Politics and Religion (Uh-Oh)

Bill Maher was on Larry King last night and, as usual, he didn't disappoint. Here's the full transcript along with a few choice bits:

On John Edwards' affair:

"When somebody is caught cheating, of course it's never an admirable thing to do, but I still think there's a giant lack of national perspective on this crime. A man is married 31 years, you know, people, not just men, women. You're married a long time, you're desperate for something new. I mean, men like new sex. Women like new shoes. People like new. You can't stop human nature. The noble thing to do when you're married is to suck it up and suffer. We all get that. Fine. But it's a shame that we have to lose a good message from an otherwise good man. He was the guy who had the health care plan that they both copied. His idea that we have two Americas...and in one of them, he's single. That's an important message."

On organized religion:

"It just ticks me off. It's the ultimate hustle. Why can't they, I always ask -- I asked Jesus at Holy Land, "Why can't God just defeat the devil and get rid of evil?" And it's the same reason the comic-book character can't get rid of his nemesis. Then there's no story. If God gets rid of the devil -- and he could, he's all powerful -- well, then there's no fear. There's no reason to come to church. There's no reason to pass the plate. We're all out of a job. You know, it's got to go on."

Evangelicals:

"One reason I have always been anti-Evangelical and people who take the Bible literally is because it allows you to be horrible to animals, people, too. Slavery is OK with the Bible, keeping women down, and honor killings and let's not even go into how bad they are to people. But animals, you know, the Bible says man can have dominion over animals. And also they believe people have a soul, whatever that is, but animals don't. So do whatever you want with them."

McCain:

"CALLER: I have a question. Do you think McCain will be just as bad or worse than Bush? I'm a first-time voter, and I'm Barack all the way, man.

MAHER: OK, dude. It's hard to say. It's hard to imagine a president being worse than Bush. But I could see McCain pulling it off. I don't know. McCain is a real hard one to figure, because he could get into office and revert to the maverick McCain that we used to like. He could say, you know what? I had to do a lot of stuff I didn't like to get to this spot, which every politician has to do. But now I'm here. You can't touch me.

He can be better on a lot of issues than Bush. But on issues like Iraq, he's not. He doesn't get the most fundamental thing about this war, that it is our presence in that country that is the problem. He's OK with leaving troops in Iraq for a hundred years. He said this. He said, look, we have troops in Germany and Japan and South Korea. Yes, but they're not Muslim countries. What irks them is just our presence there. As long as we have troops in the heart of the Middle East, there will always be terrorist planners trying to kill us, young, Muslim men who want to kill us for doing that. So on that level, alone, I can't say he's better than Bush."