Posted on 02/05/2003 9:49:43 AM PST by TLBSHOW
More Dennis Miller, Praising Bush and Zinging Liberals
More from Dennis Miller, the very un-liberal Hollywood-like actor/comedian/former Monday Night Football commentator. Following up on his Wednesday night appearance on NBC's Tonight Show where he praised Bush's Iraq policy and made fun of the French, the Germans and the ACLU, Miller showed up Friday night on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews.
Noting how his detractors claim he's “pro-war,” he picked up on how those in favor of abortion being legal deny they are “pro-abortion” and suggested: “I would encourage some of those folks to not think of this as a war, but just think that we’ve chosen to abort Hussein.”
Miller reaffirmed how he trusts President Bush to do what is right and told Matthews that he voted for Bush after leaving the Democratic fold because of how “strident” liberals had become, especially in their opposition to school vouchers.
On Bill Clinton, he cracked: “Clinton’s the sort of guy who’ll always volunteer to help you move, then when you’ve got four of ya picking up the sofa, he’s the one who’ll fake lifting.”
As for a John Edwards presidency, Miller worried: “I think lawyers are screwing this country up, and I’m afraid that if Edwards gets in there, he might just end up suing other countries. 'Mr. Hussein, you have been served!'”
Below are fuller quotes of what was just recited followed by links to earlier CyberAlert articles quoting Miller.
MRC analyst Geoffrey Dickens corrected the transcript against the tape and provided some highlights from the January 31 Hardball:
-- Matthews: “I don't think I have to slow the pitch down for you one bit, Dennis Miller. You are one sharp, smart guy who’s in touch with America. You are with George Bush, why, completely with the President, no matter how he decides, you said to me, before we went on the air.” Miller: “Well, listen, you know, that’s why earlier on, the tease was going to be, 'he’s pro-war.’ Now what kind of moron is pro-war? I’m not pro-war any more than I assume most, you know, pro-choice people are for abortion. You know, it’s just a necessary, you know, tough thing in life, but as a matter of fact, I would encourage some of those folks to not think of this as a war, but just think that we’ve chosen to abort Hussein. And I just think that at some point it’s our turn. It’s almost like we're in a card game, and anybody who says that they can’t see that the Taliban or the Al Qaeda and that Iraq would have any affiliation, that seems naive to me.”
-- Miller: “I’ve heard that thing, you know that’s what, I’m getting tired of just hearing this go on and on ad nauseam. It’s time to do something, and you say that you don’t know how can I go in, how I can advocate it if I don't know the numbers. For God’s sake, Chris, all I'm saying is I believe in the man we just saw [Bush soundbite earlier], that he knows more about it than I do. I’m not one of these people who thinks everybody has to tell, especially people in Hollywood, exactly what’s going on. For God’s sake, Hollywood, we can’t keep secrets out there. I know Craig Kilborn’s deal for God’s sake. Why would they want to tell us anything? I'm just saying if he wants to go in, I assume there’s good reason. If he doesn’t want to go in at some point, I assume there’s equally good reason, and I’m just willing to back the President.” Matthews: “When did you develop this 100 percent faith in the President, the new President, that’s only been in office a couple years now?” Miller: “I just think that he seems like a-” Matthews: “When did you first get that glint in your eye about him?” Miller: “Well, you know I’m a humorist, that’s my, I like his sense of humor about himself. I think that he doesn’t take himself as seriously as some people I’ve seen in that office. I do think he’s, as I said earlier, a bit of a humanist. Listen, everybody has different takes on this man. Some people-” Matthews: “Did you vote for him?” Miller: “Yes I did.” Matthews: “First time you voted Republican? I feel like I’m Brian Lamb here.” Miller: “Well, you know, a gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell. I’ll tell you about Bush, but I, you know I-” Matthews: “Are you a lifelong Republican or a lifelong Democrat?” Miller: “I was a lifelong Democrat for a long time.” Matthews: “Did you switch for Bush?” Miller: “Well I switched for other reasons. I began to find the dialogue on the left side of it to be getting a little strident. And I’ll tell you what, school vouchers were a thing for me that didn’t, I just remember thinking, I look at the public school system and it seems so broken, and I thought well, why don’t we try that and when I heard Democrats saying, 'no, no we shouldn’t try that,’ I thought-” Matthews: “Because they’re in bed with the unions.” Miller: “Yeah, well, that seemed, you know that seemed pretty self-serving to me.” Matthews: “That’s the truth.” Miller: “And I thought for God’s sakes we’ve got to do something to solve this, and I began to, you know, look into other sides of the issue.” Matthews: “Did you switch after Clinton or before Clinton? Did you vote for Clinton?” Miller: “No, I was not a Bill Clinton fan. You know I just, you know, to me, Clinton’s the sort of guy who’ll always volunteer to help you move, then when you’ve got four of ya picking up the sofa, he’s the one who’ll fake lifting.” Matthews: “Yeah, that’s pretty good.” Miller: “You know I never got a good, I never good take on that man.” Matthews: “He never follows through on his promises.”
-- Miller: “You act like I come in here like a war general hawk. I’m conceding to you, I’m a Hollywood comedian. I’m just saying though, if I have to trust Bush or trust the other side right now, Bush is in there, and I’m gonna go, 'Okay I’ll have to believe what he’s gonna tell me.’ And if he’s gonna tell me it’s time to go in, that’s all I’m saying as far as this hawkishness that you’re now inferring on me for the rest of my life. But I would say this about Gephardt, I think he obviously has a Dukakis-issian lack of charisma that is gonna keep him from getting it. You know, most politicians are transparent and Gephardt is translucent actually.” Matthews: “What about John Edwards? Give me your take on him. What’s the Hollywood take on him, since you’re now speaking for your community.” Miller: “You know what? I’m intrigued by him only to the extent that Hitchens, who I find to be a tough, tough nut, I mean I believe Chris Hitchens is down on Mother Teresa, for God’s sake and he assures me that the guy’s got stuff, he told me once. And I thought, 'Wow, Chris Hitchens, I’ve never heard that come out of his mouth.'” Matthews: “You’ve never heard romantic ideas from him before.” Miller: “Yeah he’s always scoffing. But I, but I’m afraid that if, I’m not a big lawyer guy. I think lawyers are screwing this country up, and I’m afraid that if Edwards gets in there, he might just end up suing other countries. 'Mr. Hussein, you have been served! If you choose not to show your face-’” Matthews: “Serve him with a subpoena. Process him...”
> Earlier Miller: As recounted in the January 30 CyberAlert, on Wednesday's Tonight Show on NBC Dennis Miller delivered some zingers against opponents of taking on Saddam Hussein militarily. Since 9-11 the actor/comedian has honed his shtick around mocking liberals opposed to President Bush's tough line against terrorism.
Some of his shots on the January 29 Tonight Show with Jay Leno: “Sean Penn, for instance, is urging restraint. What could we possibly say to Sean to get him on board? If only Saddam Hussein was a paparazzi.” (Penn once punched a photographer.) “The only way the French are going in is if we tell them we found truffles in Iraq....The French are always reticent to surrender to the wishes of their friends and always more than willing to surrender to the wishes of their enemies.”
For more, with a picture of Miller: http://www.mediaresearch.org/cyberalerts/2003/cyb20030130.asp#8
Last November on the Tonight Show Miller praised Bush’s anti-terrorism efforts, favored attacking Iraq and juxtaposed the “wocka-wocka porno guitar of the Clinton administration” with how Bush “makes me proud to be an American again. He’s just a decent guy.” See: http://www.mediaresearch.org/cyberalerts/2002/cyb20021108.asp#7
In a June, 2002 Tonight Show appearance Miller mocked liberal orthodoxy: “If you put the Guantanamo Bay terrorist prison outside of Kabul it would be their Epcot.” And: “I say we create a new airline, called the ACLA, the American Civil Liberties Airline where you don’t check anybody, you don’t ask any questions, and let those morons fly on that one.” See: http://www.mediaresearch.org/cyberalerts/2002/cyb20020620.asp#4
And in November of 2001, noting how reporters say “it's the public's need to know about our ground forces being in there,” on the Tonight Show Dennis Miller led the audience in a reprimanding journalists: “We don’t want to know!” Miller also called for oil drilling in Alaska and praised President Bush for ending “the '70s porno guitar of the Clinton administration.” See: http://www.mediaresearch.org/cyberalerts/2001/cyb20011107.asp#7
For Miller's Internet Movie Database page with a rundown of his acting credits: http://us.imdb.com/Name?Miller,+Dennis+(I)
Miller is born-again hard. Redemption can come to the most unlikely of souls.
Maybe he should get his own talk show, or perhaps guest-host for Rush some time. He lays on the arcane references a little thick sometimes, which probably alienates middle-America to an extent, but I like his recent hawkishness. It takes a lot of guts to support Bush when your bread is buttered by Hollywood. I suppose it's prudent to be cynical whenever someone starts supporting conservative causes, but it's still nice to hear.
Miller: “Well, listen, you know, that’s why earlier on, the tease was going to be, 'he’s pro-war.’ Now what kind of moron is pro-war? I’m not pro-war any more than I assume most, you know, pro-choice people are for abortion. You know, it’s just a necessary, you know, tough thing in life, but as a matter of fact, I would encourage some of those folks to not think of this as a war, but just think that we’ve chosen to abort Hussein. And I just think that at some point it’s our turn. It’s almost like we're in a card game, and anybody who says that they can’t see that the Taliban or the Al Qaeda and that Iraq would have any affiliation, that seems naive to me.”
Miller: “I’ve heard that thing, you know that’s what, I’m getting tired of just hearing this go on and on ad nauseam. It’s time to do something, and you say that you don’t know how can I go in, how I can advocate it if I don't know the numbers. For God’s sake, Chris, all I'm saying is I believe in the man we just saw [Bush soundbite earlier], that he knows more about it than I do. I’m not one of these people who thinks everybody has to tell, especially people in Hollywood, exactly what’s going on. For God’s sake, Hollywood, we can’t keep secrets out there. I know Craig Kilborn’s deal for God’s sake. Why would they want to tell us anything? I'm just saying if he wants to go in, I assume there’s good reason. If he doesn’t want to go in at some point, I assume there’s equally good reason, and I’m just willing to back the President.”
Matthews: “When did you develop this 100 percent faith in the President, the new President, that’s only been in office a couple years now?”
Miller: “I just think that he seems like a-”
Matthews: “When did you first get that glint in your eye about him?”
Miller: “Well, you know I’m a humorist, that’s my, I like his sense of humor about himself. I think that he doesn’t take himself as seriously as some people I’ve seen in that office. I do think he’s, as I said earlier, a bit of a humanist. Listen, everybody has different takes on this man. Some people-”
Matthews: “Did you vote for him?”
Miller: “Yes I did.”
Matthews: “First time you voted Republican? I feel like I’m Brian Lamb here.”
Miller: “Well, you know, a gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell. I’ll tell you about Bush, but I, you know I-”
Matthews: “Are you a lifelong Republican or a lifelong Democrat?”
Miller: “I was a lifelong Democrat for a long time.”
Matthews: “Did you switch for Bush?”
Miller: “Well I switched for other reasons. I began to find the dialogue on the left side of it to be getting a little strident. And I’ll tell you what, school vouchers were a thing for me that didn’t, I just remember thinking, I look at the public school system and it seems so broken, and I thought well, why don’t we try that and when I heard Democrats saying, 'no, no we shouldn’t try that,’ I thought-”
Matthews: “Because they’re in bed with the unions.”
Miller: “Yeah, well, that seemed, you know that seemed pretty self-serving to me.”
Matthews: “That’s the truth.”
Miller: “And I thought for God’s sakes we’ve got to do something to solve this, and I began to, you know, look into other sides of the issue.”
Matthews: “Did you switch after Clinton or before Clinton? Did you vote for Clinton?”
Miller: “No, I was not a Bill Clinton fan. You know I just, you know, to me, Clinton’s the sort of guy who’ll always volunteer to help you move, then when you’ve got four of ya picking up the sofa, he’s the one who’ll fake lifting.”
Matthews: “Yeah, that’s pretty good.”
Miller: “You know I never got a good, I never good take on that man.”
Matthews: “He never follows through on his promises.”
Miller: “You act like I come in here like a war general hawk. I’m conceding to you, I’m a Hollywood comedian. I’m just saying though, if I have to trust Bush or trust the other side right now, Bush is in there, and I’m gonna go, 'Okay I’ll have to believe what he’s gonna tell me.’ And if he’s gonna tell me it’s time to go in, that’s all I’m saying as far as this hawkishness that you’re now inferring on me for the rest of my life. But I would say this about Gephardt, I think he obviously has a Dukakis-issian lack of charisma that is gonna keep him from getting it. You know, most politicians are transparent and Gephardt is translucent actually.”
Matthews: “What about John Edwards? Give me your take on him. What’s the Hollywood take on him, since you’re now speaking for your community.”
Miller: “You know what? I’m intrigued by him only to the extent that Hitchens, who I find to be a tough, tough nut, I mean I believe Chris Hitchens is down on Mother Teresa, for God’s sake and he assures me that the guy’s got stuff, he told me once. And I thought, 'Wow, Chris Hitchens, I’ve never heard that come out of his mouth.'”
Matthews: “You’ve never heard romantic ideas from him before.”
Miller: “Yeah he’s always scoffing. But I, but I’m afraid that if, I’m not a big lawyer guy. I think lawyers are screwing this country up, and I’m afraid that if Edwards gets in there, he might just end up suing other countries. 'Mr. Hussein, you have been served! If you choose not to show your face-’”
Matthews: “Serve him with a subpoena. Process him...”
Miller's in the business of being funny and, if he can tap humor in an area that most liberal comedians wouldn't touch, he secures a comedy niche for himself. The idea is not without its perils (you may never again see him appearing in love scenes with Sandra Bullock), but it is refreshing to see a "lifelong Democrat" at least be open-minded in his humor.
I really don't expect Miller to pull punches about Trent Lott or Jenna Bush if there's a good laugh to be gained (such is the nature of most comedians), but I'm glad to see he isn't the typical brain-dead lefty that is so often shoved in our faces.
I also found a refreshing honesty in his "I'm just a Hollywood comedian" mantra on Hardball. He knows he's no expert which is, again, a refreshing departure from so many Hollywood lefties who want you to believe they know what they're talking about.
1) Who came up with the idea of auditioning Limbaugh for the MNF job.
2) Why ABC was so deathly afraid of the idea.
Personally, I'm glad Limbaugh didn't get the job because it would have taken away from his show duties and the radio gig would have suffered. In retrospect, he wouldn't have been able to last on MNF because of his hearing loss anyways.
Yep. True.
Priceless!
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