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Susan was on "Politcally Incorrect" with Bill Maher on Friday, August 21st. She wasn't as bad as Cindy Brady on "Quiz the Kids," but as you'll see from the transcript she didn't have much to say. Maybe there was a little red light.
August 21st, 1998
Guests on this program were:
David Alan Grier
Susan Olsen
G. Gordon Liddy
John Malkovich
Bill's Opening
"Bill Clinton": There you are, Buddy. It looks like it's just you and me again.
[ Laughter ]
Have any of those Snausages over there?
[ Cheers and applause ]
Bill: Oh, great.
Another night with Bubba.
When he gets the dog house, I get the lawn.
[ Laughter ]
I'm not staying in there.
He's gassy.
[ Laughter ]
And then who always gets the blame?
Me.
I don't mean to complain, but you know, just a few months ago, I was the
one on the president's lap with my tongue hanging out.
[ Laughter ]
[ Applause ]
Hey, don't get me wrong, people --
[ Laughter ]
I like chasing tail as much as the next dog, but --
[ Laughter ]
-- someone's got to turn a hose on this guy.
[ Laughter ]
[ Applause ]
I thought I was a hound.
Woo!
But who am I to judge?
I can lick myself.
[ Laughter ]
Not that this job is easy, First Dog, 'cause let me tell you, it isn't.
Every time he gets himself in a jam, I have to be extra-cute.
Either that or, you know, we bomb some Arabs.
[ Laughter ]
No, no, don't get me wrong.
He's a great guy.
Take it from me.
If everyone in this country could be cuddled by Bill Clinton, and, you know, if this Lewinsky thing hadn't hit the fan, everyone would have.
[ Laughter ]
I kid.
Seriously, he's a nice man.
And, you know, I understand --
[ Laughter ]
I understand his problem.
I went out with someone from Washington once.
You know what happened?
The bitch set me up.
[ Laughter ]
[ Applause ]
Please.
Thank you.
Thank you.
You're a beautiful crowd.
But I'm just saying it's unfair, because everyone knows, humping someone's
leg is not technically sex.
[ Laughter ]
But, hey, that's Washington for you.
All anyone cares about in that town is where the top dog is burying his bone.
[ Laughter ]
When we should be worrying about the important issues, like poodles in the military.
[ Laughter ]
And a national apology for only pretending to throw the ball.
[ Laughter ]
And making sure there's safe, clean drinking water in our toilets.
Well, I better get some shut-eye.
I gotta -- I gotta be alert tomorrow in case you know who starts throwing
stuff around the house again.
[ Scattered laughter ]
Boy, I'm the last friend this guy's got left.
[ Laughter ]
Go figure.
The dog's the only one who didn't roll over on him.
Panel Discussion
Bill: All righty.
Let us meet our panel.
He's a big-deal actor, comedian and "In Living Color" alumnus -- David Alan
Grier.
Yes, sir.
[ Cheers and applause ]
David, how are you?
Good to see you again.
She's an accomplished actress, and you and everyone
else on Earth know her as the original Cindy Brady --
Susan Olsen.
[ Cheers and applause ]
Hey, Susan, pleasure to meet you.
Susan: Good to meet you.
Bill: Thank you for coming.
Author, talk show host and former Nixon operative.
Imagine waking up every morning and being G. Gordon Liddy!
[ Cheers and applause ]
Gordon, good to see you, as always.
Thank you.
His recent films include "The Man in the Iron Mask" and "Con Air."
His next are "Rounders" and "Joan of Arc" -- John Malkovich.
[ Cheers and applause ]
John, great to have you back.
Thank you.
Okay.
Well --
Gordon: I just want to point out --
Bill: Yes, sir?
Gordon: That there's some similarity between Mr. Malkovich and myself.
During the '80s, as you know, on "Miami Vice" and things like that, I played
villains.
Now, the distinction is that when he plays a villain, he has to act.
Bill: Right.
Gordon: I never had to.
Bill: And you are a true nut.
[ Laughter ]
Gordon: Genuine --
Bill: Right, exactly.
But you are loyal.
And that is what I want to talk about.
That's why we did this sketch for you today.
Because I played Buddy the dog, and dogs are loyal.
I'm not making a comparison here.
I'm just saying, I have heard some of the comments coming out of Clinton's
people --
John: But if you want to bark, go ahead.
[ Barks ]
Bill: Leon Panetta said, "If a woman wanted to ride with him in the limo,
we took steps to make sure it didn't happen."
That's loyalty to say a thing like that?
Why didn't he just say, "Hey, I didn't see her"?
John: That's not babe magnet behavior, really.
Bill: I find it completely inappropriate that a guy who was brought to the
White House by the president would say that.
George Stephanopoulos, "The president is probably not telling the whole
truth."
Dee Dee Myers -- it goes down the list.
Now, it seems to me in your day, with your president, loyalty was at a premium.
Gordon: Well, yes, it was, but remember, we got -- we gave loyalty up.
We got loyalty back down.
And that continued until the president's death.
He would write me nice letters and things.
He was very, very loyal to me and I was very, very loyal to him.
Bill: Do you think it's this president who's not loyal?
Gordon: I think the distinction -- yeah, he took these people out there and
he said, "I didn't do it," or whatever.
And they go out there and they put their reputations and their word on the
line.
Bill: What did Nixon do?
Gordon: And indeed, they expended large amounts of money for their own lawyers and things like that, and then he left them out there hanging.
Bill: Well, so did Nixon.
David: I think nobody wants to be subpoenaed.
That's why they're all, like, running --
Susan: No, they all want to write books.
Bill: Nixon didn't deny what he was doing all the time while his people were
being sent up the river?
Of course he did.
He threw Haldeman and Ehrlichman to the -- yeah, of course, he did.
You went to jail.
Gordon: Nixon did fire some people and I went to jail.
But I mean, I went to jail willingly for Nixon, and Nixon was never disloyal
to me.
David: Yeah, though, times have obviously changed, okay?
'Cause I wouldn't go to jail for you.
[ Laughter ]
Seriously, don't you think the times have changed?
I mean, I don't --
Bill: I do.
David: I just think everybody's so eager to sell the next person out at the
drop of a hat.
I just think it's the times more than anything else.
Gordon: Wait a minute.
What's changed?
John Dean sold out Richard Nixon.
Bill: That was one.
Gordon: That's all it took.
Susan: But quality is like loyalty.
I mean, these characteristics of what we used to think of as a good person
are just not valued as much anymore.
And I don't know why that is, but it is.
David: Well, I have to say what you really said in the green room, and which
was totally different -- no, I'm just kidding.
See, it was disloyalty there.
Gordon: But don't you think maybe --
[ Laughter ]
Don't you think maybe a good person would attract good people?
Susan: Well, yeah.
David: So you're saying that Clinton's not a good person?
Gordon: Well, look at the difference.
I mean, okay, Clinton has set the people to go and fight in Sudan and
Afghanistan.
George Bush could have and would have and did fly the plane himself.
Bill Clinton -- no way.
Bill: George Bush was in World War II.
David: That's ridiculous.
Bill: Clinton wasn't born in World War II.
David: But hold on.
Because he can't fly the plane means he's not a good leader?
Gordon: He wouldn't fly the plane.
Bill: Right.
I agree with you there.
He didn't go and he should have.
[ Applause ]
David: You're saying he should have gone.
Why should he have gone?
You're talking about Vietnam.
John: Do you think he'd fly it if Kelly Flynn was his co-pilot?
[ Laughter ]
Gordon: I think he'd be a member of the mile-high club.
David: Well, wait a minute.
You're saying that he should have gone to Vietnam if he were an American.
Bill: Well, if you're an American and they call you, you gotta go.
David: Well, I totally disagree.
Susan: Me, too.
David: I mean, what if you don't -- what if you don't believe in what they want you to fight for?
Bill: Then you don't have much of a country left if the citizens start deciding --
Gordon: Go see "Saving Private Ryan."
David: I saw it.
That was an easy war -- Nazis are bad, everybody else is good.
[ Laughter ]
Vietnam was a little different.
You couldn't even see them.
They were, you know, they were in the bushes and stuff.
[ Applause ]
Gordon: There are no easy wars.
All wars are small unit actions.
They aren't easy.
Bill: And if you let the citizens decide each individually, "Well, you know, I don't think this is such a good thing to go to" --
David: But citizens decide every day.
And it's a reflection of the leaders that we have if every citizen goes,
"No, I think you're full of [ bleep ], I'm going to stay home."
You know, I think it's a reflection of the leadership that we have, you know,
in terms of when you have a war, who's gonna go and fight it. I mean,
a lot of people wanted to go to the Gulf.
On the show that I was doing, there were a lot of young kids, younger than
me, saying, "I couldn't -- I wish I could go over there and fight." And I'm
looking at them going, "Do you know what war is?"
Bill: That's because they were fighting an enemy that was surrendering to the CBS News crew.
[ Laughter ]
David: As a matter of fact, I wanted to fight.
Bill: I have to take a commercial. We'll come back.
Bill: All right. Let's change the subject a bit.
Talk about someone, Gordon, I'm sure you have brought up many times on your
radio show, Eric Rudolph, is his name, right? The guy who's the alleged bomber
of the Olympics and also of the abortion clinics.
He's hiding out in these caves in North Carolina.
The FBI's been looking for him for months. Can't find him.
Now comes Bo Gritz, you know this guy, who --
[ Laughter ]
John: Well, if they can't find him, couldn't they just arrest Richard Jewell again?
[ Laughter ]
David: Not if his mom has anything to say about it.
[ Applause ]
Bill: Right. Exactly.
So Bo Gritz, who's like this paramilitary dude, he wants to find -- he's
got a whole cadre out there -- and they're going to find this guy, this abortion
clinic bomber.
And they're going to get the $1 million reward from the FBI and give it to
Eric Rudolph's family.
Now, isn't that wrong?
David: No, I don't think. It's a pretty good deal.
Because it's obviously the FBI's never gonna find him.
All they'll put him on trial, and all he's gonna get is a good lawyer.
Gordon: But first of all, these are the same people who had no difficulty at all in wiping out, what, two dozen women and children down there at Waco, but they can't find this fellow in the woods.
Now, these -- when you save it --
David: They didn't wipe out 22 children in Waco.
The fire was started within the compound.
They didn't start that fire.
Bill: Well --
Gordon: No, they didn't start the fire. They started the fire
All you have to do is see the fleer movies.
Bill: Yeah.
I think they started the fire, but Waco is not the Alamo.
[ Laughter ]
David: Well, to him it was.
Gordon: No, but those women and children --
John: Remember the Waco?
Gordon: Now, the way you rescue hostages is not to kill them.
You don't use a poison gas.
John: It's one way.
[ Laughter ]
Gordon: You don't use a poison gas that we will not be allowed to use against
the people in Afghanistan.
But the other point I want to make is, you're saying it's terrible to have,
in effect, the government paying for the defense of a defendant.
Well, right here in Los Angeles county, you have probably some of the best defense lawyers who are in the business and they are in the public defender's office.
I know because I used them back when I was here in the Terminal Island
Prison.
They are really good.
Bill: You're kidding.
These are the guys that couldn't get O.J. convicted.
David: Hold on, Bill --
John: I have a question.
Gordon: These are the public defenders.
Defenders.
Bill: Oh, I see.
David: G. Gordon -- can I call you that, G. Gordon?
[ Laughter ]
What does the "G" stand for?
Gordon: George.
David: George, okay, so there, I know. Thanks a lot.
[ Laughter ]
Sorry. Sorry.
I wanted to know.
I did, you know.
G. Gordon.
Gordon: Just don't call me John Dean.
That will get you dead.
David: How many people have you killed?
Have you ever killed anyone really?
Gordon: The big "S" you see up here is not for simple.
David: Ah, what does that mean?
Gordon: There's no statute of limitations on that kind of activity.
David: You're a murderer, are you?
Gordon: I'm anything you want me to be.
David: I call you a black man.
[ Laughter and applause ]
Bill: All right.
I got to take another commercial.
I don't know what any of that meant.
Bill: All right.
Well, Gordon, you'll be remiss not to mention Watergate since it is so much
in the news with the current scandal.
And Woodward and Bernstein, who I hear don't really like each other, but
they got together to make a comment on this.
And they said basically -- I'll just -- I won't read all the quotes, but
they said basically Nixon authorized a police state. Now 25 years later,
the issue turns not on something of that magnitude, but a dress.
Isn't that right?
That what Watergate was about was something really big.
And this is about some --
Susan: Absolutely.
Gordon: Well, the first article of impeachment that was approved by the House of Representatives against Richard Nixon read, "He has caused statements to be made, calculated to deceive the American people."
Bill: About running the government, not about getting sex.
Gordon: I didn't say about -- I didn't say about --
Bill: But about matters, does it not?
Susan: Perjury is a high crime, of course.
You know, it's a terrible thing to do.
But why was he in a position to have to perjure himself?
Why was this being investigated?
This is a part of his private life.
We certainly -- everybody looked the other way when J.F.K. was doing whatever
the heck he wanted to do.
Gordon: The reason it was being investigated --
[ Applause ]
The reason it was being investigated was that he chose to perjure himself
in a civil suit.
Now, there's no distinction really to be made of the laws, whether you perjure
yourself in a civil suit or before a grand jury, but the Congress, I think,
will make a big distinction about that.
And it now appears that he did perjure himself before the grand jury.
Bill: Well, there should be a distinction and there is a distinction about what you're lying about.
Gordon: If it is found, as I believe it will be found by the grand jury, that he perjured himself before the grand jury, that is material.
Bill: Nixon, as they pointed out, used the FBI and the CIA to break into
people's homes and office.
He wiretapped them.
He opened their mail.
That seems to be very different than a consensual sexual tryst.
John: Well, he wasn't getting any sex, so --
[ Laughter ]
That's apparently, if these numbers are right, that's a lot of spare time.
[ Laughter ]
Wasn't there just a year or two ago a book about what was really being sought after was an address book?
Gordon: No.
I know what you're speaking of.
You're speaking of the book "Silent Coup," which was accurate, because there
was sex involved in Watergate.
What they were after was --
John: John Dean's hooker address book, no?
Gordon: What it was was John Dean, prior to his marriage to Maureen, when
she wasn't shacked up with him, she was his paramour. She was the roommate
of the madam of a house of prostitution, a call girl ring that was located
in the Columbia Plaza Apartments, which is right across the street from the
Watergate.
And so what Watergate was really directed toward was to wiretap the phone
in which persons over there were making assignments for visiting firemen,
so to speak.
|They would be photographed doing --
John: That was my example.
Bill: That's what they call it?
Gordon: Uh-huh.
[ Laughter ]
John: In Spain, it's called "finishing Manuel."
And in Bangkok, it's called the "big tie."
David: And in my community, it's called "knocking boots."
Bill: And Clinton calls it "knighting a peasant."
Anyway --
John: But that's very interesting in that -- in that this speaks to an issue
-- I mean, forget Clinton, forget Nixon.
Take Martin Luther King.
Of which many of the same charges have been made and of which we would find
that there is "some truth" to some of these charges.
David: They weren't known publicly at the time.
Bill: No.
John: That's my point.
But even if they were, does that -- and he was a preacher -- does that remove him from a place where I would easily place him, as the moral leader of this century?
No, it does not.
In fact, there was a whole book written about Martin Luther King, called, "Bearing the Cross," which goes a fairly long distance in saying that what really happened to him is he would have been quite happy to die because he was getting very close to being exposed.
David: Right.
John: And had that happened, everything that made him a truly epic and great man would have been destroyed. He would have been forever associated -- you know, we would have gone --
David: I totally agree with you.
John: We would've gone Hugh Grant, Bill Clinton, Martin Luther King.
They all liked sex.
David: Here's my point though.
If you know the rules, if you know that if you behave in this manner, people
are gonna talk about you on national television, there comes a point where
you need to go, "My legacy or my nut.
My legacy or my nut."
[ Laughter ]
That's all I'm saying.
[ Applause ]
John: But -- isn't the debate in the end about -- and this is something that
I've been intensely proud of, a certain segment of the American people.
Even though I can't -- I don't consider myself either a liberal or a democrat
or a Clinton supporter particularly at all, but we -- people have said, "We
don't care about this no matter how you shove it down our throat."
[ Applause ]
And that -- that, I think, is a good thing, because there should be some
room for privacy in public life.
There should be.
Bill: That's what he asked for.
John: There should be some areas of --
Bill: In his speech.
John: -- private dignity that should be left unturned.
And I think, if anything, this debate could hope to speed ahead, it would
be a return to that.
Although with the media being like it is, I can't imagine that could ever
happen.
Gordon: Could I just disagree with one thing you said?
And you say, you know, we don't really know that much about Bill Clinton.
Well, we know that he was a coward during the Vietnam War.
We know he lied about it.
Bill: I'm a coward, but I have to take a commercial.
Announcer: Join us Monday when our guests will be Joe Mantegna, Cloris Leachman, Christopher "Kid" Reid and Sheila Maloney.
[ Applause ]
Bill: Yeah.
I cut you off, young lady.
I'm so sorry.
Go ahead.
Susan: Well, I just wanted to say, I don't -- I just
don't get it.
I don't understand why there's been such a huge effort to make the leader
of our country look like a fool to the rest of the world. I think that weakens
us as a country --
Bill: Spite.
Susan: -- to talk about impeachment.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher
Executive Producers
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Bill Maher
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Senior Producer
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Created By
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Writing Supervised By
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Writers
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Bill Maher
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