Critics Of Religion

"Mitt and his ilk are always saying, "If only we ran the government more like a business." No! Government is there specifically for the things that are not supposed to run like a business. Government is not supposed to make a profit."

"It's so interesting to watch it – every Republican debate – Mitt Romney deny Romneycare. Deny the one great thing he did in his life. But when he's on the stage with those other Republicans in front of a Republican audience: "How dare you?! How dare you accuse me of helping people!? I am as much of a cold-hearted bastard as any of the pricks on this stage!""

"I don't hate America. I love America. I want it to be better. The only way we can get it to be better is to realistically criticize what's wrong with it. That's not what the Republicans do. ... I don't want to be a pessimist. I'm a realist. One man's realist is another man's pessimist. But, no, I'm not like Mitt Romney, whose book is called No Apology, the Case for American Greatness. Really? Always waving the big foam number one finger; we're not number one in most things. We're number one in military. We're number one in money. We're number one in fat toddlers, meth labs, and people we send to prison. We're not number one in literacy, money spent on education. We're not even number one in social mobility. Social mobility means basically the American dream, the ability of one generation to do better than the next. We're tenth. That's like Sweden coming tenth in Swedish meatballs."

"The country can't get well if the people are sick. And the people are sick. Now, I know Obama's not been the best president and the Democrats are not the best politicians, but you know what? We elected him just two years ago to fix this massive bunch of problems we have. And because he didn't do it by football season, we are ready to throw him out on the street and bring back the guys who messed it up just two years ago. That's a little too impatient. Yes, when he got the patient, the patient was bleeding to death — he got the patient to stop bleeding. But, OK, the patient is not up and back at the office quite yet. It's no reason to throw the doctor out and get back the doctor who was using leeches."

"The sad fact about the mosque is the people who are building that mosque are part of the Sufi fringe moderate part of their religion. That's the good part. That's the liberal part. Those are the Hippies of the Islamic world. We should encourage them. The people who want to build that mosque, those are the people we should be courting. Bush used that guy. Bush — that administration sent him overseas. Yes, that's the way to fight terrorism. That's the way to win the war, is to get those people on our side, not to alienate them. ... I mean, the biggest population of Muslims in the world is Indonesia. They're not crazy. The second biggest is India. There's 150 million Muslims in India. They're not crazy. ...But Saudi Arabia, they're crazy. The Taliban in Afghanistan, they're crazy. Parts of Pakistan are crazy. Hamas is crazy. There's enough of them to worry about."

"That's the problem with the Drudge-Rush-Fox axis-of-evil news bubble. Nothing gets into these people's heads. They only listen to what they want to hear. They listen to what confirms what they believe. And what they believe is what they got from these people to begin with. You know, when Glenn Beck had his big rally on the mall, he said something like — he at one point said, "Today, I was holding George Washington's inaugural in my hand." No — you can't do that — it's in Plexiglas. You can't — it's 200 years old. You can't give that to people to pass around and smudge up with their grimy fingers. But it didn't matter, because it never matters to these people because nothing they say is ever fact-checked. The governor of Arizona talks about how illegals — you saw this on the news — were beheading people in Arizona. When the press asked her about it, because it was patently untrue, she just ran away. Sarah Palin never talks to the press because they might ask her a question that she doesn't have a pat answer for. They know they don't have to deal with reality, because they don't have to go to what used to be the mainstream press."

"This is a really fascinating time because, again, we live in these two different realities. I don't think it's ever been like this. I know there's always been a — shall we say passionate — a passionate divide in American politics. But I don't think there's ever been a time when the two sides just have two different sets of reality. I mean, if more than half the Republicans think that Obama is trying to impose Sharia law on the United States of America, that's not something that you can argue about. That's just something in their view that has to be extirpated."

"The Democrats are very bad at selling their own product. The Republicans are geniuses at it. And I've said it before, a bad product well apologized for is superior in this country to a good product. The Democrats do have a better product, as bad as they are. Now it's unfortunate that they couldn't have sold what they're selling better and have better policies."

"I want to always be an interloper. I never want to feel like I'm a guy who is embraced by the people who are putting me on the air. I want to feel like I broke into the studio and took over and made them mad. If I'm not doing that, I'm not doing my job."

"We're going to get into partisan bickering because more than half of Republicans agreed with the statement that said Obama is trying to impose Islamic law on America. I mean that is a very radical thing to believe. And it's more than half of Republicans. Not tea baggers. Not radicals. The mainstream Republican people."

"I have a theory that the Internet makes people stupider — and also FOX News makes people stupider. You know the Pew group did a study recently and they found out that 10 years ago, Democrats, Republicans and independents basically got their news from the same sources, probably more from CNN, for example. Then we had this polarity. ... We do have two Americas. We have the America that's living in reality. The people who understand that Obama is a centrist liberal from Hawaii who is trying to dig us out of the hole we're in. And then we have this other FOX/Matt Drudge/Rush Limbaugh reality where he is a Muslim sleeper cell, Manchurian candidate who was sent over by his Kenyan father ..."

"I mean it was bad enough when we had these people called the birthers who thought he was not born here. ... But I was saying last night that I've identified this new group and I'm calling them the churchers. ...The churchers. They're the people who don't think that he is a Christian. They think he's — he's a secret Muslim, Larry. I guess you haven't been paying enough attention. ... When I talked to him, he told me about his plan to use drinking water to sterilize white people. I get — whoops, I've said too much."

"The Democrats are going to lose some seats, probably a lot. But not as many as they would have if the tea baggers weren't winning the primaries because I think voters are generally conservative. And when I mean — when I say conservative, I mean they're not comfortable with people who are out there, on the left or the right. And these tea baggers are out there. I've said it before probably on your show. When people get in a voting booth, it's like when they go on an airplane. They get scared. They tend to do things that are conservative in nature, even if they're liberal. ... I just think that people — they understand our country is in a lot of trouble. Even people who are angry understand that crazy people are not going to make it better. Christine O'Donnell like all these tea baggers has no plan, no agenda. No policy points. They have one advantage. They're running against Democrats. That's their big advantage."

"Christine O'Donnell ... was one of our most frequent guests on Politically Incorrect. People who may not remember Politically Incorrect because they're too young or they were watching Johnny Carson or something ... may not remember that we created people like Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham... we did like to book a lot of female conservatives. They were good press and they were good for the show. We loved Christine O'Donnell. I still like her. You cannot not like her. She is such a nice person. We have a great clip that used to be in our highlight reel of Ben Affleck on that show just saying "Please, Christine, shut up." Because I guess she would just go on. She was known back then as the girl from SALT. SALT being the Savior's Alliance for Lifting the Truth. ... So part of me for sentimental reasons is rooting for Christine O'Donnell in Delaware. The other part of me is rooting for her because she's going to get her Christian ass kicked in the general election."

"Mr. President, there are some people who are never going to like you. That's why they voted for the old guy and Carrie's mom. You're not going to win them over. Stand up for the 70% of Americans who aren't crazy."

"The Democrats just never learn: Americans don't really care which side of an issue you're on as long as you don't act like pussies. When Van Jones called the Republicans assholes, he was paying them a compliment. He was talking about how they can get things done even when they're in the minority, as opposed to the Democrats, who can't seem to get anything done even when they control both houses of Congress, the presidency, and Bruce Springsteen."

"What got Van Jones fired was they caught him on tape saying that Republicans are assholes. And they call it "news." And Obama didn't say a word in defense of Jones and basically fired him when Glenn Beck told him to. Just like we dropped "end of life counseling" from health care reform because Sarah Palin said it meant "death panels" on her Facebook page. Crazy evil morons make up things for Obama to do, and he does it."

"I'm supposed to be all re-injected with yes-we-can fever after the big health care speech, and it was a great speech — when Black Elvis gets jiggy with his teleprompter, there is none better. But here's the thing: Muhammad Ali also had a way with words, but it helped enormously that he could also punch guys in the face."

"Van Jones got fired because he became the Scary Negro of the Week on Fox News, where, let's be honest, they still feel threatened by Harry Belafonte."

"This is the first time in my lifetime that a president has been from a city. From a place I would go. He's from Chicago; I love Chicago! I go there! Would I ever go to Wasilla, Alaska? Or Hope, Arkansas? Or Plains, Georgia? Or Crawford, Texas? Not on a bet! There's a reason small towns are small: no one wants to live there."

"There's a word the teabaggers have wanted to use since Obama came on the scene, but they can't because it's not the 1950s. They would love to say this word. It begins with an N and ends with -er, and it's not "nation-builder"."

"Y'know, every time in America some guy gets caught cheating, every media outlet does the same story: "Why Do Men Cheat?" Oh, take a wild fucking guess, would you? I think you're over-thinking this. They're not looking for fantasy, they're looking for...sex. That's it! They want sex. And not just sex; they want new sex. The way women want new shoes. Right? You have shoes, they're perfectly good shoes, you don't want those shoes, you want new shoes. We want a person, you want a shoe and somehow you're morally superior."

"I kid the Republicans, with love. I feel bad for them. They got nobody for next time. Who are they gonna run? Sarah Palin, reading off her hand. Did you see that? You saw this? She wrote "tax cuts" on her hand. A Republican so stupid she has to be reminded of the one thing– Tax cuts! This is like if you saw the coyote's paw and it said "Road Runner"."

"You know what they cannot keep on the shelves in America? Guns, and ammo. Even though Obama and every other pussy Democrat has never even mentioned the issue, these people are so sure that he and his Negro army are coming for their guns, they're gonna confiscate your guns, and indoctrinate your children, and socialize your wealth, and then they're gonna replace apple pie with chicken and waffles. And then he's gonna appoint a Cabinet of Shaft, Foxy Brown, Dolemite, Mandingo, Superfly, Cleopatra Jones, and Blacula."

"I think the guy was mostly a coke dealer, but I didn't do coke. I never understood that drug. If you want to be edgy and nervous, go to work."

"You have to understand the Tea-bagger mindset; they have this nostalgia for this America that they think was stolen from them, that used to be, that was better – it's really the 1950s, okay? That's what they think was Shangri-La, and, y'know what they really don't get is that it's kind of insulting to a lot of Americans to pine for this era, cause it wasn't that good for a lot of people. It was good if you were a white man. It wasn't that good if you were Mexican, or black, or Jewish, or disabled, or gay, or a woman."

"1 out of 4 Americans believes Jesus will return in their lifetime. See, that's religion: ego masquerading as humility. "Jesus is coming back! Of course he's gonna wanna meet me! ...Hi, Jesus, Bob Flemstein, big fan! I know you're crazy busy with the rapture and everything, but...could you sign? I don't wanna be that guy, but...""

"One of the complaints leveled against me is, "Oh, Bill, you're such a meanie. Why do you have to go after religion? It gives people comfort; it doesn't hurt anything." Okay, well, other than most wars, the Crusades, the Inquisition, 9/11, arranged marriages to minors, blowing up girls' schools, the suppression of women and homosexuals, fatwas, ethnic cleansing, honor rape, human sacrifice, burning witches, suicide bombings, condoning slavery, and the systematic fucking of children, there's a few little things I have a problem with."

"Don't you miss the days when America was just morally bankrupt?"

"And that's the key to George W. Bush: It's that he wants to be the smartest person in the room. But in order to be the smartest person in the room, you kinda have to fill that room with a lot of dim bulbs. And that's where we get the Alberto Gonzaleses, and the Harriet Mierses, and the "you're-doing-a-heck-of-a-job-Brownie"'s."

"Isn't he [Bush] the worst president ever? I mean, when his term is over, he has to walk back to Texas."

"What is with this campy fixation on all things Ronald Reagan? They talk about him the way gay people talk about Barbra Streisand. I think they want him on a stamp so they can lick his ass. I think they wanted to name airports after him so they can say, "I'm coming into Reagan!""

"Republicans say that sex is bad, because with them it always is. It is!...I'm sorry, but they're just doughy, asexual, wonky, white people, and if you had to have sex with them it would be over in an excruciating three minutes. It's just, — and from the headlines of the past year I gather the only sex they're really good at, is gay sex. Really. Jeff Gannon in the White House press room, Representative Mark Foley, the Reverend Ted Haggard. I mean, that's a lot of gay when you're running against it in every election."

"The problem is that the people with the most ridiculous ideas are always the people who are most certain of them."

"I was just at the newly opened Creationist Museum in Kentucky.... And they have this exhibit of a giant dinosaur...with a saddle on its back. Because the world is only 5000 years old, so man and the dinosaurs had to coexist, and, of course, we rode them. A theory I thought laughable at the age of eight when I saw it on THE FLINTSTONES!"

"People love a trip. Even a shitty trip! On the old Dating Game they used to send people to Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia. You remember this? When it was behind the Iron Curtain. And people would be like, "We're going to Dubrov--what the fuck? What? ...Who cares, we're Going!" Because people love a trip, they don't care where it is. And I'll tell ya why they love a trip: because people think, "On a trip, I might get laid. It's not happening here, but Cleveland? That's where it could happen.""

"They keep pushing the idea, "The only reliable way to prevent pregnancy is to not have sex at all, because, condoms? Ooh, very unreliable, condoms break all the time." Okay. I've been using these things for thirty-five years. I've never had one condom break. Either I'm the luckiest son-of-a-bitch who ever lived--and I'm not--or this is the most reliable product since the toaster."

"It's so childish, "greatest country in the world." It's like saying, "I have the greatest wife in the world. Not just the one best suited for me, the greatest wife in the world. And if you could have my wife, you'd kill your wife.""

"I wish someone would just start Fly At Your Own Risk Airlines. How 'bout that? You can have your hair gel, you can have your lighter, you can have a fucking gun, how bout that? You can show up at the gate five minutes before the plane leaves, and pay in cash, like in the good ol' 1980s. The ticket just says "shit happens" on the back, because that's the way it is anyway."

"Rudy Giuliani's first wife was his cousin. Did you know this? I think that's a very cheap way to go after the Southern vote."

"This country has fuck-up fatigue. That's when someone fucks up so much, that when they fuck up again, people go, "Well, what do you expect? He's a fuck-up." And that's fucked up!"

"The comedy gods are smiling on me tonight, because I have been saying, for the longest time, that president Bush must set a timetable for removing his head from his ass...and, by god, today they went in and looked for it. They actually went in and looked for it and... They didn't find it. So now we don't know where it is, but at least for once in my life, I get to see the words "Bush", "operation", and "success" in the same sentence."

"We do it all the time, we legislate taste. We do it with the tax code. Churches and children get a tax break, because it's assumed that we all agree that we want to encourage churches and children. I don't. I don't. That's my opinion. I don't want to encourage either churches or children, and it's a very bad idea to put them together."

"Religion, it stops people from thinking because they think all the answers are in that one book; it impedes progress; it justifies crazy people. Flying planes into a building was a faith-based initiative."

"Rush Limbaugh, who has made a career preaching that anybody who does drugs has got to go right to jail -- do not pass go, no questions asked, right to jail -- gets caught doing thirty oxycontin a day. Thirty oxycontin?! Do you have any idea how high that is?! I don't, and I've been pretty high!"

"I'd like to protect children, too, but... is everything worth sacrificing to that? I mean, drugs have done a lot of good. [...] They've midwived a lot of good ideas... lot of great songs, you know? I think "Penny Lane" is worth 10 dead kids. [...] I think Dark Side of the Moon is worth 100 dead kids. There, I said it."

"I wouldn't touch a hot dog unless you put a condom on it! You realize that the job of a hot dog is to use parts of the animal that the Chinese can't figure out how to make into a belt?"

"How about the judgment, on 9/11, to keep reading to schoolchildren, when you are told, "The country is under attack"? I mean, talk about being non-partisan; how much of a partisan pretzel do you have to twist yourself into to work backwards to, "Yes, when a president is told the country is under attack, the proper thing to do is to freeze. To choke. To sit there like Forrest Gump." Really. That takes a lot of working backwards to that. ...I know Republicans pride themselves on being loyal, and they are, but loyal to what? To a person? Or to a principle? Because if you defend a president for sitting there for even one second after he's told "America is under attack", you are loyal to a person more than you are to the truth, to a principle, or to your country. If you defend that, you have drunk the Kool-Aid. You are part of a cult. Because any president of any party would have gotten up; Democrat, Republican, Whig -- doesn't matter. "President Van Buren, America is under attack." Would have gotten up. "President Reagan, America is under attack." Would have gotten up. FDR would have gotten up, he couldn't even get up!"

"You've got to give it up for our troops. The mission itself is hard enough, but then there's all sorts of backdoor drafts where they extend their tours, calling up the guard, the reserve; all these Enron accounting tricks so that Rumsfeld doesn't have to admit he got the troop levels wrong, and still they don't bug out. And I see this, and then I watch some reality show, and I see people who are peevish and selfish and greedy and narcissistic and lazy and stupid, and I think to myself, "Why is this first group of people defending this second group of people?""

"I thought this election was an adult discussion on how best to protect ourselves in the face of terrorism, but apparently it was a referendum on boys kissing. I didn't know that, nobody.. told me that. But when homophobia trumps terrorism in America, wow. This country needs to get laid."