preach it, bill

a co-worker asked me to watch the season finale for former senator alan simpson's meltdown, but i have to say that bill maher's closing monologue blew me away.

listen to it (the loudest laugh you hear at the beginning and towards the end is andrew sullivan's), or continue reading for the transcript.

from real time with bill maher, november 5, 2004:

i'm sorry.  i'm sorry, i almost forgot:  this is the time of healing, the time when blue states and red states come together because we have so much to offer each other.  spice-rack, meet gun-rack. picky-about-bottled-water, say hello to drinks-from-a-garden-hose.  bought-an-antique-nightstand-from-an-estate-sale, meet uses-the-giant-wooden-spool-he-stole-from-the-phone-company-as-a-coffee-table.

oh, sorry.  there i go again:  kidding when i should be healing.

hey, say what you will about the republicans, but they do stand for something — armageddon, but it's something.

democrats, on the other hand, have been coasting for years on tom daschle's charisma, but that's not enough anymore.  democrats will never win another election if they keep trying to siphon off votes from the republicans.  they will only win by creating a lot more democrats, and you don't do that by trying to leech on to issues that you should be denouncing:  you wind up in a goose-hunting outfit a week before the election trying to appeal to guys who would sooner vote for the goose — guys who, even in down-to-earth, economically-ailing ohio thought blowjobs more important than job-jobs.  hey, these folks aren't "undecideds," they're not "in play."

no, what the democrats need are fresh new ideas that are dumb and hateful enough to win these people over.  you know, stuff like, uh, no drinking on christmas.  or how about a constitutional amendment protecting the song "god bless america"?  i say, let's put a fetus on the dollar bill!  with reagan!  and you know what country has been asking for an ass-kicking in the worst way?  finland.

yes, democrats need a really really stupid meaningless and utterly symbolic issue — and by "issue," of course, i mean, "thing to hate."

how about this:  an amendment that says people with gerbils are threatening the sanctity of pet ownership, and that, from now on, pet-owning will be defined only as the relationship between a person and his cat or dog. 

now, my opponent may disagree.  that's because he's a fag.

so, democrats and liberals, stop saying you're going to move because bush won.  real liberals should be pledging to stay because bush won.  trust me, you can't get away from bush by moving to france because that's where we're invading next.

Posted by jason at November 8, 2004 11:30 PM