Politically Incorrect Online - January 08, 2001

Politically Incorrect - Transcript

Guests on the program included: Harland Williams, Nancy Wolf, Rachael Leigh Cook, & Garcelle Beauvais

Panel Discussion

Bill: Okay.
All right.
Thank you very much.
Oh, thank you, folks.

[ Cheers and applause ]

Hey.
I appreciate that, 'cause I take a lot of [ bleep ].

[ Laughter ]

All right, let's meet our panel.
She is a political commentator and host of "The Nancy Wolf Show" on WTMA in Charleston, South Carolina, Nancy Wolf.
Where are you, Nancy?
[ Cheers and applause ]

There you are.

Nancy: Hi.

Bill: How are you?

Nancy: Good.

Bill: Good to see you back here again.

Nancy: Thank you.

Bill: She is the very busy star of "Double Take" --
that looks funny --
opening Friday and "NYPD Blue," starting January 23rd right here on ABC, Garcelle Beauvais.

[ Cheers and applause ]

Garcelle: Hello.
How are you?

Bill: Thank you.
A very, very talented actress and one of the fine stars of the movie "Antitrust" opening Friday, Miss Rachael Leigh Cook.

[ Cheers and applause ]

She's a blonde now.

Rachael: Thank you.
Hi.

Bill: How are you, kitten? And a very funny comedian.
He's one of the animated stars of "Gary and Mike" on another channel and "The Geena Davis Show" right here on ABC Tuesdays at 9:30, Harland Williams.
Hi, how are you, buddy?

Harland: Good to see you, man.

Bill: Good to see you.

[ Cheers and applause ]

Okay.
Now, last week on the show, I was talking about this attorney general that they want to confirm, John Ashcroft.
He is an ultraconservative pro-lifer and I was talking about him on "Larry King" Friday and I got a lot of calls from people who don't stay up this late --

[ Laughter ]

--
because I did mention on both shows that he belongs to a church that is against dancing.

[ Laughter ]

I'm not kidding.
The Assemblies of God against drinking, smoking and dancing.
And the calls I got this weekend from people said, "Well, you know what? What about Joe Lieberman?"

Nancy: Right.

Bill: I said, "You know what, I can't really disagree so much with that because, you know, Joe Lieberman also doesn't use a blender after midnight on Friday."
[ Laughter ]

Garcelle: That's scary.

Nancy: And doesn't campaign on the Sabbath.

Bill: And doesn't what?

Nancy: Campaign on the Sabbath.

Bill: I was trying to say the same thing in a metaphorical way, that yes, he's an orthodox Jew.
And they trumpeted that in the campaign.

Nancy: Right.

Bill: This guy doesn't move on Saturday --

Nancy: What a wonderful thing.
He will be there for you 24/6.

Bill: 24 --

[ Laughter ]

Nancy: There you go.

Bill: Yeah.
And somehow, when the Democrats are religious, it's cute.
And when the Republicans do it, it's scary.
Although I do agree with that.
Hmm.

[ Laughter ]

Garcelle: Well, the issue is whether or not he'll uphold the law, whether he would prosecute --

Bill: That's right.

Garcelle: That is exactly the issue.
And, you know, it's interesting, when a liberal is religious, it's a wonderful thing.
When a conservative is religious, it's scary.
And that's what they're doing with him.

Bill: Are you listening to me?
[ Laughter ]

Because you keep saying the same thing --

Garcelle: No, I don't understand the double standard.

Rachael: I just think it's getting a little out of hand.
I mean, dancing? Did this guy not see "Footloose"?
[ Laughter ]

But that has nothing to do with the --

[ Cheers and applause ]

Come on.
Thank you.

Nancy: I think we have bigger issues to worry about.

Garcelle: The question is whether or not he'll uphold the law.
And as attorney general of Missouri for eight years, he always upheld the law.
As governor for eight years, he upheld the law.
There's nothing in his background that says he won't prosecute cases accordingly.

Bill: Oh, I don't know about that.

Garcelle: Give us the proof.
Give us the proof.

Rachael: Lieberman is not a divider.
He was led to be the vice president of the United States.
This guy is going to be conflicted in his job every day.
I don't think we should be the ones questioning that.
It's his conscience.
As soon as he starts not --
or sort of getting in the way of laws, then we have a problem.

Bill: Yeah, but his conscience is now --

Garcelle: Top law enforcement officer.

Bill: Yeah, he's the top cop.

Harland: Yeah, but let's face it, though.
He's Bush's little puppet, man.
I mean, Bush is the puppet master and all these guys dance around, you know?

Nancy: No, but Janet Reno's leaving!

Bill: Bush is the puppet master?

Harland: Oh, yeah.

Nancy: That's scary.

[ Applause ]

Bill: Let me tell you, my friend, your reading of national the scene is way off.

[ Laughter ]

And you think Bush is the puppet master?

Harland: He is.
It's not like this guy is gonna be able to stop dancing.
It's not like Patrick Swayze has to stay home on Saturday night now.

[ Laughter ]

It's like that's his belief, but it's --

Bill: Okay, but he's also, like, very, very, very anti-abortion.

Garcelle: Yes.
And I think that's what we should worry about.
I mean, worrying about religion, I believe --
a little bit of religion in everybody's lifestyle is a good thing.
But I have to --
no, I really believe that.

Bill: I don't, but go ahead.

Garcelle: I really believe that you have to believe there's a higher form leading us.

Bill: That's not religion.

Garcelle: Well --
okay, spirituality then.

Bill: That's different.

Garcelle: That's what we're calling it now in the 21st century.

Bill: Or it's not that we're just calling it, those are two really, really, really different things.

Garcelle: True.

[ Applause ]

[ All speaking at once ]

Bill: It's the difference between a car and the DMV.

Garcelle: Well, yes.

Bill: A car is spirituality, a DMV is religion.

[ Laughter ]

Nancy: Right.

Garcelle: But I do think we need to worry about his abortion issues.

Nancy: Why?

Bill: I do, too.

Garcelle: He's not addressing in terms if a woman's raped.
If a woman, you know, incestuously got pregnant --
any of that stuff.
He's just worried about, "Okay, you can't have an abortion unless --
"

Bill: What if she got pregnant because she was having fun?

Garcelle: Hey, right!

Rachael: He's interested in making changes to these laws, you know, and now he's in that position if he decides to try and change them --

Nancy: But where's the proof that he has not upheld the law in the past when he was attorney general of the state of Missouri? There is no proof that he didn't do it.

Bill: I haven't studied it.

Nancy: Why do we say he can't do it now?

Bill: I do know he lost an election to a dead guy.

[ Laughter ]

Rachael: Oh, oh, oh.
He ran a fair campaign, even with that in mind.

Harland: If a guy loses an election to a dead guy, I think he should be able to do whatever the hell he wants.

[ Laughter ]

That's a hard thing to do, man.

Nancy: He ran a successful campaign.

Harland: Just let him be, man.

Rachael: You gotta give him that.

Garcelle: I think we have bigger issues to talk go than his --
you know, his --
whether he's religious or not.

Bill: Except that he is a guy who is morally opposed to something that is legal, which is abortion.

Nancy: So show us when he didn't prosecute cases accordingly.

Bill: I don't know.
I don't know that.

Nancy: Well, it's not there.

Bill: But I'm just saying, if you try to put a guy in attorney general who was for, like, drug legalization, just to take an example, you'd have a hard time confirming that.

Garcelle: Right.

Bill: Even though there are lots of people who would back that.
But that's not what the law says.
I mean, he's against something that the law says.
The law says you can have an abortion.
He doesn't even believe in dancing.

[ Laughter ]

Garcelle: That's scary.
That's scary.

Bill: He thinks you're gonna go to hell for doing the macarena.
I mean, come on.

Nancy: Yeah, but the bottom line is whether he's going to uphold the law.
That's the bottom line.
Isn't that the bottom line? Is he gonna prosecute the cases or not?

Bill: Well, you keep saying that.

Garcelle: It is.

Nancy: Well, he --
show us where he didn't as attorney general for eight years.
Show us where he didn't --

Bill: Well, I can't, so I'm gonna take a commercial.

[ Applause ]

President-elect Bush spent the day defending his embattled labor secretary nominee, Linda Chavez, who apparently employed an illegal alien in her home.
Bush said --
this is a quote, I could not make this up --
Bush said, "I haven't had the chance to ask the questioners the question they've been questioning."
[ Laughter ]

I don't care --
I don't care who somebody uses as a cleaning lady.
I'm more concerned that the guy we elected president sounds like an illegal alien.

[ Laughter ]

Bill: Well, it's official.
They did the tabulating.
Anna Nicole Smith came out the big winner in verdicts last year.
She had the biggest win --
$475 million, you know that.
What's interesting about that is if you go all the way back to 1990, her breasts were a better investment than Microsoft.
Wow.

[ Laughter ]

[ Applause ]

Okay, we were talking about --

[ Cheers and applause ]

--
John Ashcroft and how our life might change if we had such a conservative attorney general.
Let me give you one example.
Benham, Kentucky, they have a tater festival there.

[ Laughter ]

A tater, I guess --
what?

Rachael: It's just potato.

Bill: Potato.

[ Laughter ]

Exactly, I knew that.
Okay.
Let me tell you something.
A 20-year-old girl --
how old are you?

Rachael: 21.

Bill: 21, okay, well, you can look down at her.

[ Laughter ]

She got into a lot of trouble because she wore a Marilyn Manson T-shirt there that said, "I am the God of --
" and I can't say the word, but it's an anglo-saxon word beginning with "F" and ending with [ bleep ].

[ Laughter ]

Okay.
So she wore this T-shirt.
Families complained.
She got arrested, got convicted of harassment.
It was overturned, but it's going to another court, and the question is, do people have the right to wear obscenities? And when the top cop is John Ashcroft, I worry about such a case.
That you can't even wear a T-shirt that says, "I am the God of --
"

Harland: You don't have the right to wear something like that into a church, but to a tater festival, come on.

[ Laughter ]

Rachael: Yeah, but --

[ Applause ]

But that's families.

Harland: Well, you know, at the last tater festival I went to, I went nude and had it tattooed on my ass.

[ Laughter ]

Anything goes at a tater festival, man.

Bill: Yeah.
I'm not even sure what that is.

Nancy: What do you eat at a tater festival?

Bill: I would guess potatoes.

Garcelle: I would think, yeah.

Bill: So this is a contest of potatoes?

Harland: Yes, to see which one has the most eyes.

[ Laughter ]

Rachael: I think it also involves sculpture.

Garcelle: Well, how many have to be offended by it in order to --

Harland: "This is a french fry."

Garcelle: Does it matter? I mean, is it one person? If one person's offended, then you can, you know, actually get in trouble for it?

Bill: You have a kid, right?

Garcelle: Yeah.

Bill: If your little kid saw that on a T-shirt, wouldn't that bother you as a parent?

Garcelle: Sure, but the likeliness of us being at a tater festival --
it's probably not gonna happen.

[ Laughter ]

Rachael: You know what, if you're old enough --

Bill: You're saying that's not big with the Asian Americans?

Garcelle: Exactly.

Harland: All right, well, what if you're, like, at a brussel sprout festival, you know?
[ Laughter ]

Garcelle: Then maybe.

Harland: All right.
Same thing.

Rachael: No, if you're old enough to be able to read and know what it says, you're probably old enough to know what it means.
And you know what? You've probably heard it before.
But --

Garcelle: I don't know.
I mean, I think there's certain places for certain things.
I mean, if you're at a concert, that's one thing, you know what I mean? But if you are at a family event, then --

Nancy: But who's gonna draw the line? Who's gonna say where?

Garcelle: Yeah.

Nancy: In fact, it is.
It's protected under first amendment.
It's offensive, it's obnoxious, but it's legal.
But you know what I think wouldn't be legal? I think that if you have a child wearing a T-shirt --

Bill: Apparently not.

Nancy: No, because she won on appeal.

Bill: Yeah, but that doesn't mean --

Nancy: She's now going to mortuary school.

Harland: What appeal.

Nancy: No pun intended.

Bill: Well, one court said yes, one court said no.

Nancy: The first court said that --
found her guilty, and the second court, she won.

Bill: Right, well, I think we just learned with the Florida thing that courts can disagree.

Garcelle: Right.

Nancy: But she won on --
She's not leaving town and going to mortuary school.

Rachael: You know what? I think it always depends a lot on the context in which the expletive is used, as well.
My ex-uncle, famous supporter --

[ Laughter ]

I know, families today.

Bill: What does that mean? What is an ex-uncle?

Rachael: The guy my aunt used to be married to.

Bill: Oh, your aunt --
sure, okay.

Rachael: Anyway.
Arrested for streaking in the '60s, shows up to his court date --

Bill: Arrested for streaking?

Rachael: I'm getting to the good part, Bill.

Bill: Okay, I'm trying to digest it, yeah.

Rachael: So he's taken to court, and wears a jacket that says --
can I just curse and you guys can bleep it? --
"[ Bleep ] the draft."

Bill: Yeah.

Rachael: And you know, this was a problem for people in his town.
And it ended up going all the way to the Supreme Court as a freedom of speech case, and he ended up being acquitted of pretty much all charges because the draft was not something that could be F'ed.

[ Laughter ]

So, I think, you know, I am --
I am the God of, you know --

Bill: Okay.

[ Applause ]

Harland: Wait a minute.
Wait a minute.
Wait a minute.

Rachael: I love the logic.

Harland: That's not true.
The draft can be F'ed because I have an ex-uncle who got his willie stuck in a bottle of Miller once, man.

[ Laughter ]

So don't tell me --

[ Applause ]

Nancy: Oh, gosh.

Rachael: Wow.

Nancy: Wow.

[ Laughter ]

Harland: Yeah, that's why he's an ex-uncle, Bill.

Bill: Yeah.

Harland: Yeah.
Do you have an ex-uncle?

Bill: No, I --

[ Laughter ]

All I can say is, you kids today are F'ed.
Okay, we gotta take a break.
We'll be right back.

[ Applause ]

I know, I know.
If you were a guest on the show, you know exactly you'd say.
Well, here's your chance.
"Politically Incorrect" is auctioning off a seat on our panel on eBAY.
One of these others --
not mine --
and it's sponsored by our friends at Travelocity.

Announcer: Bidding for a guest spot on "Politically Incorrect" starts January 12th on abctvauctions.com.
Presented by eBAY.
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Bill: Courtney Love is suing her boyfriend's ex-wife, claiming the woman stalked her and drove a car over Courtney's foot.
Boy, there's a switch.
Usually, when you see track marks on Courtney, it's on her arms.

[ Laughter ]

[ Applause ]

All right.

Garcelle: Oh, my God!

Bill: Well, and that's why we have the first amendment, folks, so we can make fun of Courtney Love.

[ Laughter ]

A good reason for it.
No, we were talking about what you can get away with saying.
How about this case in New York that has made Mayor Giuliani upset, which is about the police.
The police --
basically what happened, they were confronting some guy who cursed them out.
And then the judge in the case said basically, you have a first amendment right to curse out the police.
And I would say no.
I think you draw the line there.
I think policemen --
there are police officers, I mean, some of them are corrupt.
We know the problems we have.
But basically, I think you gotta draw a line at what you can say to the cops.

Garcelle: Absolutely.
And who are you gonna call when you need help?

Garcelle: Well, that's the problem 'cause --

Bill: L.A. on patrol, as always.

Garcelle: Oh, really?
[ Laughter ]

Nancy: Cursing out a cop is not the smartest thing you want to do.
But it is.
It's a first amendment right.
It's not something I'm going to teach my child.
Again, we have --
I teach her to respect authority.
She can't talk that way to a teacher.
She shouldn't talk that way to a cop.
But at the same time, the guy didn't hit the cop and basically, under the Constitution, he has the right to do that.
He has the right to say that.

Bill: No.
You know what?

Nancy: I'm not saying it's okay that he did it.
But the fact is, he can do it.

Bill: Well, obviously, you are saying it's okay.

Rachael: Yeah, you know what, if the guy's hurt, take some of my tax money, pay for this guy's therapy.

Nancy: Well, I'm not saying I would do it.
And I'm not gonna teach that to my child.
But basically, under the Constitution --

Bill: Yeah, but that's not what we're arguing about, girlfriend.

Rachael: But he can do it.

[ Laughter ]

Bill: We're arguing whether it's legal or not.

Nancy: It's legal.

Rachael: It should be legal.

Bill: It shouldn't be legal.
The first amendment is not an absolute and it never has been.
People think the first amendment means that anything you utter in any way --

Nancy: So why can't you do that?

Bill: --
Is covered.
And it certainly is not.

Nancy: Why shouldn't you be able to do that?

Rachael: What if he deserved it?

Garcelle: Because we need to draw a line on respect and authority and --
where do you draw a line on that?

Nancy: What if the cop deserves it? What if the cop deserves it?

Bill: Answer her question.

Garcelle: When did you draw the line?

Nancy: I don't know where you draw the line.
I don't know where you draw the line.

Rachael: It's not personal, either.

Harland: Sometimes when cops get really lippy with average citizens, I mean, I've been pulled over by a cop going through a yellow light and got nothing but attitude and the guy lippin' off to me.
And I've been totally compliant with the guy.
And you know, can they do it to us? We can't do it to them? I mean, I agree with you.
I respect --

Bill: Yes.

[ Applause ]

And that's the --
and you said it exactly.
What?

Garcelle: And then we complain that they abuse their power.

[ Cheers and applause ]

Harland: I'm a genius.

[ Laughter ]

Garcelle: They like ya.

Bill: I would never argue that a lot of the people who go into law enforcement do it because they want a little personal power trip.

Garcelle: Sure.

Bill: And when they do that, we justifiably hate them for it.

[ Applause ]

But you just said it.
They can do it to us and we --
because the alternative is chaos.

Harland: Hey, I don't endorse it, Bill.
I mean, a lot of cops, most of the good cops would step between a bullet and any average citizen.

Bill: No, they wouldn't.

[ Laughter ]

Harland: Well, at least where I live, in Fresno, they would.

[ Laughter ]

Out in the --

Bill: I hear the tater festival out there is fantastic.

Harland: Oh, man!

Bill: And the T-shirts --
what were you gonna say?

Rachael: I was gonna say, maybe just something as simple as a small ticket could be issued to people who are that disrespectful.
I mean, that seems fair.
You know, if you have to get it out of your system.

Bill: But that's still agreeing with me --

Rachael: Okay, well --

[ Laughter ]

Bill: You're saying that --

Rachael: Well, what if you've backed up traffic for four blocks because you're busy cursing out a officer of the law, then, you know, yeah, I'd say that could be added on to your citation for disturbing the peace or whatever it is that you're doing and that could be part of it.

Harland: You know what would make everything even, Bill, is if people treated cops totally respectfully, they stop, they give you a ticket, they give you the ticket for 400 bucks, and after they gave you the ticket, you are legally allowed to swear your ass off.

[ Laughter and applause ]

Nancy: A little give and take.

Harland: A little give and take.
A little give and take.
Come on, are with you with me or not? Do I have to come over there and spank you? Come on.

[ Laughter ]

You want me to.
He wants me to.
Come on.

[ Cheers and applause ]

Don't look at me like that.

Bill: Why do you always have to make it a gay thing?
[ Laughter ]

Harland: What do you mean, "always"?

Bill: Can't you leave our personal lives out of this?

Harland: Maybe it was a potato thing.

Bill: What we do before the show is not --
it's nothing to do with these issues.

Nancy: But Bill, let me ask you this.
You always complain about the police abusing their power.

Bill: I do?

Nancy: Yes, I've heard you many times.
We don't know what happened on that street you --

Bill: I complain about it when they do abuse --

Nancy: It's one word against the other.
This guy started cursing at the cop.
He didn't hit the cop.
His arms were flailing.
The judge dismissed it.

Bill: But they're not peers.
People in the police are not peers.
We're not equal.
It's not like you have a side to it and I have a side to it.
There has to be somebody --

Nancy: But there are out-of-control cops out there.

Bill: They're refs.
As impure as those refs are, we've got to have refs who have a built-in set of respect for them.
I truly believe that.
I think if we give that up, if you start being able to say anything you want to a cop, the respect we have for them now, which is pretty thin, would fall away all together.

Garcelle: I agree.

Bill: Besides that, it's really stupid because they'll have your ass anyway.
They're always going to win.

[ Laughter ]

Rachael: That's true.

Nancy: It's not a smart thing to do.

Bill: All right, we gotta take a break.
We'll be right back.

[ Cheers and applause ]

Announcer: Join us this week on "Politically Incorrect" when Bill's guests will include supermodel/actress Elle MacPherson, the Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson, Emmy-winning comedian Eddie Izzard and comic icon Martin Short.

[ Applause ]

Bill: All right, very quickly.
What is your favorite T-shirt say?

Harland: My favorite T-shirt I wear around is a pink neon midriff and it says "I Love Koalas."
[ Laughter ]

Bill: Yours?

Garcelle: A T-shirt that says "69."

Bill: I get it.

[ Cheers and applause ]

All right.
Well, that ate up all our time.
Tomorrow, Scott Hamilton, Julia Stiles, Wanda Sykes and Peter Roff.

[ Cheers and applause ]