Tonight's The Night

...with director Spike Lee about post-Katrina New Orleans, music legend Elvis Costello and blogger Marcos Moulitsas—Plus, panel guests fmr. Sen. Max Cleland, author/scholar Vali Nasr and columnist Christopher Hitchens.

When last we left Bill,\ he gave us these New Rules:

May 12, 2006

New Rule: You can't chant "America, you lose," at your trial, and then ask for another chance. Zacarias Moussaioui says he has more faith in juries now, and he wants to change his plea to "not guilty." Sorry, Zac, that's not how we roll here. If we wanted to give second chances to loons who scream death threats, we'd remarry Charlie Sheen.

New Rule: If turning on my cell phone can bring down your commercial airliner, build a better plane. Right? I mean, the number of people who carry hand-held electrical devices these days equals the number of people who have hands. To give them all veto power over whether the other passengers live or die seems like a flaw in the system.

New Rule: Airplane black boxes must now be made out of Keith Richards. The man, who has taken more drugs than Whitney Houston, Rush Limbaugh and Robert Downey, Jr., combined, recently fell out of a tree, and then crashed a jet ski. And yet, somehow, that cigarette never fell out of his mouth. What is this guy still running on? I've got to know. Because I'm beginning to think the future of medicine isn't injecting stem cells, it's injecting heroin.

And finally,

New Rule: George Bush has to stop laughing at himself. When you're incompetence literally costs lives, giggling at it isn't cute or funny. You know, there's a guy who's been running around the country pretending he's the president, and I believe his name is George Bush. And he wants everyone to know that he doesn't take himself too seriously. Which is working out great, because now nobody else in the world does either.

You know, if the Republicans really want to joke around, I've got one for you.

Knock, knock.

AUDIENCE: Who's there?

MAHER: Hillary.

Now, this is our last show of the season, and I'm rather proud that we've gone all 13 weeks without once making George Bush the subject of our show-ending editorial. Because I didn't want to start sounding like a broken record. Or, to you kids, a degraded MP3 file. Oh, there may have been a stray George Bush punchline here and there. But, come on. I am a comedian and he is a retard.

But, fuck it, this is our, this is our last show. This is our last show for a while and I just want to say that when we come back on August 25th, the week of Bill Clinton's 60th birthday, and a great time for him to do the show. Wouldn't you love to see him do the show, folks? Bill Clinton, everywhere I go. So, your move, Mr. President. But when we come back, I hope we're only months away from the beginning of impeachment proceedings.

But, wait. But not for what you think. Now, of course there is a laundry list of valid reasons for impeaching this president. But George Bush and his nest of vipers don't deserve to be impeached with dignity for transgressions involving lofty affairs of state. They deserve the far worse state that Clinton got: being impeached for absolutely nothing at all!

And that's why I want to impeach Bush over the fact that he lied about that fish! He said he caught a perch twice as large as any perch that's ever been caught! And that's a lie about a fish! In a time of war! And if he will lie about a fish, then...something, something, something, what do we tell the children? What do we tell Mrs. Paul?! That perch was as American as a McDonald's fish sandwich. Assuming for the sake of argument that a McDonald's fish sandwich contained fish.

So, Mr. President, don't laugh at yourself, because breaking the law is not cute. Having Americans torture people isn't adorable. Leaving poor people to drown wasn't enchanting. And WMD's wasn't a shaggy dog story. So, I'll make a deal with you. We won't impeach you if you just stay on your estate — I mean "ranch" — and fish on your man-made lake. For perch. Maybe you'll beat your own record.

But, for the next three years, just don't touch anything. I was wrong when I criticized you for taking too much vacation time. It couldn't be more the reverse. Take all the "me" days you want. But if you get any big ideas and try to do something, you know, like go to Mars or put the Ten Commandments on the flag, or turn the ports over to the Amish, then we're going to have to put you in the only place we can be sure we can be safe from you. And it looks like this. [photo shown of David Blaine's water-filled Plexiglas globe]

All right, folks. See you back in August. [he picks up flag and kisses it] I love the flag! Any flag. That's our show.

It IS All Good