| August 13, 2004 | Send Bill Maher's New Rules to a Friend |
All right, New Rule: You can't be famous for nothing! Paris Hilton can't be in the papers anymore unless she kills someone, marries J-Lo or O.D.'s. Also, her head is too small and she has only one facial expression. I know that's not a rule but somebody had to say it.
New Rule: Don't make people who hate you, hug you. Whatever the Bush Administration is blackmailing John McCain with, stop!
New Rule: Be a team player. Millions of kids are trying to convince their parents that video games don't make you violent. So when somebody steals your X-Box, don't bludgeon and stab their entire family. Allegedly.
New Rule: Stop saying the cause of Rick James' death is a mystery! Look, I loved Rick, but his idea of health food was going down on a vegetarian. The mystery isn't why Rick James is dead; it's what the hell is keeping Courtney Love alive?
New Rule: Stop saying over and over and over that we've "turned the corner"! If we've turned the corner, how come you're [image of Bush] still here?
All right. And finally, New Rule: One of the guy networks like ESPN has to broadcast an old-school version of the Olympics that leaves out all the Hallmark moments and just shows the sports. You know, Adolph Hitler once used the Olympics to show that Aryans were strong. NBC will be using them to show that Americans like to cry.
Now, for you youngsters out there too young to remember a time before Oprah ruined everything in the old days, when we watched the Olympics, it was just the events! Nothing about the heartbreak and pain it took to become the best damn kayaker a man could be. The shot putter just threw a big iron ball. His mom's chemotherapy, his sister's glass eye and his dog, a wounded combat vet never entered into it. And if we'd been told that the decathlon guy overcame a lifetime of bedwetting to go for the gold we'd have just said, "Hey, if I wanted to sit through hours of melodramatic, personal backstory, I'd pay attention to my wife!"
[indicates photo] This is Nancy Pitts of the U.S. women's wrestling team. Two years ago, the unthinkable happened to Nancy: she was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Happily, it was caught soon enough, and she was back to her usual training regimen: three hours of weightlifting followed by an hour of shaving.
You know, somehow the Olympics now gets the sort of coverage once reserved for a war, while actual wars are treated like sporting events. NBC is airing 1,200 hours of Olympic coverage versus three they gave the Democratic Convention. But what the heck, this is about swimming! Oh, if only it were about swimming without having to wade through the three-hankie immigrant parents, the latchkey kids, the single moms, the inappropriate touching by uncles and all the brave athletes who rose before dawn and traveled hours in the frosty silence of the Iowa winter just to meet their drug dealers.
The Olympics are that rarest of events, a coalition of a great variety of nations coming together for a purpose other than killing Iraqis. So, please, media barons, just give us one channel where it's pure sporting competition and the belief that how high a man can hop proves who has the best country. And then you can keep the focus group-approved drivel disguised as in-depth analysis where it belongs: in the coverage of the presidential election!
That is our show. Thanks to Gary Hart, Maureen Dowd, Representative Rahm Emanuel, Michelle Malkin and D.L. Hughley. Thank you, folks. Good night.