Bill Maher Tells It Like It Is

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MATTHEWS: What is the disconnect between Barack Obama and working-class regular guys, the guy you call—and I don‘t even like phrases like that, Joe six-pack, Joe bag of donuts...

MAHER: Well, you know, I can sort of understand why that is. And—and I think we all have sympathy for people who are struggling, basically, economically.

I thought it was great that Barack Obama, in the speech, made the point that you are not being kept down by the immigrants or the black guy. That is not who is your problem. Your problem is the corporation, the greedy corporation and those people who—who put politicians in office, who do the bidding of those corporations, who rapaciously plunder the workers‘ pensions, who take their jobs overseas and so forth. That is the real problem...

That is the challenge for a politician like Obama, or really any Democrat, is to convince those people who their real problem is. And their real problem is that corporations have taken over America...

MATTHEWS: But John McCain is going to be tricky, though, for the Democrats, because he is a war hero. And although you list that—that list of attack on the Republican policies if you are a regular person, how it hurts you economically, suppose they go into that voting booth in November, and they don‘t choose between their economic interests and the richer guy‘s economic interests; they choose the war hero, the guy they identify with personally?

MAHER: Well, that is very—that is very possible.

You know, we are one terrorist attack away from John McCain, I‘m sure, rising in the polls by 10 points, because people think, oh, yes, he is tougher. Of course, he is not tougher about the war. He‘s dumber about the war. He‘s dumb about the war, because he thinks that, by keeping troops in the heart of the Muslim world, that‘s going to help the war on terror.

That‘s exactly what started the war on terror. That‘s why bin Laden was so angry at the U.S., is, because we had troops in Saudi Arabia. And we pulled them out after 9/11, by the way. Of course, then, we go right back in and plant them in the—in the heart of the Muslim world and build Pizza Huts.

That is why young Muslim men want to come here and blow themselves up and kill us. And, until we solve that mental problem, we‘re never going to win this war on terror. It is not about what happens in Iraq. We need to get out of Iraq, not—not build bases there.

As I suggested yesterday, I think the big question come November will be whether the American people are smart enough to vote for the smart guy. Fingers crossed...