HBO Real Time with Bill Maher - Transcript
HBO Real Time with Bill Maher - Transcript
February 18, 2005
Episode #51
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
MAHER: You sit over there. Sorry. I forgot. That's for Don Cheadle later. All right. He is the six-term Democratic Senator from Delaware, Joe BIDEN is right over here! [applause] [cheers] Senator, how are you?
SEN. JOE BIDEN: How are you doing, Bill?
MAHER: All right, he was America's 19 th Health and Human Services Secretary, also the former governor of Wisconsin, I believe, Tommy G. Thompson. [applause] Governor.
And an Oscar-winning actor and comic whose next movies are "Robots" and "House of D." I think I can say without contradiction he has brought many moments of laughter and enlightenment to people of both parties: Robin Williams, ladies and gentlemen! [applause] [cheers]
All right. So
WILLIAMS: That was very nice, you talking to Carol Channing. That was so lovely. [laughter] "She's fabulous!" [laughter]
MAHER: Don't say that. That was Lesley Stahl.
WILLIAMS: I'm sorry.
MAHER: She is the thinking man's sex symbol.
WILLIAMS: Right on. She gives "mind." [laughter]
MAHER: I heard her colleague say Annette Bening was, and she may be. But Lesley Stahl is, too. Now, I don't want to talk a lot about this Jeff Gannon thing, because, lord knows-
WILLIAMS: [in effeminate voice] But, don't go crazy! [laughter]
MAHER: I get no joy out of saying the White House has ties to gay prostitution. [laughter] [applause] All right, I guess I get a little joy out of it.
WILLIAMS: What was this - yeah, just a [knocks on table] "Karl, are you awake?" [laughter] "Karl, open the door!" [laughter] [applause] "Who is it?"
MAHER: I mean, now, we have two Washington insiders from either party. [laughs]
WILLIAMS: "Insider" is not a word you use right now.
MAHER: I want to just ask this question: if this was the Clinton White House, and this story broke, tell me an angry mob with torches would not be involved. [laughter] Why do the Republicans get a pass on this stuff when you know this is impeachable with the other party?
SEN. JOE BIDEN: The press.
MAHER: The press. [applause] Meaning?
BIDEN: I guess, as the Democrat here - and you can totally dissociate - we're friends, but for the purposes of this show, you can pretend I hate him, but I really like him-
MAHER: Yeah. That's okay.
WILLIAMS: [sounds like] "Todos los amigos y los amigos hay y dos." [sp] [laughter]
BIDEN: The bottom line is that why isn't every major network in the country investigating a security breach? Forget anything else.
MAHER: Right. [applause]
BIDEN: How could the FBI - for 17 years, I was chairman of the Judiciary Committee, the ranking member; I read more FBI reports than I ever wanted to know - how could that happen, and no one had any idea who this guy was? Forget everything else. Assume he went in there and he was a saint. How could that be? We should know that. There should be - the Judiciary Committee of the United States Senate should be investigating it. The House Judiciary Committee should be investigating it. And if it were the other party in charge, it would be investigated. [applause]
MAHER: Sounds like you've got your work cut out for you when you get back to Washington.
BIDEN: But, by the way - but, by the way, one of the problems with - one of the problems with there being not a single for - available - is that you can't call a hearing. I can't - I'm in the Judiciary - I can't go back and call a hearing. Only the chairman of the committee can call a hearing.
MAHER: Right. So All right, moving on.
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MAHER: But why can't men and women be equal at the end of the day, but we divide up the chores? I mean, evolution is efficient. Isn't it more efficient that men are better at some things and women are better at other things? I'm not saying it's necessarily true, but couldn't it be true?
BIDEN: It theoretically could be true. But one of the problems is, as the governor knows better than I do when he was running a state, 50% of all the math degrees in college go to women, 52% of all the biology degrees go to women. So something happens between the time they graduate and that career path. So there's something else going on.
Whether there is a different wiring, that's above my pay grade. [laughter] But one of the things that's clear - one of the things that's real clear, you have half the folks in medical school today are women. So there's something going on after-after that.
MAHER: Well-
TOMMY THOMPSON: Well, it's a career path, you know. There's no question that men are much more involved in businesses and in spending more time at a particular thing. And there's the "mommy-track."
BIDEN: We don't give birth. It's easier.
MAHER: Yeah, it is.
THOMPSON: And-
WILLIAMS: Boy, that'd be an interesting discussion. [laughter]
THOMPSON: It would be.
WILLIAMS: A guy giving birth: "Come on, I've got things to do. Let's go!" [laughter] If you look at-
THOMPSON: But Larry Summers, he - you know, he was trying to provoke a discussion.
MAHER: Trying to provoke a discussion. Which is the point of college!
THOMPSON: That is right. That is what a professor does.
MAHER: But - and it seems a shame that in America that doesn't apply anymore; that when you provoke a discussion, you have to go away because you said something mean.
WILLIAMS: But what about the former - I mean, in the old Russia, the former Soviet Union, most of doctors - I mean, many of them are women, I mean - and they come with a medical degree to America and have to re-study again. But it's-
MAHER: But, you know, at this luncheon, when he said it, there was an MIT biologist named Nancy Hopkins there, who left the room. She said she felt physically ill. She said she had to leave because she was too upset to stay. She said, "I would have either blacked out or thrown up." So in other words, she acted like a girl! [laughter] Excuse me, but she's objecting to the stereotype of women by running out of the room screaming, to go eat a pint of Hagendaaz! [laughter] I just think it's kind of funny. [applause] Okay-
WILLIAMS: Oh, so then you're saying that every 28 days, there'll be - and then all of a sudden scientific study will be banned-
THOMPSON: You're going to end up apologizing before the night's over, Bill.
MAHER: Well, that certainly wouldn't be new to me. [laughter] But men-
WILLIAMS: Either that, or you'll go home and find radioactive material, going, "From your friends." [laughter]
MAHER: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: Open this 28 days from now, "WHEN I'M UPSET!" [laughter]
MAHER: A similar instance on the other side. Men, okay? Warriors. General James-
WILLIAMS: "Worriers?"
MAHER: Warriors.
THOMPSON: Warriors.
MAHER: No, women are the worriers. Lt. General James Mattis said a couple of weeks ago that "it's fun to shoot people." He was talking about his troops in Iraq. And you know what? He's right. I've heard these guys interviewed. They're there because they like it. It is an all-volunteer army and there are very few jobs in the world where you can shoot people and get a pat on the back for it. [laughter]
WILLIAMS: Well, basically, his nickname is "Mad Dog," not "Care Bear." [laughter]
MAHER: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: First of all. And also the second part of the equation, it's fun to shoot people who, you know, basically, slap their women around. And he-
MAHER: Yes.
WILLIAMS: --the other part about him is he's also advocated, you know, rather than exploring future wars, he's saying, let's get in and learn how to fight basic wars the old-fashioned way, which is what we've been fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, and teaching people, number one, to speak Afghani, and speak Iraqi-
MAHER: Right.
WILLIAMS: Speak Farsi. And deal with, you know, prisoners in a respectful way. He was one of the people before Abu Ghraib who said you have to treat people, you know, in a certain way in order to make contact. [applause] But, the other part - you know, war - war - is it fun to shoot at people? Yeah, but I guess the fun kind of disappears when they shoot back. [laughter] You know, then it becomes "Incoming!!" Oh, party's over. [laughter] But he's a tough guy who's been through it.
MAHER: But that is what a warrior is.
WILLIAMS: Yeah.
MAHER: Somebody who - there's an old saying, "Don't pity the martyr, he likes his job."
BIDEN: Well, you know, I think what he was doing was making the point that you've got to have people who are bad-ass, who shoot straight and can kill people. But I think it's a little bit of bravado. I don't think - I don't know anybody - I've been there lots of times. I spent a lot of time in Bosnia and Kosovo. I spent time in Afghanistan living in a bunker with a bunch of Marines. None of them like shooting people. They don't get a kick out of it. I've not heard of anybody who came back-
WILLIAMS: [overlapping] Yeah, you talk to them, they don't go, "Man, that was fun today."
BIDEN: --and have them go, "God damn, I got one today. I bagged two birds."
MAHER: I've heard them on the news saying just that.
BIDEN: Well, maybe some do.
WILLIAMS: George Patton - you know, when he basically bitch-slapped the kid because he had - you know, he was in battle-shock. But, you know, there are people who respond one way. There are people who respond other ways. I mean, there's people who go and feel the adrenaline of combat. But there's also, like he said, you know, you read about it and you talk to them and they say when they see someone die, it affects you in a way. And then you realize you're still going on. And them shooting back is the other thing-
MAHER: Which just proves how much they like it. They're willing to endure all that.
WILLIAMS: Yeah, it's a volunteer army.
THOMPSON: All three of us have been to Iraq and Afghanistan. And I would have to say that we have some of the finest young men and women-[applause]-in the military, supporting our country, supporting our values.
MAHER: Absolutely.
THOMPSON: And there is no question that sometimes they're going to say something in the heat of the battle. But I would say that we have the best young men and women we've ever had in the armed forces.
MAHER: And I'm saying this doesn't make them bad people.
THOMPSON: It doesn't. It doesn't.
BIDEN: No, no.
MAHER: You need people-
WILLIAMS: Yeah, you're not going to basically say, "Now, what you do, it's like the PC army. You know, it's not really fun, but it's interesting." [laughter]
MAHER: No, the other story was that-
WILLIAMS: "Somewhat exciting." "Did you get a hard-on?" "Maybe." [laughter] "But then I logged onto a website and I took care of it." [laughter]
MAHER: The other story is that we've basically been torturing - if you want to use that word - or interrogating Arab prisoners with what looks to me like a lap dance. It's sexual humiliation. They're very sensitive about women in the Arab world. And by the way, they treat their women horribly.
THOMPSON: They do.
MAHER: So they have been, you know, trying to get information out of these guys by basically doing something that Kid Rock would love. [laughter] And people are upset about this. And I don't know if that's such an awful thing. I don't know if it's so awful to treat people who are so misogynistic in a way that uses that against them.
WILLIAMS: But it doesn't seem to be getting any results from it. I mean, unless they've - but I mean, they've said that they do this, and then even in the descriptions of it, they say that they - you know, it infuriates them and then they break down. But do they get the information?
I met a guy in Afghanistan who was an interrogator, and they implied, by the way, that he was getting a lot of information from people by basically talking to them and listening to them, by treating them on a certain level, one on one. And it seemed to work that way. [applause] And he seemed to offer them a kind of a human respect that they responded to more than going, "Hey, it's my period, how do you like that?" [smearing his hand on Bill's shoulder] [laughter] But that's what they're doing. They're basically doing a thing-
MAHER: Yes, that's part of it.
WILLIAMS: --and you couldn't do this in an American prison because it would be, "Bitch, that's it, motherfucker, you're going down!!" [laughter] You know, there'd be a riot right there. And you can't - "You know, Cell Block 5, I want all my bros to get down; we're gonna have a human dogpile." [laughter] "It's goin' be fine because we're gonna have a human dogpile. We're gonna take pictures. It's all cool. Everybody cool with that shit? All right." [laughter]
And in trying to get information out of people you're dealing with, like you said, a really bizarre mindset.
MAHER: The news is very friendly to you lately, isn't it?
WILLIAMS: Oh, every day. [laughter] When you realize - when you grow up in a culture where your first sexual experience is with your cousin or a goat, you're going to be up for grabs. [laughter] [applause] You know, if they bring a goat in, he'll go, "I know him!" [laughter] "Billy!" "Baa." "Oh, don't hurt Billy!" [laughter] "Baa." "Why you bring the goat in? I will tell you. Don't hurt the goat!" [laughter] "My first evening. How was it for you?" "Not baaad." [laughter] [applause]
MAHER: You ought to go on-
WILLIAMS: And the culture I spoke of was Afghanistan in the hills, in the deep mountains. But that was - but not in, you know, big cities, because you have other things to do.
MAHER: Right.
WILLIAMS: Like log onto a gay American porn site. [laughter]
MAHER: Well, what do you think about the election in Iraq? I know a lot of my friends on the liberal left and the Democrats, they kind of pooh-pooh the election.
WILLIAMS: I think it's a big deal.
BIDEN: I think it is a big deal.
MAHER: I do, too. I've always said-
THOMPSON: Absolutely.
MAHER: --you can't-
WILLIAMS: And you've been standing up for it. You've been-
MAHER: Well, I've been saying you can't hate Bush first. You've got to go by the facts first.
BIDEN: Precisely right.
MAHER: And the fact is that this was a big victory for everybody. For Bush, for America, for Iraq. And I do think it's going to change things.
THOMPSON: I think it is, too. I really do.
WILLIAMS: It gives them a stake. Like you said, it's also - what was interesting, with secret ballots and secret candidates, it's like later on we'll find out who's running. Okay, great. [laughter]
MAHER: But it wasn't about who was running. It was about them-
WILLIAMS: The fact that they're participating.
MAHER: --getting out of their homes and showing-
WILLIAMS: And showing up at a-
THOMPSON: And having the courage to do it.
WILLIAMS: And yeah, coming out then really means something.
THOMPSON: George Bush has got to have a lot of credit for this because he had the courage to stand-
MAHER: You're right.
THOMPSON: --and say that we're going to hold that election.
MAHER: Right.
THOMPSON: And it was held. And over 60% of the people showed up after being threatened with their lives and with their property. I think it was a fantastic victory.
WILLIAMS: And now begins the process, though, of protecting the second part of the equation, which every day-
THOMPSON: Oh, absolutely.
WILLIAMS: --they keep trying to foment civil war. And then they have to right a constitution. I said, "Take ours, we're not using it." But it's like-[laughter] [applause] [cheers] But the same thing in Afghanistan. They basically - they came out; they voted. Has it changed the dynamic of the warlords, you know, growing more poppies than ever? No. But it basically starts - can it change? That's what they said. It's a long-
MAHER: But Afghanistan is a much more primitive country.
THOMPSON: Very much more.
MAHER: And I think that-
THOMPSON: What time is it in Afghanistan? 1824. [laughter]
MAHER: Yeah, I mean, if they're lucky. I think Baghdad could be a European city almost.
WILLIAMS: It was. It was a very-
MAHER: Beirut, a lot of these-
WILLIAMS: Beirut, I mean, you go back to - Beirut was the Paris of the Middle East.
MAHER: Absolutely.
WILLIAMS: And it was this idea of after a series of civil wars, invasions and de-stabilizations, they come back to the point where they're trying to rebuild, and what happened a week ago.
THOMPSON: Their medical care in Baghdad and Iraq in the 1960s was on par with America. And people from all over the Middle East were going to Baghdad for their surgeries. And of course, Saddam Hussein completely destroyed it. But they are a very highly-educated people.
WILLIAMS: But it still hasn't been rebuilt even now.
THOMPSON: It hasn't. Of course it hasn't.
WILLIAMS: No, I mean, it needs massive-
THOMPSON: But they have the chance now.
BIDEN: Our obligation is higher now. We have a higher obligation now.
THOMPSON: Much more so.
BIDEN: Because these people did risk their lives.
THOMPSON: Right.
BIDEN: We can do this. There has been no discernible change, though, in a fundamental way, in our policy. We should be bringing in the contact group. We should say to the Secretary General of NATO, to the president of the EU, our ambassador to two Saudi - I mean, Middle Eastern states - say, "Look, you're all in the deal now. Once a month, we're meeting here. We are this group as resource." We're going to help them write their constitution in the way they put on the election. Were it not for a guy named Valenzuela, there would have been no election. He was the guy from the United Nations.
MAHER: Right.
BIDEN: We need now to step up to the ball and invest the rest of the world in this. It's not a prize.
MAHER: Do you think that the Republicans picked the Democrats' pocket on this issue of freedom? When I was a kid, it was John F. Kennedy who was saying things like, "Pay any price, bear any burden."
BIDEN: Well, the irony is-
MAHER: Woodrow Wilson had the - you know, we're going to bring freedom to the world. It seems like the Republicans took-
BIDEN: The irony is, it is. They have. But the strange thing is, just go back four years. I'm the guy that was beating up the president named Clinton, to go into Bosnia and Kosovo.
MAHER: Right.
BIDEN: We tried to get a vote in the Republican House and Republican Senate. We couldn't even get a vote to use force then. So the irony is, the President of the United States has moved here. Many in his party aren't there in the Congress. I'm only speaking about the House and the Senate. [voices overlap] Yet, on the other side of the equation, you have Democrats who think freedom matters, who, because it's Bush-
MAHER: Right.
BIDEN: --are remaining silent.
MAHER: Yeah, that's the problem.
WILLIAMS: But you've got to back up - like you said, the whole equation is backing it up now, because now the real struggle begins.
MAHER: That's right.
WILLIAMS: Every day. And creating - what good if you have a government if there's no electricity and water? I mean it's that idea of running the basic infrastructure of a whole-
BIDEN: We sent $18.4 billion there to rebuild. We've only spent $2 billion of it so far and we haven't done a damn thing.
WILLIAMS: And we also found out, $600 million disappeared? I went, what is this, Jersey?
MAHER: Nine billion disappeared.
WILLIAMS: Nine billion, yeah. [laughter] All of a sudden, they went, where's this money? "I don't know." [laughter]
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MAHER: All right. I can't get too far behind. I want to bring out our special guest. He is the Oscar-nominated star of "Hotel Rwanda." He'll be seen this spring in "Crash." Please welcome Mr. Don Cheadle, ladies and gentlemen! [cheers] [applause] How are you, my friend? Thank you for coming on.
DON CHEADLE: Good, man.
MAHER: You know the boys.
CHEADLE: Hello, hello, gentlemen.
MAHER: Well, I'm glad to have you here.
CHEADLE: Thank you. Glad to be here.
MAHER: Congratulations on your Oscar nomination. [cheers]
CHEADLE: Thank you, thank you.
MAHER: They know all about that.
CHEADLE: Thank you.
MAHER: I saw your movie. I said, "Finally they gave this guy a part commensurate to his talent."
CHEADLE: Thank you.
MAHER: It is a terrific movie. I think a lot of people get the wrong impression about this movie, "Hotel Rwanda" and think, "Oh, it's going to be a downer, and it's a small movie." No, it's a real good movie.
CHEADLE: Yeah.
MAHER: And it's not a downer. It doesn't have a terribly - the ending is not unhappy. It's a horrible situation.
CHEADLE: Absolutely.
MAHER: But it's a real, first-rate, well-made movie. And I think another thing I wanted to ask you about is you've been over there to Africa. I think a lot of people think, well, it was a savage thing that happened there in Rwanda; they cut each other with machetes; but, you know, they're Africans; they're living in huts; they're savages.
And you watch the movie, you realize, no, that city of Kigali, you know, it looked like any other city.
CHEADLE: Yeah, absolutely.
MAHER: There were pretty girls drinking at the bar. The hotel looked like any other bar, with the cheesy uniforms that the people had on. People had nice homes with lawns in the suburbs. This is something that could have happened in any other city in the world that we would recognize.
CHEADLE: I think it's really one of those "there but for the grace of God" scenarios, really, when you think about it. And the thing that just struck me is that you think, yes, this is some remote place where - you know, and this could never happen to us - but you really think, yeah, it could. You could be on either end of that situation, put in the proper circumstances. And again we're seeing what's going now in Darfur in the Sudan. And, you know, close to 300,000 killed, at 10,000 a month, 1.8-2.0 million displaced. And we're still sitting here quibbling over, "Is it a genocide; where do we try the criminals?"
MAHER: It is a genocide.
CHEADLE: It's absolutely a genocide.
MAHER: I know that-
BIDEN: By the way, it did happen before. It happened in Syria. The only difference was, we acted.
CHEADLE: Exactly.
BIDEN: And we're not acting right now. And it's repeating again right now in Darfur. [applause]
CHEADLE: Yes.
BIDEN: And it doesn't take - it doesn't take 100,000 troops.
CHEADLE: No, not at all. It's reprehensible. I mean, we could start with just strengthening the African Union's mandate right now. Basically, there's 3,000-5,000 soldiers there to monitor an area roughly the size of Texas. I mean, you couldn't get 3,000 soldiers to lock down L.A. if something went down, you know. So you really have to - we have to strengthen their mandate. All they're allowed to do now is to observe and basically, you know, take reports and send them back to the U.N. They can't even defend the civilians. They can only defend themselves.
BIDEN: It took us three months to get them the planes, to be able to put them in the plane, to get them to the region.
CHEADLE: Yeah, it's really - it's a lot of red tape and bureaucracy when we're talking about-
WILLIAMS: This is also supported by the Chinese blocking that because they sell them arms. Plus there's also something at stake for them in terms of oil.
CHEADLE: There's oil interests.
BIDEN: Right. Absolutely.
WILLIAMS: And they blocked the U.N. from acting upon it, because at a certain point, it's who's supporting who? It's like the old days, same thing in Congo, when the Congo was always up - things like, you know, basically conflict diamonds. Things - there's always something underneath-
CHEADLE: Yes, that's right.
WILLIAMS: --that fuels, that allows, that prevents people from going, "We have to interrupt." No, you can't.
MAHER: A lot of what you see in this movie is familiar to people who follow the news. For example, a lot of the trouble started because the colonial powers put the Tutsis, the minority, in power. Why does that sound familiar? Because the colonial powers put the Sunnis in power in Iraq. It's the exact same scenario.
WILLIAMS: Clinton spoke last night about the idea - he said, these genocides are usually perpetuated by - yes, there is a hatred there - but the people who start them and provoke them are people using this hatred for power.
CHEADLE: Absolutely.
WILLIAMS: He said Milosevic was the man who had the coldest eyes he's ever seen, who used the hatred, the Muslim hatred, to basically promote himself and further his power base. And if you go back to Hitler, big surprise.
MAHER: Right.
CHEADLE: It's always about power-
WILLIAMS: The same idea. It's always about inflaming-
CHEADLE: --and maintaining power.
WILLIAMS: --inflaming that idea.
MAHER: And by the way, how do they - the movie shows this very well, and quite frequently - how do they spread that message of hate? Hate radio.
CHEADLE: Yeah.
MAHER: Which we have in this country.
CHEADLE: Yeah. [applause]
MAHER: Now, I'm not saying we're going to face anything near like that in this country-
WILLIAMS: Yeah, but if you only have one radio station, like if as long as-
MAHER: It just-
WILLIAMS: --to go against hate radio, you need to have something else to say there's another point of view.
MAHER: It takes - it takes the guy on hate radio to say it, to justify the borderline case who is going to go out and do it.
CHEADLE: That's right.
MAHER: I know people who say the Matthew Shepard killing was - you know, people hear it on the radio: "homosexuals are - it's an abomination." And of course, you take a looney guy, he's going to turn that into a killing.
CHEADLE: Yeah, you just have to push him a little bit.
WILLIAMS: But it takes more than one looney guy to do a whole movement, though.
MAHER: Yes.
WILLIAMS: To mobilize a whole nation.
BIDEN: You know, we've been letting the Europeans off. I've been supportive - I've been critical of Bush for not bringing Europe in. Europe has been sinfully silent. They haven't done a damn thing. [applause] We've asked them to. We've tried to do something. It's not just the Chinese.
CHEADLE: No, no, no, it's not just the Chinese. But I think that - I think that our government has to take some responsibility, too, in the fact that, right now, one of the main impediments to the process is the international criminal court, [applause] and that America is very reticent to allow any American citizen to come under that adjudication, which - okay, fine, come up with a secondary system. Which can be done. It was done in Rwanda. It can be done very quickly.
It just - there's just no more time to be talking about it and be arguing about it. If nations really are about building democracy and growing and spreading the message of freedom-
MAHER: Right.
CHEADLE: --then start there and start now. [applause]
MAHER: It seems like Americans can very often only - only understand or deal with one issue at a time.
CHEADLE: Absolutely.
MAHER: Like I mentioned the tsunami. You know, the tsunami was bad. We all feel bad about it. But there are tragedies that are going on right now that are just as bad, that have been going on. Malaria kills more people every year than the tsunami. It just doesn't-
WILLIAMS: But that's why a lot of organizations are also saying, we have - you've given millions if not almost billions of dollars to the tsunami - they're saying if you allow them to free up some of those funds to go to Somalia, Sudan - everywhere, because, like you said, there's not just one place - it's not like people in South America and all over, going, "Excuse, we're still here, we still have the same problem."
BIDEN: It's not the American people. It's leadership.
WILLIAMS: Absolutely.
BIDEN: If the President of the United States stood up today and said to this audience, "I'm going to send 2,000 Marines into Darfur to coordinate this operation, the American public would support it.
MAHER: Right.
BIDEN: If he's laid out what he had to do. [applause]
CHEADLE: Exactly.
MAHER: And who better has laid the groundwork? He's the guy who has said over and over again, we went into Iraq because it was morally intolerable that a guy had rape rooms and gas chambers and gassed his own people. I don't know why it's not morally intolerable there. Anyway-
CHEADLE: Well, you - you mentioned something, too-
THOMPSON: But nobody did anything during Rwanda.
CHEADLE: That's right.
MAHER: What happened?
THOMPSON: Nobody did anything during Rwanda.
CHEADLE: Exactly. So let's move-
MAHER: [overlapping] And in ten years, they can make a movie about the Sudan.
BIDEN: And Clinton - Clinton went to Rwanda and publicly apologized-
MAHER: Right.
THOMPSON: Right.
BIDEN: --in Rwanda. But somebody is going to win an Oscar - probably not as good an actor as you - for writing the same thing about Darfur. Ten years from now.
MAHER: I hope you do win the Oscar. I thank you for coming by.
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