Guests on this program were:
Todd Rundgren
Raquel Welch
Jane Chastain
Stephanie Hodge
| Bill's Opening
[ Applause ] Bill: Thank you, folks. Thank you very much. [ Cheers and applause ] Well, thank you, you're very kind, ladies and gentlemen. And I know why you're in a good mood tonight. The Congress has passed the biggest public works project in history. [ Laughter ] A $217 billion -- billion, that's a lot of money -- highway bill. Which is near and dear to the President's heart. Because he said he sees an America where a man can commit adultery in a limo without it being ruined by potholes, and I -- [ Laughter ] Applaud -- [ Applause ] Well, the President finally left Africa. He was there for 12 days. He left Africa today. He made a rousing speech in Senegal to send him off. He paid a wonderful tribute to African-Americans and then apologized for being a slave to fashion. I tell ya -- [ Laughter ] This guy's gotta stop apologizing. [ Applause ] Just kidding. No, Fox News reported that he was so happy when he heard the Paula Jones news, that the case was dismissed, they caught him on film there in his hotel room. He was smoking a cigar and playing a bongo. [ Laughter ] Rapping -- I'm not kidding. And they asked a psychologist to analyze this and the guy said, "Well, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar." [ Laughter ] But the bongos were definitely Paula's ass, that's -- [ Laughter ] You know, I -- [ Applause ] Well, Paula Jones is appealing. I never thought I'd say that. [ Laughter ] [ Cheers and applause ] She is appealing her case, which I think is ridiculous. It was thrown out by a judge. Accept the verdict. I think she should pay Clinton's court costs, and I also think that her lawyers should be legally obliged to tell prospective clients that they're the guys who couldn't prove that Clinton hits on chicks. [ Laughter ] I mean -- [ Applause ] Wow. And finally, this is kick butts day. Do you know this? We're trying to get kids off cigarettes. The Senate is taking up a comprehensive tobacco Bill that will raise the price of your pack of cigarettes $1.10, which will have a good effect on kids because now they'll have to decide whether to buy either smokes or ammunition. [ Applause ] And you know, right there -- okay, thanks for coming. It's all been satirized for your protection. Thank you. [ Applause ] Panel Discussion [ Applause ] Bill: All right. Let us meet our panel. She's an awfully charming actress and comedienne, Stephanie Hodge. Yeah. [ Cheers and applause ] Hello there, you, how you doing? Thanks for coming. She provides political commentary for the crawford broadcasting network. Jane Chastain, our friend. [ Cheers and applause ] There's Jane, how are you, hon? Good to see you again. He's a groundbreaking singer/songwriter, and an interactive artist. His latest cd is "With a Twist," Todd Rundgren. [ Cheers and applause ] Hey, thanks for wearing pants. Todd: Like last time? Bill: Yeah, I remember. And finally, star of film, television, the Broadway stage and everything else. An icon who needs no introduction. I've always had a crush on her, I still do. Raquel Welch. [ Cheers and applause ] Hey, you. Hello, Ms. Welch. All right. Okay. All right, I kissed Raquel Welch, the show is good no matter what happens next. [ Laughter ] Raquel: Sexual harassment. Bill: Yes. And that's what I want to talk about. Todd: Should we leave? Bill: No, not yet. But soon. That's what I want to talk about. Because this Paula Jones verdict now has got people talking today about what sexual harassment means in the office. And I think the first question is, does it say, this verdict, this ruling by the judge, that a boss -- whoever it is, be it the governor or CEO -- could have one really outrageous attempt at you as the Clinton thing was -- not that it's true, necessarily. But that's what she said, that he brought her to a hotel room, dropped his drawers, you know what the rest is. That you can have that attempt and if it's just one time, everything's okay. Jane: Perhaps you can in Arkansas, but I wouldn't try this anywhere else. [ Laughter ] In fact, I would venture to say that any CEO of any major corporation in America that tried that, would be out on the street in a New York minute. [ Applause ] Todd: As long as the dividends were high. They certainly would let him stay. [ Applause ] Raquel: Or unless the lady that he did it to waited for like four, five, seven years to tell about it, you know. Bill: Yeah, which Paula Jones did. Jane: I think Paula Jones -- Bill: Which looks suspicious. Jane: I think Paula Jones -- no, no, not really. Because remember, Paula Jones didn't come forward. Paula Jones would have never come forward voluntarily. She was identified -- Bill: Unless the Republican right had put her up to it, which they did. [ Applause ] Jane: I think you've been reading the salon magazine, that rag that the -- Bill: Yeah, that's what I've been doing. [ Laughter ] Jane: "The New York Times" seems to be getting all of the -- [ Laughter ] Bill: I read it when I'm under the dryer. [ Laughter ] Jane: No, but Bill -- Bill, Paula Jones was not a political animal. She was actually, most everybody in Arkansas is a Democrat. You know, she appeared at one conservative organization. I can't even remember the name of it simply because she was going to anybody who would listen to her, to try to clear her name. Raquel: Oh, my, my. That sounds really far-fetched. Because this girl is so mousy and so, you know, weak. But when you see her, she doesn't look like she has any volition of her own. Obviously somebody is exploiting her. And she's very ill-advised. But, you know, nonetheless, she's being exploited to make a mockery of Bill Clinton. And maybe he deserves it because he's not on my hit list lately, I can tell you. Stephanie: Now, you mention that she was very weak -- Bill: But you are on his, by the way. [ Laughter ] [ Applause ] Todd: To the original question, I think that, you know, sex is power. And if a guy does it once, he's testing the limits of his power. And you can't blame somebody for testing the limits of their power. And this whole thing is about power. I think Clinton may be testing his limits, testing the limits of his power with these women. I personally don't believe -- what you call a pattern is really two women. The other women who have come out and said that this was a consensual encounter with the President. So to say that he's a predator rather than being promiscuous, I don't think that's true. I don't think either of the women has told the whole truth about what went on either. Bill: Don't you think in the office situation, a lot of times women want to meet and greet the CEO? Todd: Women want to test their own power as well. Bill: Right. Todd: They want to find what the limits of their power are. Some women decide, well, the limits of my power are -- can only be tested with a lawsuit. Some women decide the limits of my power is whether I can say no and have the guy stop. Now, that, I believe is the object of feminism -- is for you to be able to say no and have the guy take you seriously when you say no. Not that you have to, you know, get involved in a lawsuit, embarrass him, embarrass yourself, have your sex life, his sex life be an object of idle conversation by everybody in the country. She was ill-advised. I don't think she knew what the hell was gonna happen once she got involved. Raquel: Now, are you saying that a woman needs a whole woman's movement behind her and some kind of legislation in order to say no? I mean, I've been saying it way before there was any women's movement and way before there was any sexual harassment. You just say -- you know, you just sort of -- Todd: No, they don't, but feminism isn't to change men's attitude about women. It's to change women's attitude about women. It's to make women think differently about themselves. Stephanie: I agree. I think that's part of it. I think it's important that we acknowledge that all of society, male or female, start looking at each other with more integrity and more respect for one another. Because whenever you look at another person with disrespect or presumed disrespect, then you don't open yourself up to the possibilities of finding out the positive things about them. Bill: Yeah, but you want us to always do the asking. And then when we screw it up, you sue us. [ Laughter ] Okay, we have to take a commercial. But we'll come back to that area. [ Applause ] Bill: Okay, let's get back to sexual harassment in the office 'cause that's what this gets to for the average person who is watching this and watching what happened with the President. And 40% of people, of couples said they met at work. Now, given that fact, is it right to make any sort of laws, legislation, about what can happen between a boss and a subordinate? Jane: I wonder with that percentage of people who met at work, how many of them drop their drawers. Bill: You'd be surprised, you know. Jane: Oh, God. Todd: The office Christmas party. [ Laughter ] Jane: The laws on sexual harassment -- Todd: Well, my job, it's part of the job, you know. Bill: What about a guy who's at work and he's got somebody who looks like Raquel Welch at the job and he can't get his job done. He's a surgeon and he's screwing up the operation. Can you fire someone for being too beautiful? Stephanie: That's silly. Bill: That's not silly. Stephanie: Of course it is. It all depends on the other people. Because we have to start treating each other with more respect, men or women or not. You know, you can't look at each other that way. You have to look at each other as individuals and treat each other as you would want to be treated. As a stand-up comic, if I sued a guy every time he showed me his penis, I'd be in court for the rest of my life. [ Laughter ] Todd: That's why you're a stand-up comic. Stephanie: And Ms. Welch is right, you just handle it. You just -- well, not literally, you know -- [ Laughter ] But the point is -- You get to the point where somebody shows you, you go, "That's really nice. Now put it away or I'm slapping it." [ Laughter ] Raquel: You just have to handle it. Jane: We've gone a long way from where, you know -- guys just made a come-on to dropping their drawers. And particularly in the White House. I mean -- Todd: We're still making this assumption that it happened. Bill: Right. Todd: Even though the case has been thrown out. [ Applause ] You keep talking like it happened. Bill: Yeah, thank you. Todd: And nobody has proven that it happened. Bill: Right. Raquel: Yeah, I think that's a good point. Todd: I'm not an idealogue, so I'm free to make my decisions based on facts. You know, but I haven't seen any fact that this happened except he said, she said. I don't believe their stories either. I don't believe his story. I don't believe their stories. I don't believe they walked into the office and said, "Can I have a job," and he said, "Come in the closet," and he drops his pants, just like that. [ Laughter ] I don't believe he invites someone up to his hotel room and just drops his pants without another word. You know? [ Laughter ] I believe that these women, first of all, flirted with him. They enjoyed his company. They may have kissed him. They may have snuggled with him. They may have done any number of things that they thought were acceptable. Then it got to the point where it wasn't acceptable, and rather than just saying -- Bill: They may have given a campaign donation and really gotten on his good side. [ Laughter ] Todd: But as he said, rather than just saying no and acting like a grown-up about it, they had to take it out into the public forum. Raquel: Well, that's the problem with a sexual harassment situation entirely, because what it gives is, it gives all women, any woman, no matter how many I.Q. points she has and how ill-advised she may be, the ammunition to blackmail somebody or destroy their reputation, to hold them up to public ridicule, to destroy their personal lives, their professional lives, everything about them. This is -- I mean, you can do this. All you have to do is make the accusation. Now, I don't know because Bill looks to me, he was dragging this kind of garbage in with him in the primary, so I'm a little worried about Bill. Todd: But we voted for him anyway. Raquel: Yeah, but we voted for him anyway. That's the deal we made with this guy. The thing is that it gives everybody -- all these women, a license, if they don't like you for any reason, they can just accuse you of this. And this is a terrible thing 'cause it can totally destroy your reputation. The other point I wanted to make is that, in today's world, we can wait for the courts and the law, but I don't think many people have much respect for the court system anymore, and most people are tried in the court of public opinion. Bill: Yeah. Raquel: And that is really what happens. Jane: All right, but you have to understand. In the case of Paula Jones, she did not come forward voluntarily. She was -- Bill: Yes, she did! Jane: No, she didn't. Bill: Somebody wrote Paula in a magazine. Nobody would've put -- Todd: David Brock and Paula. David Brock just published an open letter apologizing for the story. Bill: Right -- yes. Todd: He said, "The people I interviewed weren't credible, I wrote a story based on" -- [ All talking at once ] Bill: Paula Jones did all of this to get a makeover! [ Laughter ] I have to take a commercial. We'll come back. [ Applause ] Bill: Okay. Let me go back to what you were talking about, which was that somebody gets accused in this country and it sticks. We have that kind of society where if somebody says something -- and I really think Bill Clinton is now the Richard Jewell of the penis. [ Laughter ] Raquel: Oh, yeah, that's -- I do, too. I think that there's, no matter what happens and whatever happens in the courts and about the perjury issue, which is a separate issue entirely, I think the legacy of his presidency will be about the President that couldn't keep it zipped. Bill: And also -- but there are things that have been put out in the public. And you were talking today, and I've been guilty of the same thing -- of talking as if it's fact -- and it's not fact -- that he has a bent penis. Now, I'm not joking. Raquel: Oh, but wasn't that Michael Jackson? Bill: No. Jane: Here's the President that says -- [ Laughter ] Todd: Was that left or right? Wrong direction. Bill: But everybody makes those jokes and everybody -- because that was out in the press world, that he had distinguishing characteristics, and it came out this that it was this Peroni's Syndrome. Raquel: Really? You've made a real study of this, haven't you? Bill: I haven't made a study of this. You haven't heard this? Raquel: I hadn't. Todd: The Peroni Syndrome? Bill: You hadn't heard that the President has a bent penis? Raquel: No! [ Laughter ] Bill: How many in the audience have heard that the President has a bent penis? [ Cheers and applause ] Okay. I mean, I'm not -- Raquel: I'm just lucky, I guess. Bill: Yeah. But -- Jane: The biggest problem is that the President had an opportunity, has an opportunity. Raquel: Lots of them. [ Laughter ] Jane: To come out and deny the charges if, in fact, they aren't true. He hasn't done that. He sends his people out, and they either -- Bill: Deny what charges are you talking about? Jane: The charges that have been brought by Paula Jones. Bill: He denied Paula Jones. Jane: He didn't apologize. Todd: He said it never happened. Bill: He said he never had sex with Monica Lewinsky. That's called a denial, when I said, "I never did it." [ Laughter ] So what do you want him to do beyond that? Jane: Well, he said, "I never had sexual relations with that woman," as he pounded the desk when he talked about Monica Lewinsky. Bill: Yeah, that's a denial. Jane: That sent me to my dictionary, to look up "Sexual relations," because that's not the kind of sex we were talking about here. And he has never denied that. Bill: What? Jane: The dictionary defines sexual relations as sexual intercourse. Todd: Which dictionary, by the way? Jane: Go look it up, Webster's. Todd: I want to know the dictionary that defines words by two words, sexual relations. I believe the word sexual is in there, I believe the word relations is in there. Bill: Well, you know -- Jane: This is a President who uses words very cleverly to make us believe things that aren't necessarily -- Todd: That's why he's president. [ Applause ] Bill: Yes. And you know what? [ Applause ] I admire a man, when asked a question he shouldn't have been asked, to use words cleverly, because that's the proper response. The proper response is [ bleep ] . But when you're President, you can't say that. The proper response is "None of your [ bleep ] business." [ Cheers and applause ] So what do you expect him to do? Todd: That's what I would have preferred is an answer, you know. But like, what's he gonna say? You ask him, "What do you think of France?" Like he's gonna say, "I think they're a bunch self-centered cowards." Bill: Yeah, right. Todd: Yeah, that's what the President of the United States is going to say. Bill: Right, "They're rude. They don't shave, they smell under the arms." No. [ Laughter ] Todd: No, he's not going to say that. Bill: You know. Todd: Not only that, the whole question is like, I always thought that once Kenneth Starr got into the President's pants it was clearly entrapment. [ Laughter ] It was clearly entrapment, you know. Let's say -- Bill: Now this, I haven't heard either. Todd: Let's say Raquel and I -- [ Laughter ] Let's say Raquel and I were having a lovely little -- Raquel: What?! [ Laughter ] Todd: -- Dalliance in the back before the show started -- Bill: Dream on, rock star! [ Laughter ] Todd: Well, I told her to deny it. You know, which is why she's acting like this now. [ Laughter ] But the point is, you know, if you do something sensible, say like, well, "You're not going to talk about this to everybody, because then we'd have all these questions to answer." And somebody might say, "yeah." Well, what happens when somebody says -- when at some point after that, you're indicted by a grand jury and then you have to answer the question, and they say, "Well, did the President ever tell you to talk about this?" Well, that's perjury. It wasn't perjury when he told her not to talk about it. It became perjury when the grand jury started looking into it. Bill: Right. And -- [ Applause ] Raquel: But the whole reason that we're really talking about this is not because any of us care about whether he said anything to Monica Lewinsky and whether he really had all these dalliances or not. I think that what it turned out to be is a kind of prototype. Because he is the President, and he's not, you know, just another guy. That it somehow, you know, sets a certain moral standard that is pretty low. And most people don't feel comfortable about that. So we talk about it a lot because we want to try to find out where our own -- what we would really do in these kind of situations and what it really means to us. Because it just seems that if he's guilty of any of this stuff -- which he very well may be -- he is very indiscreet. Bill: Yes. Raquel: And why is it that -- but I start to think -- Bill: He's a big man with big appetites. Todd: I heard him bragging about it. Raquel: I started to wonder why none of the other Presidents in this country, who very possibly, and we know for sure some of them did, had a lot of infidelities, and they didn't -- they did so in a way that it wasn't such an embarrassment to the first lady. Todd: That's bull. Because the press never reported it before. Jane: We've never crossed the line -- [ All talking at once ] Raquel: Of this whole sexual harassment thing, which gives them the license to drag him on to the carpet. Before, it didn't exist. Bill: Right. Jane: We've never crossed the line. Raquel: So nobody could come up and say -- Bill: Forgive me, I have to take a commercial. And she's my fantasy in my studio! You keep it to yourself! We'll be right back. [ Applause ] Announcer: Join us tomorrow when our guests will be Don Was, Elisa Donovan and Karl Zinsmeister. [ Applause ] Bill: Okay. Now, Jane, I got a dictionary here. "Sexual relations. Noun, sexual activity between individuals." That's all it says. Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher Executive Producers |