When I'm not drooling over Jack Bauer and how throbbing of an erection my favorite TV show 24 gives me, I do indeed have other television tastes in which I dabble. The Sopranos is about to begin its final season, look out. Probably one of the most underrated shows going right now is Dateline's To Catch a Predator (Tuesday nights, 8 p.m., NBC, not that I watch or anything). I suppose it's the ol' driving by a car accident analogy, in that as awful as it is, you just can't turn away from it. My brother gets a kick out of sending me e-mails the day after new shows that quote excerpts from the perverts' chat logs. I'll get a new message with a subject line of something like "Mets Tickets," an attempt to pique my interest, then open the message only to find a one-liner like, "I will bring you rasberry wine coolers and promise I will be gentle when we make love hahahahahaha." Maybe you had to be there.
Certainly in my top 5 of television shows is Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO. Take a funny male wiseass who is also a Libertarian and give him his own TV show, and yours truly is going to be a loyal fan. What kills me is how quick he is on his feet and the witty responses he comes up with when interviewing guests or panel members. If you get HBO, put this show in your rotation, and thank me later.
A few days ago the wife and I were watching his most recent show, which he began with by saying, ""We have been on the air now for this new season five weeks. Three out of the five weeks, there's been a Bush scandal." The best part of the show was at the end when he went through his "New Rules," and the delivery was absolutely stellar. Maher, if you can't tell from the below excerpt, is not a Bush fan. The following recital had me in absolute stitches, and I hope you enjoy it, too:
And finally, New Rule: Liberals must stop saying President Bush hasn't asked Americans to sacrifice for the war on terror. On the contrary, he's asked us to sacrifice something enormous. Our civil rights.
Now, when I heard George Bush was reading my emails, I probably had the same reaction you did: George Bush can read?! Yes, he can. And this administration has read your phone records, credit card statements, mail, Internet logs. I can't tell if they're fighting a war on terror or producing the next season of "Cheaters." I mail myself a copy of the Constitution every morning just on the hope they'll open it and see what it says.
So -so when it comes to sacrifice, don't kid yourself. You have given up a lot. You've given up faith in your government's honesty, the goodwill of people overseas, and six-tenths of the Bill of Rights. Here's what you've sacrificed: search and seizure, warrants, self-incrimination, trial by jury, cruel and unusual punishment. Here's what you have left: hand guns, religion, and they can't make you quarter a British soldier. If Prince Harry invades the Inland Empire, he has to bring a tent.
You know, in previous wars on the home front made a very different kind of sacrifice. During World War II, we endured rationing, paid higher taxes, bought war bonds, and in the interest of national unity, people even pretended Bob Hope was funny. Right, like you laughed at him.
Okay, women, donated their silk undergarments so they could be sewn into parachutes. Can you imagine nowadays a Britney Spears or a Lindsay Lohan going without underwear? Bad example.
But, look, George Bush has never been too bright about understanding "fereigners." But he does know Americans. He asked this generation to sacrifice the things he knew we would not miss: our privacy and our morality. He let us keep the money. But he made a cynical bet that we wouldn't much care if we became a "Big Brother" country that has now tortured a lot of random people.
And yet no one asks the tough questions like, "Is torture necessary?" "Who will watch the watchers?" "And when does Jack Bauer go to the bathroom?" I mean, it's been five years. Is he wearing one of those astronaut diapers?
In conclusion, after 9/11, President Bush told us Osama bin Laden could run but he couldn't hide. But, then he ran and hid. So, Bush went to Plan B: pissing on the Constitution and torturing random people.
Conservatives always say the great thing Reagan did was make us feel good about America again. Well, do you feel good about America now? I'll give you my answer, and to get it out of me, you don't even have to hold my head underwater and have a snarling guard dog rip my nuts off. No, I don't feel very good about that.
They say evil happens when good men do nothing. Well, the Democrats prove it also happens when mediocre people do nothing.
Full text available at: http://www.hbo.com/billmaher/new_rules/
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