Sooner Be Blue

KING: Are the conventions relevant? Do they mean anything? It's like going to the Super Bowl and you know the winner. Isn't it the same thing?

 

MAHER: Yes, but -- it has morphed into something else which is American people generally don't pay attention to politics very much, certainly not before this time of the year. I do think they're often too dumb to be governed.

 

At least this is a time when the parties can sort of step out and say, "Here's who we are. Here are our people. Here's what we're selling. We packaged it up for you. We're only going to take an hour of your evening, and you can go right back to Howie Mandel or whatever you're watching. And it is your country. We are in bad shape. Just take a look at our wares this year. This is our fall line. We've got health care. We've got this. We've got that. These are the people we're putting up there who we think represent us best."

 

You know, there is something to that. To just -- you know, people in this country need you to package it and put a bow on it and make a pageant out of it. And I'm sure if they could get them in swimsuits they would, but yes, I do think there is a value to that.

 

KING: Email question from Mike in San Francisco: "I'm always puzzled by undecided voters. I think it's more appropriate to call a lot of them unhappy with the choices. Do you believe the time is right to move beyond Republicans and Democrats and have a truly multiparty system?"

 

MAHER: Sure. But it's probably not going to lap in our lifetime. A multi -- you know, every time a third party has tried in this country, it's absorbed by one of the other two parties. Because we don't have a parliamentary system. If we had a parliamentary system, that affords many parties. You know, it's probably a better system, but can you imagine taking on the U.S. Constitution and trying to get away with that?

 

KING: Email question from Linda in Nebraska: "what's your opinion of the so-called stimulus package that Congress passed? Any clue about what or whom it actually stimulated?"

 

MAHER: I read that the only industry that got a spike was online porn. Seriously, people got their stimulus checks and got to stimulating themselves rather quickly. But I find it sleazy, you know, that the government bribes people. Every time there's a problem, what did Bush say after 9/11? Go shopping...Now we find ourselves in a recession and the answer is here's 600 dollars. It's sleazy. Here's some cash. Do whatever you want with it.

 

KING: Both parties favored it.

 

MAHER: Both parties favor almost everything. This is my problem. Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama have come down now at least wishy washy on oil drilling...they're not opposing it. Again, where is my champion? Where is the Democrat who would have stood up and said, you know what? Even oil people get it, that offshore drilling is not the answer. It's not even a short-term answer and it's not a long-term answer. It's a lose-lose. And yet two thirds of the people in this country were convinced somehow that this is going to lower our gas prices in the short term and they're for it.

 

This is what I mean about being too dumb to be governed. A politician can't be that much better than the people. The people have to look in the mirror. Yes, the leaders are bad, because the people almost demand it of them.

 

KING: How do you compare McCain to Bush?

 

MAHER: ...It's hard to say. It's hard to imagine a president being worse than Bush. But I could see McCain pulling it off. I don't know. McCain is a real hard one to figure, because he could get into office and revert to the maverick McCain that we used to like. He could. He could say, you know what? I had to do a lot of stuff I didn't like to get to this spot, which every politician has to do. But now I'm here. You can't touch me. I'm not going to run again, perhaps. I'm just going to do it my way. And, you know, he can be better on a lot of issues than Bush.

 

But on issues like Iraq he's not. He doesn't get the most fundamental thing about this war, that it is our presence in that country that is the problem. He's OK with leaving troops in Iraq for a hundred years. He said this. He said, look, we have troops in Germany and Japan and South Korea. Yes, but they're not Muslim countries. What irks Muslims is just our presence there. As long as we have troops in the heart of the Middle East, there will always be terrorist planners trying to kill us, young, Muslim men who want to kill us for being there.

 

So on that level, alone, I can't say he's better than Bush.

 

[animal protection movement in the U.S.]
MAHER: ... this is an issue that's hardly on the radar of presidential candidates.

 

KING: Has not come up in a debate.

 

MAHER: Please, I mean, animals don't vote. They forgot about poor people, let alone animals. Anyone who doesn't have a vote, forget about it. Children. Why are old people taken care of so well economically in America and children not? Because old people vote.

 

[T. Boone Pickens... against oil addiction, in favor of wind power]

 

MAHER: Right, we're trying to get him on our show. I would love to talk to him. And that shows you where we are. When an 80-year- old oil man has to show the government the way. You know, this guy gets it. You know, I hate to be despairing. But, again, when I hear two thirds of Americans are for oil drilling, oil drilling which is not going to improve anything at all...

 

KING: A great writer, Philip Reilly, told me once in an interview that when you talk to man about generations not yet born, it goes in one ear and out the other. He ain't thinking about generations not yet born. It's take care of me now.

 

MAHER: Yes. But people don't seem to be able to make rational decisions. Like I'm  not always on the side that liberals are on. I'm for nuclear power. I think McCain is also. And I know a lot of people hate this. Bill, what about the waste. Yes, not everything can be a win-win situation. There are problems. But we are definitely killing ourselves with fossil fuels.

 

France has had nuclear power for decades without an accident. And in this country they want to bury it at the bottom of a mountain.