Rush transcript in progress

I am working on a rush transcript of Bill Maher's "New Rules" segment from his HBO Real Time with Bill Maher, and will post it as quickly as I can type. It's gonna blow yer socks off — Democrats and Republicans.

When the transcript is ready, you will find it here. (Until then, you will get a 404 - Page Not Found error page.)

Update:
Oops! My TiVo is set for the West coast time for Bill Maher, so that transcript will take me a couple of hours before I can even start. Ack. I'll give you some of my riff from what I remember.

Bill Maher said that his message to the Democrats is, "Leadership is for closers!" by which he means that we need to make this election about competence. It's not enough that Bush is incompetent, you have to show that you're not just as inept — whether it's at telling a joke or at running a war or at making a budget. Bill gave his responses that Democrats should give to the questions of the day — not "poll-tested winners" but powerful statements of truth. He used terms like "ethnic cleansing" in conjunction with phrases like "New Orleans."

Bill Maher called the Democrats pussies again in tonight's "New Rules," which will be available some time soon on HBO's website. (Currently still shows last week's list.) He called them pussies because, time after time, they just cower and take the abuse from the Republicans. It reminds me of a saying that I had immortalized into a necklace when I was in Prague: "That's Mr. Faggot to you!" The Democrats need to stand up to the Republicans and say, "Hell, yes, we're pussies, and we're liberals and we believe in the Constitution!" As pussies, we can tell you that there comes a point where you can take no more, where you have to stand up, and more and more Americans are realizing that you, Mr. Bush, are a bigger pussy than a thousand Democrats, or even John Kerry.

Alec Baldwin remarked during the show that John Kerry's Presidential aspirations are toast, because the simple reality is that "if you can't deliver the line, you don't use the line." I would add that we have tend to choose our leaders in part on their acting abilities, or at least their ability to project a particular image — Reagan, Schwarzenegger, and Bush (at least by comparison to Kerry or Nader), certainly, but also the whole Kennedy "Camelot" mystique, or the folksy Georgia peanut farmer name of Jimmy — but the current President isn't good at much of anything else. His lack of smarts was one of his selling points — not just for election, but for re-election!

On the flip side, though, it is true that a President does need to be able to act, in both senses of the word. John Kerry couldn't act his way out of a mime's invisible box. Going purely on acting ability, not on any other criterion like sanity or wholesomeness, John Kerry is a worse actor than Mark Foley. He's up there in the league with Rick Santorum and Katherine Harris and George Allen for lack of acting ability. As for John Kerry, the point seems to be that you do need to have some face other than your poker face. Kerry's not a very good liar about a lot of things, like his attempts to appear at ease around people. George W. Bush is a spectacularly good liar. Sometimes, even when I know that what he's saying is 180° from the truth, I still wonder if Bush actually does believe his own lies. I believe that Jack Kingston (R–GA, one of Bill Maher's guests tonight) believes the untruths he speaks, but I don't believe the same of Ken Mehlman (chairman of the RNC). I also believe that Jack Kingston will open his eyes to reality long before Ken Mehlman does.

Anyway, I'll be back some time after midnight, Pacific, with the full text of Bill Maher's remarks, provided to facilitate the immediate and serious discussion of matters of extraordinary importance to the future of our nation.

Technorati tags: Bill Maher