Politically Incorrect
March 27, 2001

Guests on this program were:
John Lydon
Molly Sims
Kirby Wilbur
Joshua Redman

Visit the Images and Multimedia sections for screen captures and video clips from this appearance

Ladies and gentlemen, the star of "Politically Incorrect" --
Bill Maher!
[ Applause ]


[ Cheers and applause ]

Bill: Thank you, people.
All right, thank you.
Let us meet our panel.
A saxophonist and all-around jazz man, his new cd is "Passage of Time," and he is Joshua Redman.
Joshua.

[ Cheers and applause ]

Hey.

Joshua: How you doin'?

Bill: How you doin'?

Joshua: Nice to meet you.

Bill: Thank you for being here.
He is a talk radio host who's got his very own show on KBI a.m.
in Seattle --
Kirby Wilbur.
Kirby.

[ Cheers and applause ]

Kirby: Bill, how are you?

Bill: Good to have you back, sir.

Kirby: Nice to be back.

Bill: She is the charming host of MTV's "House of Style" and one of the appropriately attired --

[ Cheers and applause ]

Molly Sims is here.
There you are.

Molly: Hi.

Bill: How you doin'?

Molly: Nice being here.

Bill: And the frontman of Public Image Limited.
He's expanding on the technological innovations of his music as a solo performer.
England's original mad cow --

[ Laughter ]

John Lydon, ladies and gentlemen.
John Lydon.

[ Cheers and applause ]

Hello, Mr. Rotten.

John: Bastard!
[ Applause ]

Bill: Thank you.

John: Moo!

Bill: Yes.
All right.

John: Mad cow, we got that from you.

Bill: Don't make me destroy you.

[ Laughter ]

John: Oh, good luck, mate.

Bill: I would hate to have to burn you in a pit.

John: Ooh, he fancies his chances.

Bill: No.
I agree.
You know, I've said before, I'm for mad cow disease, but --

[ Laughter ]

John: I am, too, actually.

Bill: You are?

John: Less meat.

Bill: Less meat.

John: More vegetarians.

Bill: We would save thousands of lives --
yes.

John: Actually, buffalo's better for you anyway, isn't it?

Bill: Buffalo --
don't talk about that.

[ Light laughter ]

John: --
munchin' at the rear end of wild animals.

[ Laughter ]

Bill: Which wouldn't be the first time.
Okay.
Let me talk about George Bush, because he makes me mad.

[ Laughter ]

He has disappointed me, which is --
which is not easy to do.

Kirby: Did you vote for him?

Bill: No, I'm saying, I thought he was --
he was an effete mama's boy to begin with, so for him to disappoint me is --

John: But he's a rich, effete mama's boy, see?

Bill: Yeah.

John: He's the wealthy 1%.

Kirby: And he's got rich --

Molly: But he's not doing a bad job.

Joshua: He's doing a pretty good job, though.

John: I think he's disappointed a lot of people.

Bill: He's not doing a bad job.

John: What job? He hasn't done any job.

[ All talking at once ]

Molly: --
disappointed me was cutting all the tax --

John: He hasn't done any job I've seen so far except contradict himself.

Joshua: In what way?

John: In every way, hello! Arsenic in the water, let's just deal with that, shall we?

Joshua: All right, let's do that.

John: I mean, this man has rescinded on every single promise made.
Hello!

Joshua: Like what?

John: Take care of the children.

Bill: Right.
I mean, he did --

[ Laughter ]

Joshua: That's the thing.
When did he say he was gonna take care of the children?

John: It's been a year along --

Joshua: He said, "Leave no child behind.
I will leave no child behind."

Kirby: Right, and he gave the education budget 12% at the end of this year --

[ All talking at once ]

John: "Leave no child" behind.

Joshua: They're working on it.
No, they're working on it.

Bill: Okay, yeah.
The education budget is higher.
There won't be any air for them to breathe, water to drink --

Kirby: Oh, Bill.
Geez, Louise! Doom and gloom?

John: Yeah.

Kirby: When did Clinton bring these new regulations into effect?

John: I don't think he ever did.

Kirby: His last week in office, correct? Right?

John: I don't think he ever did --

Kirby: Why did he wait? He arsenic --
his --
he strengthened the arsenic regulations the last week in office by executive order.
Bush rescinded that, said, "Let's look at it." If it was such an important issue, why did Bill wait until his last week in office to do it?

John: You understand what he's doing?

Molly: I mean, Bush should have to clean up a lot of --

John: He's comparing Clinton to Bush.
They're all wankers, right?
[ Laughter ]

Kirby: Wanko? You'll have to explain that to me.

[ Cheers and applause ]

You know what? Better my wanko than his wanko.

Bill: Wait a second.

[ All talking at once ]

Kirby: Hey, better my wanko than his.

John: You have your own wanker?

Bill: Hey --

Kirby: We'll get into that later.

Bill: Hey, white men, shut up.

[ Laughter ]

Let's hear from women and minorities.
So why did you say Bush is doing a good job?

Molly: I don't think he's doing an amazing job, but I think he's doing okay.

Bill: Why?

Molly: I think he had to clean up a lot of what Clinton did at the very end of office --

Bill: Like what?

Molly: --
with the pardons.

Kirby: He's the President of the United States.
He needs to do an amazing job.

Molly: I think he's dealing with the government --

John: The furniture's gone, what's he got left to clean?
[ Light laughter ]

Molly: There was a lot.
At the end --

Bill: There wasn't.

Molly: There was.

Bill: What do you mean?

Molly: Look at all the pardons.
Look at --
I don't know.

Bill: Pardons is not something the next President can clean up, nor needed to be cleaned up.

Joshua: He can clean up the air, he can clean up the water --

Bill: Yeah, really.

Kirby: He's supposed to do that.
And it'd be pretty amazing to do it in two months.

Molly: Not in two months.

Joshua: They had ten years to work out those regulations.

[ All talking at once ]

Joshua: And he waited till the very last week, why was that?

Bill: But basically --
wait a second.
But Bush ran as a centrist.
He winked at the right wing, and he said --
wait a second --
he said, "I'm a compassionate Confucionist" or whatever he was.

[ Laughter ]

And then --
wait a second --
and then, remember, he was a reformer with results for ten minutes? Remember that title he put on himself? A reformer? What reform has this guy brought to government? Where was --

Molly: It's only been two months.

Bill: Exactly.

[ All talking at once ]

Kirby: How about giving you your money back?

John: My darling, that's eight weeks.
I'm expected to make an album in that time, you know.

[ Laughter ]

Kirby: You're amazing, John, you're amazing.

John: Don't make bold promises, then come in with policies to negate false promises.

Molly: I don't think he has made false promises.

John: I'm cleaning up nothing.

Bill: Wait a second.

John: And he soon declared he will not, either.
Thank you.

Bill: No false promises? I can give you one that's direct and quotable.
He said he was going to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, he got into office, he reversed himself 180 degrees, and he said, "You know what? Sorry, can't do it --
reality."

Kirby: Now, wait a minute --

Bill: However, reality doesn't really come into play in any of his other policies.

Kirby: That's what he --

Bill: Like taxes.

Kirby: That's not what he said, Bill.
No, Bill.
What he said was, he was gonna review what Clinton ordered.
He didn't say he would not clean them up.
He said he was gonna review what Clinton ordered.

Bill: No.
Quite the opposite --

Kirby: Ah, no.

Bill: No, you're wrong about that.
On carbon dioxide emissions, during the campaign, he was debating Al Gore, and he said, "I'll do Al Gore one better.
Al Gore wants voluntary restraints.
I will make them mandatory."

Kirby: He said he'd look into it, that's right.

Bill: No, he didn't say he would look into it.

Kirby: Did he say when? Did he say what kind of restraints?

Bill: Did he say when? Hopefully, while we're still alive.

[ Laughter ]

That would be my hope.

Kirby: Like we're all gonna die.
Like we're all --
Bill --
we're on the edge of death.

[ Cheers and applause ]

Like we're all on the edge of death, right? If he doesn't do it today, we're all gonna die.

Bill: Well, I --

Kirby: Is that what you're saying?

Bill: You know what? I'm the guy with no kids.
I don't really give a [ bleep ] about 50 years hence.

Kirby: But I do.

Bill: Okay?

Kirby: But I do 'cause I have kids.

Bill: Exactly.
And what about leaving their behinds behind?
[ Laughter ]

Hey --

Joshua: Did you get that?

John: Yeah, 'cause I'm lookin' at one right now.

[ Laughter ]

Bill: I apologize for Mr. Rotten.

John: Boy, you're not the first.

Joshua: Won't be the last, either.

Bill: What about the world that these children who we're not supposed to be leaving behind are going to inherit because of these policies which are put into effect merely to pay back the people who bought him this presidency?

Joshua: I think in the year 2004, you can make that judgment.
Give him some time.

Molly: Yeah, we have a better --

Joshua: I think, yeah, in the first place, give him some time, but in the second place, there's a solid body of science --

John: --
to hear a Republican point of view on that when they're so judgmental within 30 seconds, you know, it's just --

Molly: Clinton didn't get done what he --

John: But he did.

Molly: But I'm just saying --

Kirby: What did he do?

Molly: Let me finish.
I'm just saying --

Bill: Go ahead.

Molly: Sorry.
I'm just saying that it took him eight years.
I mean, you can't expect it to happen in two months.

Bill: But Clinton never went back on his basic centrist philo --

Kirby: Baloney!

Bill: Clinton said --

Kirby: Middle-class tax cut.

Bill: Clinton said, "I'm running as a new kind of Democrat," and by the way, he did the things that Republicans only talk about.
He reduced welfare, he balanced the budget, he reduced crime.

Kirby: All pandering to the Republican Congress.

Bill: And they said he stole Republican ideas.
As if living without crime is a Republican idea.

[ Laughter ]

The Democrats are pro-crime, you know.
So he stole that idea.
I mean, they talked a good game, he actually did it.

Kirby: With a Republican Congress.

Bill: This guy ran as a centrist, Bush, and he's not a centrist.
He's hoisted the pirate flag.

Molly: But don't you think he has to be some sort of a centrist, though, with the Congress?

John: I think you have to be honest.

Kirby: I'd love him to be.

Molly: To get anything passed?

Bill: But he's not.

Joshua: --
campaign finance reform.

Molly: But you're saying if he goes back, then he's going against what he ran for.

John: Already.
Already.
Within two months, he's gone back against what he got voted in for.

Kirby: What, a tax cut?

Joshua: First of all, he shouldn't have been voted in.

John: "Cut" means what? No roads, no schools, arsenic in the water --
you're killing your population.

Joshua: No, no, no.
Tax cuts mean, when the government's gonna take in 5 trillions of dollars more than they are spending, including adding all that added money that Bush has increased spending on --

John: Why?

Joshua: He's giving our money back 'cause it belongs to us.

Bill: Us.
You know how much money us is gonna get? How much money do you think you're gonna get?

Kirby: Every penny counts, Bill.

[ Laughter ]

Bill: Every penny counts.

Kirby: How much money you think I'm gonna get back? Bill --
Bill --
Bill, the top 400 taxpayers in this country pay more in taxes than the bottom 40 million.
So of course, they're gonna get money back 'cause they pay taxes, and people at the end of the income spectrum don't --

Bill: That's fine, just don't lie to me about it.
Just don't tell me that it's going to "stimulate the economy" to put $300 or $400 into somebody's pocket.

Kirby: You're gonna get enough to buy a Lexus.

Molly: Every penny does count.

Bill: Oh, come on!

Molly: It does.

Kirby: Hey, Bill --

Molly: Maybe taking the $400 to you may not mean a lot, but $400 to someone who is on welfare, it means a hell of a lot.

John: You're not gettin' it.

[ Laughter ]

Kirby: Bill, why does Lieberman --

Bill: Well, it's not going to jump-start an economy!

Kirby: Times 40 million or 50 million it could, number one.
Number two, why does Lieberman want to give $300 back to everybody if that's not gonna work?

John: Stop spittin'.

Joshua: I'm sorry.

[ Laughter ]

I'm excited.

Bill: All right, I can take a commercial.
We'll be right back.

[ Cheers and applause ]

In the face of a new report showing consumer confidence is up, President Bush had a much harder job today in his quest to talk the economy down.
But he persevered, comparing it to a winded runner, and at one point --
this was desperate --
asking, "If the economy's so good, how come a big star like Jennifer Lopez can't afford a bra?"
[ Laughter ]

Bill: In Great Britain, it turns out that the outbreak of Hoof-and-Mouth Disease that they have been suffering through --
get this --
it originated when they were feeding swill to pigs.
Or as we call it here in America, reality programming.

[ Laughter ]


[ Applause ]

Okay.
Johnny, being an English musician, you probably know George Michael, don't you?

John: Yeah!

Bill: Remember --

[ Laughter ]

John: Know him intimately.

Bill: Remember a couple of years ago he was arrested in a public restroom --

John: Yeah.

Bill: --
because he was doing something he shouldn't be doing in there? Okay.

John: At least he didn't do it in a cubicle.

Bill: Right, I know.
There's a story out of Florida --
a former state representative, Willy Logan, was masturbating in a public restroom.
This is a private act --
Willy Logan was --

[ Laughter ]

I'm sorry, Mr. Logan, I'm actually defending you, but can you believe --
a plain-clothes cop peeked through, saw this guy masturbating in a private --
well, not a private --

Joshua: In a public restroom.

Molly: Public restroom.

Bill: Yes, in a stall, though.

Joshua: Finish your business, flush the toilet and get out of there.

Molly: Yeah.
You should not be masturbating in a --

John: Who are you to say what we should do in a toilet?

Molly: No, you should not be masturbating in a public restroom.
What if you brought your child in there to help him use the restroom --

Kirby: If he wants to do it, let him do it --

[ Talking over each other ]


[ Laughter ]

John: Excuse me, the door was closed.

Kirby: Now when you're in a private bathroom inside a bedroom --

Molly: I don't care if the door was closed.
You should not be doing it in a public restroom.

John: You can't --
then you're a nosy busybody.
You mustn't care what other people do behind a closed door.
Otherwise --

[ Applause ]

Molly: You wouldn't care? You wouldn't care --

Joshua: In his private bedroom.
If you want privacy [ bleep ] inside your bedroom --

John: Some people find public toilets --

[ Talking over each other ]

They should be in a bedroom.

Joshua: And if public toilets --

Kirby: Maybe he didn't have any more lotion left at home, you know? Maybe he was looking for something else and didn't find it.

Bill: But wait a second.

John: You can't keep interfering in people's lives and what they do in the toilet.

Molly: I'm sure he's been there before.

John: It's a public toilet with the door closed.

Bill: Right.

John: This man was spied on, was he not?

Bill: Yes, well --

Molly: Had he been there --
do we know if he's been there before? Is this like a place, like, where George Michael went?

Bill: I'm sure he's been there before.

[ Laughter ]

Joshua: Well, it's George Michael.

Bill: Thousands and thousands of --

John: How much about one's business do you want to know?

Kirby: Doing it in a public place makes it a public matter.

Bill: Wait a second, it isn't --

John: --
All the time.

Bill: Wait a second, it isn't the cubicle, isn't the closed door --

Kirby: That's still a public restroom, Bill.

Molly: Still a public restroom.

Joshua: Why doesn't he do it at home? Then nobody has to bother him to get the lotions and everything else at home.

Bill: Because --

John: --
at a restaurant.
We can eat at home.

Bill: Wait a second.
It's a restroom.

John: Right.

Bill: It doesn't say specifically what's resting, how you choose to rest.

[ Laughter ]

How you choose --

Joshua: Or how you choose to relax.

Kirby: Yeah, right.

Bill: What fluids are you choosing to release from your body?

Kirby: Then do it at home.

Bill: Why are you deciding which fluids? I'm serious.
Why is this fluid, which, by the way, is way less disgusting than something in there after having eaten a cheeseburger --

[ Laughter ]

That's disgusting to me.
This has no smell.

Kirby: How do you get a cheeseburger --

[ Laughter ]

John: But I'm gonna say I agree with Bill.
I agree with Bill.
After a dose of Foot-and-Mouth --

[ Talking over each other ]

--
[ bleep ] is okey-dokey.

Joshua: Right.

Molly: What if you brought your child into a restroom, and someone's [ bleep ]?

Joshua: But he had the door closed.

[ Talking over each other ]

It doesn't matter.

Bill: Would you bring your child into a restroom and have them peek through the stall door?

Kirby: No, it's a public --
wait, it's a public restroom.

Bill: How would --
seriously, how would your child know?

Kirby: No, no, there is no expectation of privacy in a public restroom.
I'm sorry, there isn't.

Molly: I agree.

Bill: Behind the stall door?

Kirby: If he wanted to [ bleep ] and be --

John: Then I want my money back.

Bill: Behind the stall door?
[ Talking over each other ]

John: Then I want my money back.

[ Laughter ]

Kirby: You can have it back --

John: Get a used toilet, and I'm not private anymore.

Bill: Wait a second, I disagree.
Behind a stall door, there is an expectation of privacy.
That's why you have a door.

Kirby: Yeah, but that's not what --

[ Talking over each other ]


[ Cheers and applause ]

John: Bill, what is it now? One lump or two?

Bill: What are you talking about?
[ Laughter ]

What does that mean, "One lump or two"?

John: I'm not sure, but somebody out there knows.
How much is your private business, one lump or two? You know, this is kind of like monitoring your private transactions behind a closed door.

Molly: I'm not saying it's monitoring.
I'm not saying that.

John: You're talking about your children, but your children aren't in view of this.
That's a different --

Molly: How do you know? How do you know? How do you know?

Kirby: In a public restroom, I don't think that should be --

[ Talking over each other ]

Joshua: --
his own privacy.

John: But he's not resting publicly when he defecates.

Kirby: That's what a restroom's for.
That's why there's toilet paper and no lotion.

[ Laughter ]

That's what you're supposed to do in a bathroom, all right?

John: Lotion?

Kirby: Never mind.

Joshua: What do you use?

John: Oh, that's right --
I can't use that foreskin.

Bill: I don't know.
Have you been to the Ritz Carlton? But --

[ Laughter ]

But I --

[ Laughter ]

I hate to beat a dead horse, and --

[ Laughter ]

--
use that phrase.

Kirby: If you're gonna beat a dead horse, beat it at home in the privacy of your bedroom.

Bill: But wait a second.

Kirby: Or bathroom.

Bill: You're in public, you have to do private things.
That's why we have restrooms with stalls.

Molly: To use the bathroom, not to [ bleep ].

Kirby: To go to the bathroom in waste disposal, not --

Bill: But you're putting that on it.
Why are you putting this Puritanical thing over it?

Molly: What Puritanical thing?

Bill: What is this stick up your ass about someone in a restroom, behind a stall? What do you care what anyone else is doing? Your kids would never be --

Kirby: I don't care what he does in his private bedroom.

Bill: You're worried that your kids are gonna walk into a restroom and be prying into the stall?

Joshua: Yes.

Kirby: That's not the issue.

Molly: That's not the issue.

Kirby: The issue's the public restroom.

John: It's my --

Kirby: He wants to [ bleep ], do it in his house, I wouldn't care, he wouldn't get --
he wouldn't have gotten arrested in his house, would he?

John: I'd like to know why --

[ Talking over each other ]

I'd like to know why there were two police officers to follow him in.

Kirby: --
a different issue than whether or not public restrooms should be used for public masturbation.

Bill: It's the Puritanical strain --

Kirby: Yeah, right.

Bill: It's the war on sex.
We've had the war on drugs, we've been fighting the war on sex for years.

Molly: I don't think it's that at all.

Kirby: It is not that at all.

John: Hands off my willy --

Bill: Of course, guys never say it's that.
That's what they said in impeachment --
"It was about lying." It wasn't about lying, it was about Clinton having sex and --

Kirby: Bill, that has nothing to do with the proper use of a public restroom.
No one would have bothered him at home if he had done it 14 times.
Who cares?

Bill: You know what?

Kirby: That's something you do in the privacy of your home.

Bill: In Texas, two guys are on trial for having homosexual sex in the privacy of their own home, so don't tell me it doesn't happen.

Molly: That's very different, very different.

Kirby: You have not asked me to defend that law, and that law isn't an issue here.
What's at issue is what's done in a public restroom.
You want to talk about that law? Let's talk about that law.

Molly: Yeah, let's talk about it.

Bill: Okay, after this.

Joshua: Okay.

[ Applause ]

Announcer: Join us tomorrow, when our guests will be the "Relic Hunter," Tia Carrere, host of "Hollywood Squares" Tom Bergeron, from "Tomcats," Jake Busey and family activist Nancy Schaefer.

Bill: Last night, the state of California executed its first prisoner in a year.
And let me tell you, it was not easy.
They had to connect 4,000 AA batteries just to finish the job.

[ Laughter ]


[ Applause ]

All right.
Talking about people's rights.
There's a story that caught my eye on the news, because as a comedian playing at comedy clubs my whole life, a deaf woman in Ohio has complained to the civil rights commission in that state that she feels she was discriminated against because at the comedy club, they would not provide an interpreter.

Kirby: Is this another ADA case? She's complaining under the ADA? Americans with Disabilities Act?

Bill: I guess it is ADA.
I'm not sure, but she said, you know, she wants to enjoy a comedy show, and therefore, the club and --
the club said, "Look, we'll go broke if we had to provide an interpreter every time somebody who was deaf came in here."

Molly: What, broke on 60 bucks?

Bill: Well, but, I guess --
why, is that what an interpreter costs?

Molly: 60 bucks, you're gonna go broke?

Kirby: Well, one for each time.
I think the law calls for reasonable accommodation, and I think you can push accommodation beyond reason, and I think having individual interpreters, things like that, for some clubs can be beyond reason.

Bill: Yeah.

Kirby: And the ADA --

Molly: But if there's enough notice in advance --

Joshua: What about certain days of the week or certain days out of the month where comedy clubs can do that?

Molly: Yeah, like what about notice in advance that they're gonna come in? I do think that even if you're deaf or you're in a wheelchair, you still should be able to enjoy a comedy show.

John: It's a matter of economics.
It's a matter of economics.
And you think it's uneconomical for a club to run that with interpreters.

Molly: You would think differently if you were deaf, though.

John: Would you like 15 different language interpreters there, also? You know, you've got to play sensible, and majority sometimes does actually have to rule.
Because we can hear, we shouldn't have to have endless translators.

[ Applause ]

And I'm sorry, but that liberal thinking can sometimes be completely logical.

Molly: If you were deaf, you wouldn't want to go see Bill? You wouldn't want to go see Bill and --

Kirby: Molly, if I was deaf, I wouldn't claim I had the right to go to any club and listen anytime I wanted.

Joshua: But you're not deaf.

[ Talking over each other ]

John: --
right to translate for me.

Molly: I think if there's enough notice in advance that they should be allowed to have an interpreter.

[ Talking over each other ]

Any club is gonna go broke over that.

John: Well, it's your cost, not theirs.
I'm just playing fair here.

Kirby: So why don't you bring the interpreter? You could, there's nothing wrong with the deaf --

Joshua: Well, why should you be punished if you're deaf? Why should you be forced to pay more? You're being --

[ Talking over each other ]

Molly: It's just like having exits for wheelchairs.

Kirby: I understand.

Molly: I mean, should I bring my own exit with me?
[ Applause ]

Kirby: --
much more reasonable combination.

John: That's different.

Kirby: Much more reasonable combination.

Molly: Why is that different? But wait, why is that different?

John: When I perform music live, am I to have a musical interpreter every concert I do? "Anarchy!"
[ Laughter ]

Bill: All right, I have to take a little anarchy myself.
We'll be back.

[ Cheers and applause ]


[ Applause ]

Bill: All right, here are your products.
Tomorrow, we have Tia Carrere, Tom Bergeron from "Hollywood Squares," Jake Busey and Nancy Schaefer.

[ Cheers and applause ]