that, we truly are safer. And it has doused the flames of terrorism. Won't all the lies that brought us into the war will just be forgotten, and George Bush might even be seen as a visionary?
DEAN: That is true, Bill, but it doesn't make it right. I think, you know, there was another president in my lifetime who decided that the ends always justified the means, and told a lot of lies. His name was Richard Nixon. I don't – you know, it is true, if you – if the neo-conservative theory about what this war is supposed to bring to the Middle East is a success – succeeds, which I think is unlikely – but if it does, George Bush will go down in history as a visionary. The problem is, the means doesn't justify the ends, and if you start to believe that in a democracy, you start to unwind the democracy, which is exactly what George Bush did.
We have a Supreme Court that's results-oriented, not law-oriented. We have the guy who makes voting machines saying he's going to do everything he can to get George Bush elected. I think our democracy is in a lot of trouble, and it's because this president believes the means is justified by the ends. And I think you cannot go down that road. [applause]
MAHER: Okay, speaking of democracy, you had an organization called DFA, which was "Dean For America." Now I understand it's called "Democracy For America," that's what it stands for. Reminds me of "KFC." [laughter] Now it's "Kitchen Fresh Chicken." [laughter]
DEAN: [laughs]
MAHER: But seriously, I mean, you have a database from when you ran for president which has to be the most coveted list in America. It's like the "letters of transit" in "Casablanca." What are you doing with that database now?
DEAN: We've got a great grassroots organization, and we're going to continue to keep that community together. A lot of the politicians in Washington are envious of our database because they want to raise money off it. But you can't raise money if you just think the Internet is a tool. If you don't have a message, if you don't have anything to say, then people aren't going to send you money on the Internet.
What you have to understand is that the Internet is really a community. It's a community of people who don't happen to share the same geographic location. And what we built was a community in this country who really wanted some politicians who would tell the truth.
Even though the press said, oh, I was very left-wing and all that kind of stuff, the truth is I actually consider myself a centrist. It's just that I go about being a centrist a little differently than most folks because I'm not afraid to say what I think. And there's a lot of people in this country who are both conservative, liberal, Republican and Democrat and mostly independent, who just want somebody to tell them what they think is the truth, instead of being on every side of the issue.
And so what we're going to do with this community is to get people like members of your audience – and there's a scary thought – to run for office. [laughter] Really! [applause] We want people in your audience tonight to go out and start to decide to run for the school board. Because not only is that going to change America, I think, in a very positive way, but it's also going to underline that if we want democracy to work, we can't sit back and let somebody else make it work. Because Enron and Halliburton and Dick Cheney have shown us exactly how democracy works when we don't get involved.
We want ordinary Americans to use our method of raising money so they don't have to beg the special interests to finance their campaigns, and run for school boards, run for county commissioner, run for state representative just the way Ralph Reed did with the Christian Coalition, except this time we're going to do it from the "sanity" side instead of the extremist side.
MAHER: All right, but you're only 55 years old, okay. And as they say, 60 is the new 40. I believe it. [laughter] So – and I think the way you got out of the race, just like the way Al Gore got out in 2000, earned a lot of high marks from people. People thought you did it gracefully. You got a lot of good will from that. I think people can relate to you. We've all had an ice cream cone and dropped it on the sidewalk.
DEAN: [laughs] Wasn't Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream.
MAHER: Couldn't you – I mean, I'm saying, you know, you're only 55. You could run in two, three, four more election cycles. I mean, is that in your thought, that you would come back and say, "Look, I got a little excited the first time, but you knew—[laughter]—but I was a good candidate." And you certainly could do that. No?
DEAN: The first thing on my list is sending George Bush back to Crawford, Texas, permanently, because we can't afford another four years. [applause] [cheers]
MAHER: All right.
DEAN: And I would be – I would be delighted – we cannot afford presidents who run half-trillion-dollar deficits. You know, we haven't had a Republican president balance the budget in this country in 34 years. You can't trust Republicans with your money, Bill, anymore. [laughter]
MAHER: All right. Thank you.
DEAN: [overlapping] And so the first thing we ought to do is—
MAHER: [overlapping] Howard Dean, the Democratic who made the part turn and cough! [applause] [cheers] Thank you, Howard.
All right, it's time to meet tonight's panel, folks. [applause] All right, first up, he's the author of An End to Evil and a former speechwriter for President Bush, Mr. David Frum is right over here. [applause]
He is the Emmy Award-winning and Tony-nominated cross-Atlantic comedian, Mr. Eddie Izzard. [applause] [cheers]
And a living legend and literary lion, his latest book is InventingÉ--oh, I'm sorry, I didn't hold up your book, boys – Inventing A Nation. Mr. Gore Vidal is right over here. [applause] [cheers]
Thank you so much for being here. All right, so it's the year anniversary of the war in Iraq. And, you know, all the network anchors sent their guys back there, and they're interviewing the Iraqi people. I notice when they talk to the Iraqi people, they all say about the same thing. They say, for one, "Thank you." They do thank Americans for overthrowing Saddam. There's no doubt about it. They're glad about that.
Two, they say, "Don't go! If you go now, we're really in trouble." So they say – they say, "Thank you. Don't go. Oh, and one other thingÉFUCK YOU!" [laughter] [applause]
So how do we, as Americans, make sense of that?
DAVID FRUM: People are complicated. [laughter] And our European allies have been saying all three of those things to us for the past 50 years. And that's why World War II was nonetheless right, because they do have complicated emotions. Gratitude is a hard thing for human beings to bear.
There are a couple of other things you could have added to that list. One is, after many, many years, the Libyans have come back – have come to law, and are going to surrender their weapons of mass destruction. The Iranians are now visibly nervous, entering into negotiations with the Europeans to surrender possibly or at least open up their weapons programs. Change is coming to Syria, that we are now seeing an insurrection by the Kurdish population of Syria against the Syrian regime, and the regime is terrified to crack down in the brutal way they've done in the past when they left 20,000 dead.
So dramatic events are happening all over the Middle East. One more thing has to be said: we're seeing the beginning of a process of intellectual criticism in Saudi Arabia where brave Saudis are beginning to publish and speak openly about the need for their society to open itself up on women's rights and democracy and secularism. And by – this is by no means the law of the land, but it is an exciting and important development—
MAHER: Is that because we moved our gas station to Iraq? [audience reacts]
FRUM: That's because they don't have the gun at America's head anymore?
MAHER: What? Isn't that what – [to Vidal]—you would say that, that that's what it was about, right, moving the gas station?
GORE VIDAL: Well, yes, that's what I said at the time. I'd like to make one small correction, since we all boast about our war experiences. I was in World War II, and I'd like to correct you. It was nothing like the Iraq conquest by the United States. [applause]
MAHER: WellÉ
FRUM: Obviously. So what?
VIDAL: So why did you say so?
FRUM: So I said because the – I said the reaction of human beings afterwards has some parallels.
MAHER: All right, but your group, the—
VIDAL: Well, after I go to Pink's and eat two of those hotdogs, I have a reaction, too. [laughter] [applause]
MAHER: I didn't know you'd already made your plans for after the show. We've got to get some better green room food. [laughter]
FRUM: But I wouldn't call that reaction "thought."
MAHER: Okay. But his – the group you're part of, Project for the New American Century, basically what they say – what?
FRUM: Nothing. They have an office in the same building as I do. I, in fact, have no connection with them.
MAHER: Well, you certainly have an ideological connection.
FRUM: Yeah, I'm friends with them.
MAHER: You are the author of the phrase, "axis of evil," give me a break.
FRUM: But the Project for the New American Century is three guys in a room on the fifth floor of an office building.
MAHER: Okay, but three guys who I think you agree with, let's put it that way.
FRUM: Largely.
MAHER: Okay. And what they say – and I'm not disagreeing—
FRUM: But there are other guys who I agree with, too.
MAHER: If you let me finish, I might be on your side. [laughter] Because I think I am. What they are basically saying is, like, somebody has to be in charge in the 21st century and it should be us. And I kind of agree that, you know what, if some – even if you say no one should be in charge in the world, somebody has to sort of be in charge to make sure that everybody respects that no one should be in charge. And I don't know if there's anybody better than the United States, as bad as we might be.
FRUM: The United States is the designated driver for the world.
MAHER: [laughs] Okay.
EDDIE IZZARD: Well, was it – what does it say about the President, the leader of the free world, but we never voted on that in Europe. We get no vote – the rest of the world, we in R.O.W., in R.O.W. – which is Rest of the World—[laughter]—we all just have to – we just have to go with that fact. I mean, Europe is going to take 30 years, I think, to come together as a sort of another balancing super power, if it does, as a sort of balancing force. And hopefully, we won't go out and do what Europe did before and what maybe America is doing now.
But the one thing on Iraq I thought is that the only reason, even with the weapons of mass destruction, whether they are there or not, I thought the only reason to go in is if – is to take out all dictators. Because I think dictators – from 1945, all dictators should not be in there at all. And so if you're going into Iraq to take out a dictator, yes, but as long as you're going to take out all the dictators, and it's an alphabetical list, and you're starting at "S." [laughter] [applause]
MAHER: Right. I mean, that is true.
IZZARD: And if you want to be policeman for the world, that's great, but take them all out. Not just one that your dad had unfinished business with. [applause] [cheers]
MAHER: Yes, there is truth in that.
FRUM: I don't think you're forbidden when you go about your work of taking out dictators to think a little bit about starting with the dictators who are most menacing to you personally.
IZZARD: But shouldn't North Korea be the most dangerous to the world, if you're going to be policeman of the world? [applause]
MAHER: All right, let me ask you this about terrorism, because the thing in Madrid scared me, because it showed me that the terrorists, they learned something, which is, apparently they don't have to die with the bomb. [laughter] I was hoping we would keep this fact away from them for a while longer. [laughter] But now they have caught on to the fact that you can do it with a backpack and a cell phone. Ugh. Isn't thisÉ? [laughter]
IZZARD: Well, I thought another thing interesting, everyone went crazy because Spain was going to withdraw the troops out of Iraq, but are they withdrawing their troops out of Afghanistan, which is the most important point?
MAHER: I didn't know they had troops in Afghanistan.
IZZARD: Well, I thought a whole bunch of us went into Afghanistan.
MAHER: You know what? Even if they do, these are token contingents that everybody else has.
IZZARD: I know. But as you were saying – well, as Howard Dean was saying, the Afghanistan thing is the thing. Osama bin Laden, where is Osama bin Laden? It should have been in the top corner of the television since September 11th, "Where is Osama bin Laden, latest." And is has just not been on the news. [applause] Until it started coming back now.
MAHER: But, you know what showed me how clueless this country can be? We raised this week, the Congress did, the bounty on Osama bin Laden, from $25 million to $50 million. Because those Afghan goat herders will not get out of bed for less than $40 million. [laughter] [applause] I mean, doesn't – I mean, how clueless are we that it – you know, in that part of the world, maybe money isn't the most important thing like it is here. "$25 million, I can see why they didn't turn him in. " [laughter] "But 50, that'll get them to come around." [laughter]
FRUM: Except Afghanistan has a long and spectacular history of political corruption and people selling each other. And in fact, the money may make a big difference. And if it could, why not?
MAHER: You're kidding?! You're kidding. For $25 million, they went, no, no? [laughter] What are they, Bruce Willis? [laughter] [applause]
IZZARD: From a logic point of view, I've got to go with Bill on this.
VIDAL: I enjoyed the Bush Administration attacking for cowardice the Spanish people for turning out a government that 90% of them opposed the government's joining us in the conquest of Iraq. And proving that Spain has something that we do not have: a democracy—[applause]—they voted it out. [applause] It would be wise if the Bush people, as we think of them – I think some of them are people—[laughter]—would wise up. This is the way to organize a government so that you're not stuck with the sort of dead government which we have now, which only knows one thing: "Onward Christian Soldiers," which is not the most popular cry in the world. [applause] [cheers]
MAHER: You know, President Bush did famously say, "Every nation has a decision to make." This was right after 9/11. "Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists." Now, the fact that Spain said Iraq is a disaster, the fact that he wants to pull the troops out, the fact that now Spain is in league with gay weddings—[laughter]—no, they said that today, they want gay unions. I think they're trying to give it to the President. [laughter] But does that mean Spain --- "either you're with us or you're with the terrorists"—does that mean Spain now is with the terrorists? Are they our enemy? Is it wise to be that black and white?
FRUM: No, in fact, and contrary to Mr. Vidal, in fact the President said exactly the opposite. And some of us actually criticized the administration for not – not pointing out the dangerous consequences of the Spanish election. It's not a question of are the people brave or cowardly. People everywhere are much the same. But Mr. Vidal lives in Italy, a country that is part of the American Coalition, and which is going to have elections soon. And what is the -- what is the lesson that these terrorists are going to draw, that is going to have a terrible danger for the people of Italy. There are consequences here—
VIDAL: I think one listed in the Hollywood Hills is not part of Italy. That's where I live.
MAHER: Oh, okay. [laughter] [applause] Wait a second, for many years – I thought you lived – you lived in Ravenna for many years, did you not?
VIDAL: Ravella.
MAHER: Ravella. Okay. I drink Ravenna—
FRUM: I'm sorry I don't keep – I'm sorry not to keep up with your movements, but—
VIDAL: You will. [laughter] [applause]
FRUM: That is good. That is good.
VIDAL: Or as they say on CNN, "Briefly now, what is the meaning of life?" [laughter]
MAHER: All right, let—
FRUM: Can I – just on your question of "with us or against us," that was a message to the governments of the Arab world. They had played a very double game on this terrorism for a long time. And above all, to the Saudis.
MAHER: Yes.
FRUM: And that is a tremendously and important and effective message when the President said to the Saudis, "Look, you cannot decide each day, do an auction of who you are more afraid of, us or the extremists, and each day you make a decision, one or the other. We want consistent support." And the President was right to say it. No President before him had said it. And that's why this monster grew up.
MAHER: All right, let me ask you this about homeland security, because this bombing on the train in Spain made me and, I think, everybody here, think about trains. And I have been on a few trains since 9/11, and every time I got on a train with my party, we all sat down and we went, "You know what? Isn't this great? No hassles. No metal detector." And then we went, "Oh, fuck, no metal detector!" [laughter]
Why is the Bush Administration seemingly always one step behind?
VIDAL: Well, they're in the business of provocation, and you have to keep looking backwards to find people to provoke. [laughter] They're expert at it. They have some plans, some of them, which is, of course, I would think, oil reserves around the world, particularly in Asia, Central Asia. I think that's very important to them.
You know what he reminds me of – this is our Caligula—[laughter]—did you ever have that dream where you know that you're dreaming, and you can do any awful thing you want to in the dream because you know you're going to wake up, so why not do that and do that and do that? I will not talk blue on your program.
MAHER: Oh, it's HBO, please! [laughter]
VIDAL: He strikes me as somebody in a dream. He knows he should not have been president. Somebody must have told him he never got elected. [laughter] [applause]
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Go, Gore! [laughter]
VIDAL: Or as Justice Scalia would say in his witty way, when questioned about his closeness to the Vice President, this is – they're out hunting together – and he said to the press, "Quack, quack." [laughter] This is wisdom of a sort that we've never had on the bench since John Marshall. [laughter] [applause] [cheers]
MAHER: So the President always says—[laughter]—that the terrorists hate us for our freedom, which is what's so clever about the Patriot Act, because by taking away so much of our freedom, they won't hate us so much. [laughter] [applause]
VIDAL: Very statesman-like.
MAHER: Now, it is coming up for renewal, this Patriot Act. We kind of pushed it through in an emotional tizzy, right after 9/11—what? We didn't?
FRUM: No, in fact, I think the very fact – your first sentence about how this is coming up for re-authorization – it was precisely because the country was so amazingly restrained in those terrible days, that Americans said there is a real danger we could do something now that is more than we want to do; there is this danger, so let's put a time limit on it. And that way, it is built into the law. The law expires unless we come back and renew it.
MAHER: Right.
FRUM: It was exactly – it was American democracy at its best, saying this is an emotional moment and we could make mistakes, so if we – we are going to make sure that we are not stuck with this, and if no one does anything, it just expires.
MAHER: Did it work? Is the Patriot Act why we have not been hit again since 9/11, do you think?
VIDAL: Of course not.
MAHER: No?
IZZARD: Well, who's been brought in? Who's been—
VIDAL: Well, hardly anybody—
FRUM: Two-thirds—
VIDAL: --because it exists, they will say, "Because you must take your shoes off as you go onto the airplane, that is why Osama bin Laden has not struck us." [laughter] [applause]
FRUM: That's simply – that's simply uninformed.
VIDAL: Not since EinsteinÉ
FRUM: I didn't know you'd moved to the Hollywood Hills, but they must deliver the papers there. I mean, that's simply uninformed. [audience reacts negatively]
VIDAL: Oh, I wouldn't read one that you read.
FRUM: Two-thirds of the leadership of Al Qaeda has been detained. They have made – the head of Islamic Jihad in the United States was indicted because of evidence only obtainable thanks to the Patriot Act. They have wound up the major Islamic charities in the United States because they fed money to terrorist organizations, thanks to information from the Patriot Act. It's the Patriot Act—
IZZARD: All Islamic charities?
FRUM: No, the major ones that fed money to the—
MAHER: Right, but they've also abused it. I mean, I think a lot of people in this country say, you know, why hasn't the President, who purports to be the guy who we should elect because he's protecting us, why hasn't he guarded the ports? Why hasn't he guarded the chemical facilities? [applause] Why are we going after arresting Tommy Chong and putting him in jail? [applause] And Operation G-String? And harassing abortion clinics? And a lot of things that really don't have a lot to do with homeland security. We seem to have the time to do that, when John Ashcroft said, after 9/11, "We can only do one thing good now."
FRUM: No, ordinary law enforcement is going to continue. And obviously, I mean, there are a lot of things that are wrong with homeland security. I wrote a book about it. But if the idea is that the country is in some kind of frenzy and that your liberties are unsafe, all you have to do if you are worried about them is nothing, because the law will expire, and your representatives will have a chance to look at it step-by-step, if there are abuses, deal with them. And if they do nothing, the law goes away.
MAHER: Okay, I want to talk to Russell Simmons. We've got him on voting. He is the hip-hop pioneer of HBO's "Def Comedy Jam," and the chairman of the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network – on the glass, Mr. Russell Simmons. [applause]
RUSSELL SIMMONS [via satellite]: Thank you, Bill.
MAHER: How are you doing?
SIMMONS: I'm very good, thank you. First of all, let me compliment you on your guest, incredibly witty and funny and intelligent, Gore Vidal.
MAHER: Oh, I thought you're talking about David. [applause] All right, well, I'm glad you mentioned that, because I want to read you a quote from Mr. Vidal, because you do want to sign up a lot of new people to vote. You're using hip-hop as a way to energize young voters. Mr. Vidal once said, "Half of the American people have never read a newspaper, half have never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half." [laughter] [applause] Do you worry that you're pushing a lot of people into the voting booth who are not informed?
SIMMONS: Well, you know, it's a process. There are people who feel disconnected, left out, the people who basically have lived in a lot of ignorance in some cases, but a lot of poverty in most cases, are the followers of hip-hop, and those who are sensitive to the plight of the poor. And so getting these people to register is a first step.
Some are educated. Some are not as educated about the process or about the candidates. But the first step, of course, is to register, get a card and feel like you're part of the team. [applause]
MAHER: But, listen to this: 29% of people 18 to 24, voted in the last election for president, 29%. And when I read that statistic, I said, "That's about right. That's about how many people from that age should vote. Because two-thirds of those people in that age, believe me, they don't know what is up." [laughter]
SIMMONS: Well, I don't think any of us here can really claim sophisticates. I mean, look, we live in a time when a lot of information – misinformation is communicated. You're right, 70-80% of the people thought that Iraq was involved in 9/11. Of course, you know that Saddam Hussein was not, but we let this kind of myth go on. And we mislead people. And there's a lot of people, no matter how educated they are, they're living in fear and anger and total disregard for the real war, which is the war on poverty and ignorance. [applause] [cheers]
MAHER: And if I may ask you, personally, I mean, I know in the last couple of years, you have become really quite the activist. And I commend you. You have really devoted a lot of your life, which I know could be involved with "bling-bling"—[laughter]
SIMMONS: Well, you know—
MAHER: [overlapping]—for such causes as you're trying to overturn the Rockefeller drug laws in New York State, and I'd love to have you – I'd love to hear you talk about that for a minute.
SIMMONS: Well, there was an attack from some – a political attack to try to silence me from the Lobbying Commission. And no one in the state government, and of course this commission leader was appointed by the governor and by State Senator Bruno. And others who could have silenced him when he went after my First Amendment rights. But Eliot Spitzer did not prosecute me. But I still had, oh, God, close to a million dollars in legal fees—
MAHER: Oh, that must have hurt, huh?
SIMMONS: [overlapping]—and what I'm saying is that there are those who don't like that idea. But the more they attack me, the more we talked about those drug laws. And no matter what happens, they're going to get rid of those laws soon.
After 30 years of unjust and unfair laws, Governor Pataki is open-minded now. Senator Bruno is moving in the right direction. And Shelly Silver. I think they'll come to a meeting of the minds. Silver is, of course, the Assembly, and Bruno is the head of the Senate, and the governor, these three will meet and make a deal, and there'll be a dramatic change in those laws. And I'm excited about, I mean, the support that we got from 50 Cent and Puffy and Jay-Z and Beyonce and all the artists who really used their voice to make this difference. It's going to happen now. So I'm excited about it.
MAHER: Okay, well, I've never known you to fail at anything, Russell. [applause] So good luck with that and the voting drive. Russell Simmons! [applause]
You know, it's funny, as much as we bend over backwards to get more people to vote, with Motor Voter, with absentee ballots, with the Internet, people vote less and less. And we thought here at this show that what we should do to get people to go to the voting booth is what we do in Hollywood to get them to go to award shows: give them a goody bag. [laughter] If you don't know what a goody bag out there is, to get celebrities to go anywhere in this town, you have to give them what is called a "goody bag." [laughter] It's a bag full of swag.
You know, and they usually have one for the women that has lotion and, you know, a certificate for a day at the spa. And one for the guys that has, you know, a Palm Pilot and some sports shit. [laughter]
Okay, so we have here goody bags for "red state" and "blue state" voters. [laughter] [brings out bags] If you're in the "red state," you'd get the Toby Keith CD. [laughter] You'd get the pork rinds. [laughter] You'd get the John Deere cap. [laughter] Bullets. [laughter] [applause] You'd get the audio version of the Holy Bible, read by Mel Gibson's dad. [laughter] [applause] You'd get some OxyContin that Rush Limbaugh isn't using anymore. [laughter] And this is my favorite: an actual vial of Sean Hannity's bile. [laughter] [groans] [applause]
And if you're in a "blue state," you get the Norah Jones CD. [laughter] You'd get The Joy of Gay Sex. [laughter] [applause] You'd get the John Deere cap, but it's ironic. [laughter] [applause] A dildo. [laughter] Clean needles and heroin. [laughter] A certificate for Botox. And one – oh, a "Visit for one abortion at a Planned Parenthood"—[laughter] [applause]—made completely out of hemp, I think. [applause]
Anyway, but seriously, voting is not funny now, because there is now electronic voting. And when I first heard about electronic voting, I thought, I think lot of people, was, you know, it looks like it would be easy to fix an election that way, but they wouldn't dareÉ[laughter] No, they would dare, wouldn't they?
VIDAL: They are daring as we speak. [laughter] Just recently, in Orange County, 7,000 votes of the touch-screen variety, which is electronic, which is the easiest to hack into or change the vote, are being studied very carefully. They found another polling place where 200 people – not many people had come in that day, about 250 – 200 came in to vote and no votes were cast. They just came in and they went out again. This is a very odd behavior. [laughter] It's not quite easy to get to a polling booth.
MAHER: And also, I mean, Howard Dean mentioned it, the guy who makes – this guy, Walden O'Dell, he is the president of the biggest company that makes voting machines, Diebold.
FRUM: Diebold.
MAHER: Diebold, okay. He is unabashedly a huge Bush supporter. He has had fundraisers for him at his house. I mean, maybe if you're the guy who makes the voting machines, you stay out of partisan politics, is that crazy?! [applause] [cheers]
VIDAL: I think – I think he got a good example from the Supreme Court in the year 2000. If they want to interfere out of their business, why he can too.
MAHER: I know, but it's like the ref putting his arm around the quarterback for one team and going, "You know what? This is my boy!" [laughter] [applause]
FRUM: He shouldn't have done that. But it does strike me, this is – this strikes me as the least exciting issue since the advent of nine-digit zip codes. I mean, if the machines don't work, get rid of them. If they do work, fix them. But remember, too, the reason we got into this jam was because back in the year 2000, there were all these complaints that in Florida, the rich counties had the electronic machines and the poor counties had the punch ballots, and the punch ballots were worse. And there was then this huge demand, and there was a national commission sponsored by Democrats that said we have to make sure that there's federal money to help poor counties get voting machines—
MAHER: I know, but that doesn't mean from the frying pan to the fire. It means the old system didn't work.
FRUM: But, it's a purely technical issue. If the old – if this one is worse, then junk it.
IZZARD: Well, the difficulty is how do you prove it? I mean, if the election just goes by and some people get in, or one side gets in, you say, well, how do you prove that something—[voices overlap]—what? [laughter] Paper trail. But I did think that if we do want to head toward more democracy so you could vote in your house and people don't even have to – they probably wouldn't then even if they could vote in their house and just do that; probably people wouldn't do that unless there was a goody bag attached to their finger. [laughter]
But if the electronic thing was completely dangerous, wouldn't all our bank accounts now be emptied and be in somebody's bank account? I mean, I'm just looking, because I'm trying to get to some practical—
MAHER: Well, but that's another thing. You know, when it comes to voting, no matter what the system, they always say you will never get an accurate count. No matter how many times you recount the votes, it will always come out different. We cannot do it. And I always say, "Well, they don't do that with money. Nobody leaves a bank and goes, 'You know, it's about ten grand.'" [laughter] [applause]
I mean, if they can get – if they can do it with money, why can't they do it with voting?
IZZARD: But then if they can make the money in our bank accounts stay right, and then if you keep checking your bank account and it's not going down, then logically, no one is stealing money out of it. And then you could probably do that with votes.
MAHER: Right.
IZZARD: Just because I want to get to a system that works. I mean, I just – I agree with you—
MAHER: Except people care – people care about their money. They check it. There's no way we check – we each personally can check—
IZZARD: No, yes, that's true, because there's a difficulty, isn't there, because you don't know who – how many is going to vote every time there's an election. You say, "My God, more voted for this person than that person; that wasn't expected."
MAHER: I think it's a very scary situation.
VIDAL: Well, you need a way of tracing whether the vote was ever recorded.
MAHER: Right.
VIDAL: You need another way – did you know that in the old days, when we were a proper country—[laughter]—L.A. County would count its own votes, the Republicans and Democrats would sit around making sure the other side wasn't stealing anything. And it was pretty honest.
FRUM: [scoffs]
VIDAL: Nowadays—
MAHER: What?
FRUM: It was pretty honest?!
VIDAL: Well, now, are we going to have to explain the American system to you? [laughter] [applause]
FRUM: As much as you can remember. [audience reacts]
VIDAL: I think my memory is quite capable.
FRUM: Look, the days of the paper ballot were the days of ballot stuffing, where, if you—
VIDAL: Oh, good lordÉ
FRUM: --where people would arrive at the voting booth with ballots, with paper, with boxes full of paper ballots—
VIDAL: Let me finish what I was about to say.
MAHER: I mean, come on, didn't—
VIDAL: The votes are counted in 34th Street, in Manhattan, New York City. VNS, Voters News Service, has been hired by New York Times, Washington Post, the major newspapers, the three big networks, CNN, they've been hired to come up with exit poll numbers so they can be right on the nose at the time of voting, and at the same time, they'll be the first with the news that so-and-so has won the election.
Well, you can't trace what goes on in 34th Street. They have made an agreement – you've talked about the president of Diebold, well, Diebold is one of the big companies that produces these machines – they have made a deal. As they sell the machines, let us say, to the state of California, or Maryland is a good example, no state election official has the right to open the machine without an employee of Diebold or whoever made the machine present. That means there is no transparency. What we have done is privatize our electoral system. Our democracy is privatized.
MAHER: But didn't elections get stolen before? Didn't Kennedy win in '60, because of shenanigans in Illinois? And there were certainly no machines back then, electronically.
VIDAL: There was. There was Mayor Daley. [laughter] Something sacred, Bill. [applause]
MAHER: All right, before we wrap up, I want – every week, I don't know if you know this, on this show, I read something to President Bush because President Bush proudly has said that he does not read the paper. [laughter] So this week, I'm going to read from the TV section, Mr. Bush.
This says, "This episode of 'Real Time with Bill Maher' is the last of the season before we take our hiatus. So you're not going to have me around to tell you what's up." We will be back on July 30th.
Right now, it is time for this week's New Rules. [applause]
All right, New Rule: No more planets in our solar system until we can take care of the nine we have. [laughter] Astronomers now say there's a tenth planet, Sedna. It's mostly rocks and ice, like Dick Cheney—[laughter]—but they think it should be part of our solar system. Now, as a guy who pays my taxes and plays by the rules, I don't see why my money should go to letting the Sedna-ese take my jobs, crowd my schools and do my gardening! [laughter] Okay, they can do my gardening. [laughter]
New Rule: No more missionaries. [laughter] The task of converting heathens up close and personal is unnecessary now that we have mass media. The good news about Jesus isn't a big secret anymore. [laughter] In fact, it did $32-mil at the box office last weekend, and killed "Starsky and Hutch." [laughter] Now, I'm a lapsed Catholic, so all I know about missionaries, I learned from cartoons in the New Yorker, but apparently, most of you do wind up as soup. [laughter]
New Rule – and some of these I can't believe I have to tell people: Don't try to get pandas to mate by showing them porn. [laughter] Yes, the Chinese government is really doing that. But it's not working, because after watching all that porn, the male pandas keep pulling out and coming on her tits. [laughter] [applause]
New Rule: Yes, I have seen the new twenties. You don't have to show me yours. [laughter]
New Rule: Lay off Rumsfeld and his 9/11 memento. Yes, Donald Rumsfeld took a piece of the airplane that hit the Pentagon. Like you've never lifted anything from work! [laughter] But he kept it for a good reason: to remind himself of who did this to us. Otherwise, we might have retaliated against the wrong country. [laughter] [applause]
And finally, New Rule: If we really want to stop terrorism, we have to get Muslim men laid. [laughter] [applause] Five British Muslims who were recently sent home from our prison at Guantanamo, charge that their American captors brought in prostitutes to taunt them, because most had never even seen a naked woman before.
And it made me wonder how many members of Al Qaeda have even dated a girl? [laughter] We should hire women to infiltrate Al Qaeda cells and fuck them. [laughter] [applause] [cheers] Things would change quickly because young Muslim men don't really hate America. They're jealous of America. We have rap videos and the Hilton sisters and magazines with titles like Barely Legal. [laughter] You know what's "barely legal" in Afghanistan? Everything! [laughter]
Young men need sex, and if they don't get it for month and after month after month, they wind up cursing the day they ever decided to go to Cornell. [laughter] Personal. [laughter]
Have you ever wondered why the word from the Arab street is always so angry? It's because it's a bunch of guys standing in the street! [laughter] Which is what guys do when they don't have girlfriends, when they're not allowed to even talk to a girl. Of course they want to commit suicide! [laughter] Unlike this country where it's the married guys who want to kill themselves. [laughter] [applause]
But here we always have hope. You can at least talk to a girl. And one might be crazy enough to go for you. Or you could get rich and buy one, like people do in Beverly Hills. [laughter] But the connection between no sex and anger is real. It's why prizefighters stay celibate when they're in training, so that on fight night, they're pissed off and ready to kill. [laughter]
It's why football players don't have sex after Wednesday. And conversely, it's why Bill Clinton never started a war. [laughter] [applause] [cheers]
And so, to paraphrase the sign in Mr. Clinton's old war room, "It's the pussy, stupid." [laughter] [applause]
We need the Coalition of the Willing to be really willing! [laughter] We need to mobilize two divisions of skanks—[laughter]—a regiment of ho's, and a brigade of girls who just can't say no. [laughter] All under the command of Col. Ann Coulter. [laughter] [applause] [cheers] Who will be dressed in her "Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS" uniform. [laughter]
Forget the Peace Corps. We need a "Piece of Ass Corps"! [laughter] Girls, there's a cure to terrorism, and you're sitting on it! [laughter]
All right, folks, have a good spring and early summer. We'll be back on July 30th. Thank you to David Frum, Eddie Izzard, Gore Vidal, Howard Dean and Russell Simmons. Take care, folks. [applause] [cheers]
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