Monday, Nov. 13, 2006 | 7:34 a.m.
What: The Comedy Festival
When: Tuesday through Saturday
Where: Caesars Palace
Complete schedule: thecomedyfestival.com, harrahs.com, vegas.com
Tickets: $45-$300; (877) 823-3378, www.ticketmaster.com
Bill Maher, gadfly, political pundit and TV star, comes to Las Vegas next week for "The Comedy Festival" at Caesars Palace.
One of a long list of comedians who'll be in town for the weeklong festival, Maher is scheduled to appear 10:30 p.m. Thursday in the Colosseum. The Sun recently caught up with the host of HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher," and he spoke his mind about a variety of topics.
About a 700-mile fence to keep out illegal aliens
It's 1,300 miles short, is the first thing that comes to mind. It's like making fishnet condoms. And also, it's not funded, so it kind of works out because it's such a stupid idea it shouldn't be funded. But as an election-year issue, I guess they're hoped it would work for them.
About North Korea
North Korean President Kim Jong Il is a guy who obviously, like Saddam Hussein, is not a good guy - one we wish didn't exist. But you have to talk to people like that. You know, George Bush has sort of a sixth-grade view of the world. He has a list of people he likes - like Tony Blair and Vladimir Putin - and then he has a list of people he's just not talking to. "I don't like you, so I don't talk to you." That, of course, is the opposite of how you conduct foreign policy. As his own consigliere (counselor) James Baker said recently, "Negotiation is not appeasement." It's the people who you don't like that you have to talk to. Anyone can talk to the people they like.
This "Axis of Evil" Bush identified in 2002 - Iran, Iraq, North Korea - can anyone objectively look at any of those three countries and not come up with the same conclusion, which is that all of them are a much greater threat now than they were when George Bush made that comment?
About Kim Jong Il
He's not insane. Saddam Hussein isn't insane, either. There's a difference between being insane and being a huge (expletive deleted). These people are ruthless. They don't care about human life. But they want to hold onto their power. The people who I worry about are the people like Osama bin Laden who are religious fanatics and don't mind giving up their own life. Saddam Hussein doesn't want to give up his life. He didn't want his Viagra supply interrupted. Kim Jong Il doesn't want his porn supply interrupted. He doesn't want to give up his life. You can deal with people who want to hold onto power and their lives.
About health care
Why it wasn't a bigger campaign issue I don't understand. We pay more than any other country, but are satisfied less. I know Hillary Clinton was the evil, lesbian communist back in '94 who wanted to reform health care - and maybe her plan was not perfect in every way. But looking back on that situation, wouldn't it have been better, rather than trying to destroy the Clintons over that issue, that they worked with them and came up with something? At least it was a start. Certainly it wasn't going to be worse than what we have now.
About becoming a comedian steeped in politics
It goes back to childhood, really. My father was a news guy. He was a radio news guy back in the old days when every radio station in the country had on-the-hour news at the top of the hour, a whole staff of newsmen. So it was always in my household. I think most American households don't talk politics at the dinner table, if they even eat dinner together. But we did. It was more like a European household in that regard. So it was always something that was of interest to me. I think my father would have loved to have seen what I wound up doing because he was funny - a funny guy - and he was a news guy, and I wound up combining those two things.
About the country's direction
I would agree with most of the country that we are terribly, terribly off course, and whether we can correct it - whether even a Democratic Congress will correct it - I don't know. That's very much an open question.
About the country's economy
If I had one question to ask that administration directly, it would be, "Who is going to pay for all this? Not just the tax cuts, but the war?" This war, by a recent estimate, is going to cost between $1 trillion and $2 trillion. It's costing $10,000 a minute, this war. And it's all money we're borrowing from the Chinese. We don't really have tax cuts. We can't have a deficit and tax cuts at the same time. We're borrowing money in order to cut taxes, but somewhere along the line someone has to pay for this eventually.
About "The Comedy Festival"
I'm doing my stand-up. They are going to laugh their (expletive deleted) off. It's everything. I think I cover the waterfront. All the things that I think have a weight to them. I'm not interested in the trivial.
About his comedy
When you see my stand-up act, it's not all politics. But I don't do jokes I think are trivial. I don't do little, "Hey, did you every notice that your shoes have (expletive deleted) on them?"
Seinfeld does it brilliantly, but that's just not what I do. When I was younger, of course, attempting to talk about weighty issues didn't work as well because you just don't have the gravitas. When you're 24 years old and you're saying to the audience what you think is going on in the country, it just doesn't translate as well.
On running for office
I could never run. On any given night there's 10 things that any politician could pick out of any show I've ever done and kill me in an attack ad. I think religion is bad and drugs are good. Try to win a race with that platform.
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