Bush and Cheney in one

Gaurav points me to a great clip from Bill Maher's show on HBO last week. Here's the transcript of the first few minutes of the clip, in case you don't get to see the video.

BILL MAHER, HOST: This is not about her being a woman. It's about her being not very bright, and not very knowledgable. I mean, forget even experience.

NAOMI KLEIN, AUTHOR: But I mean, the thing about Palin is, is, you know, that the sort of liberal talking point about McCain is that he's four more years of Bush. Palin is much closer to four more years of Bush. I mean, you have all of these traits in common. A fear of blinking, for instance, which clearly McCain doesn't share with all that blinking. Um, you know, just a certainty that is completely uncommensurate with any knowledge or experience. Secrecy and an unwillingness to cooperate with inquiries. A belief that foreign policy is dictated by God. I mean, she's basically Bush in drag, and then when you add the hunting, you've got Cheney. You know, it's Bush and Cheney in one, with the hunting. So, you know, she's four more years.

WILL.I.AM SINGER: You know what scares me about Palin, is that we're talking about Palin, and we're not talking about how we really get out of the hole. That's what's really scary.

ANDREW SULLIVAN, THE ATLANTIC: No, we have we have to talk about Palin. I mean, Bill, let me just say, I, I don't even want to go this far in talking about her. She is a farce. This, this, this nomination. This, the nomination of this person to be potentially President of the United States next January. That's, that's the possibility. She could be president next January, is a joke. It is absurd. It is something that should be dismissed out of hand as the most irresponsible act any candidate has ever made. Bill, Bill, let me just tell you one thing...

...

SULLIVAN: ...and after three weeks, no press conference?

...

MAHER: I know, we're all, we're all, we're all upset about it.

SULLIVAN: We need to be more upset. We, we, we need to be much more upset.

So, Who is this WILL.I.AM! I like him!! (Oh...he's the Black Eyed Peas guy!)

Maher and Klein are ringing true but as a friend responded to earlier posts about Palin (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8), this is resonating only with the already "converted" (and maybe/hopefully some fence-sitters*) And so, I agree with William.I.Am, who hits the nail on the head. That's where Dems and the Obama campaign has to focus!! ISSUES. Not the woman and her being a nincompoop. Because Bush was a nincompoop too. And he got elected - all the election fracas notwithstanding - to be the POTUS twice!

My favorite sentence from the clip comes later though when Maher says: "Even with all the economic news this week, I bet you if you put a gun to her head today and asked her what the SEC was, she couldn't tell you. Although she could probably tell you what kind of gun it was." Haah... facetious maybe but as comedy, it's a good one! ;)

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* In an earlier clip from the episode, Maher brings up that MSNBC reported that 70% of the undecided voters are going to vote for McCain and opines that there is racism at work here; some of these people just cannot get over it that a black man will be in the White House. However, Sullivan, opines that while racism is there, (he agrees that Obama needs to be 7-8% ahead in the polls on election day to win i.e. the Bradley effect exists in poll numbers), people have talked themselves out of thinking of it like that (which Maher thinks is worse). And then Sullivan further expounds (and I paraphrase) that: "its not explicitly racism but Obama represents a paradigm shift in Americas understanding of itself and the world's understanding of America and there a lot of people who are just very scared of that kind of change. It may be an amorphous fear - but is a real fear, not crude racism - it is a cultural insecurity and a terror of the nature of their country changing in their own minds."

Later in the clip Maher says (again, paraphrasing; not exactly quoting): "I do not trust Americans to do the right thing or make the right choices. They're just too fucking dumb.)

Sullivan: Churchill got it right, he said "Americans always do the right thing after they have exhausted every other alternative."

Maher: and that was back then Americans were smarter than they are now.

Now these kind of provocative statements will make headlines, get the crowd cheering, get ratings for the show..and won't go down well on Fox and amongst conservatives, who have already cried foul that any criticism of Palin or wingnuts on the right is being unpatriotic and elitist!

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Clip 1 has a discussion on how the disaster on Wall Street has just moved now to the tax-payers. But this post has already become longer than I had hoped -- go see the clip, if interested.