CNN.com - Bill Maher remains 'Politically Incorrect'
| In the Crossfire |
'A clash ... between the Islamic world and the Western world'
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(CNN) -- Comedian Bill Maher defined "Politically Incorrect" as the host of the aptly named late-night talk show on ABC.
His shoot-from-the-lip observations have won him many fans, but his comments about the September 11 attacks helped lead to his show's demise in May.
Maher stepped into the "Crossfire" with hosts Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson to discuss politics and his new book, "When You Ride Alone You Ride With bin Laden" (New Millennium).
CARLSON: I was amazed to see you're one of the few people [who decline to say] the war on terrorism is not a war against Islam. And in your book, you say, "Wrong, it actually, pretty much is a war against Islam." And you don't respect Islam as a religion.
I want to put up on the screen a picture you have in your book ...
MAHER: No, I didn't say exactly that.
CARLSON: OK. Well, let me show you a couple of things you did say. "The real celebrity death match. Religion can be dangerous ... in its drawing of Jesus and Muhammed in the ring." It implies this is a clash of religions. Is it?
MAHER: Yes, I agree. But I did not say I did not respect Islam as a religion. I said I didn't respect religion ... and anyone who believes in fairy tales to answer questions that we can't answer.
So I don't respect our religions either. But I do believe it is a clash of civilizations, absolutely, between the Islamic world and the Western world. [It] has been going on for 1,000 years.
CARLSON: So Islam itself, and I suppose you'd say Christianity and Judaism and environmentalism and all of the other religions, but Islam particularly is the problem. It's not just that the religion has been perverted by wackos. It's intrinsic to the religion. ...
MAHER: I think both things are true. I think it has been perverted by wackos. But yes, I think there is a lot going on in the religion and in the culture. I mean, let's face it. Religions are also cultures.
And you know, all I know is the most popular name for a kid in Pakistan after 9/11 was Osama. So anyone who wants to tell you that this is only a few extremists is just whistling past the graveyard. That's just not true.
BEGALA: Bill, you also take a shot at homeland security. I'm going to put up another picture from the book for our audience to see. It's titled, "Demand real security." And there's a guy who looks an awful lot like Osama bin Laden, just cruising right in presumably to get on the plane while a little old lady is being frisked. And a little boy is having his bag searched.
It's an interesting point, but I hope you're not saying that we should only look at every Arab because if that's the case we would have never gotten Richard Reid, the alleged shoe bomber who was a Brit, or Jose Padilla, who was a Chicano from Chicago or John Walker Lindh, you know, who was a white boy from [California's] Marin County. Right. We've got to look at more than just race, don't we?
MAHER: Yes. Well, that's not what that poster says, and that's not what the book says. What the book says is that we should stop randomness, which is going on at the airport. We need to get Israeli, is the way I would put it. The Israelis have a smart, savvy, what I call the secret service for the people at the airports. That's what we need.
There's another poster in the book that says, "What we need is a secret service for the people." If you look at Secret Service guys, they don't attempt to check everybody in the crowd. They very cleverly scan, knowing a lot of stuff that's in their head. They're part psychiatrist, part detective. And they are looking for clues. They're looking for the bad guys. They know what to look for.
That's what we need to do.
I've had it with being searched at the airport and signing autographs while there is a wand in my pouch.
BEGALA: In fact, you know, I used to work with a lot of those guys in the Secret Service.
And I think you're right about their techniques. But it's really expensive. ... Israel can do it because they have a tiny country. We have tens of thousands of flights every day.
What you're talking about in a Secret Service model is highly educated, college-educated men and women who risk their lives in order to protect other people's lives, not just kind of waving a wand over a bag.
MAHER: Absolutely, because one of them could do the work that 10 of these people are probably doing now. If you paid -- I think I quote this in the book -- if you paid 10,000 people $100,000 each, that's $1 billion. If we can't find $1 billion, I mean, give me a break. The Pentagon spends that before lunch, and they don't even know on what.
We spend more than that combating the boll weevil. A billion dollars is not a lot. We could have a 10,000-man/woman force of really smart people.
But let me explain to people why they're seeing pictures. This book is an attempt to sort of do the propaganda posters that our country used to do, as in World War II, for the war on terror.
So that's why we have posters in the book, along with the essays.
CARLSON: And the book does live up to your billing, I think, to a large extent. You do take politically incorrect positions. As you just said, you're for racial profiling.
MAHER: Right.
CARLSON: You think Islam is evil ...
MAHER: No, no, you keep saying ...
CARLSON: Anyway, it's politically incorrect.
MAHER: I said I didn't respect religion. ...
BEGALA: Let me ask you about something that actually will be in the paper -- and get your take on it.
[Former Secretary of State] Henry Kissinger [is] to look into what really happened on 9/11. Good idea or bad?
MAHER: You know, first of all, I don't really think this big idea of a commission to look into 9/11 is the most necessary thing we have to do. I don't think it's a big mystery, like it's a mystery about the Kennedy assassination. It's not a mystery to me what happened with 9/11.
These guys are out there. We knew they were out there. It was a failure of will on our part to address the situation 10 years before.
There is no big mystery about it. But I do think it should be noted that the Bush administration did not have a meeting on terrorism until after 9/11. And in the previous administration, [they] had them every week.
CARLSON: And a lot of good they did.
BEGALA: Absolutely true. They prevented terrorist attacks on the millennium.
CARLSON: We have a question from our audience for you, Bill.
DAN MILLER: Hey, Bill. I'm Dan Miller from Washington, D.C. I've been a longtime fan. My question for you is -- to battle the right-wing conspiracy in Al Gore's words, in the media, why not run for office yourself?
MAHER: Well, I could never run for office because I believe things such as religion is something I don't respect. Can you imagine trying to win office in this country on a platform of religion is bad, marijuana is good, and babies are disgusting?
I mean, those are some of my beliefs. You know, I wouldn't get 3 percent of the vote.
BEGALA: You'd get about 1 [percent] though, Bill. ...
CARLSON: [You must] find it tough to even find a wife with those beliefs, I imagine.
MAHER: I'm not looking for one.
CARLSON: I know you're not. I'm just kidding.
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