POLITICALLY INCORRECT TRANSCRIPT
[screencaps ]

Eddie Izzard
Janice Crouse
Farai Chideya
Harry Hamlin

[ Laughter ]

Bill: Excuse me.
How abrupt.
Hi, welcome to "Politically Incorrect." Let me introduce the panel to you tonight.
Mr. Harry Hamlin is over here.
I'm glad he's back.
A fine actor.
He's got a TBS movie coming up, "Disappearance," April 21st, and the "L.A. Law" reunion movie on NBC May 12th.
Thank you for coming back.
Farai Chideya, I love Farai Chideya.
"The Color of Our Future" is her book.
We don't have it here.
She's also got a website --
popandpolitics.com and you are a Night Fellow?

Farai: That's right.
That means I get to basically chill out at Stanford, ride my bike around --

Bill: At Stanford? Wow.

Farai: Yeah, students.
Big up to the Night Fellows.
Whoo!
[ Laughter ]

Bill: Janice Crouse, this is your book, "A Different Kind of Strength: Rediscovering the Power of Being a Woman." Lord knows I would like to.

[ Laughter ]

You're also a former speech writer for President George Bush, the older version.

Janice: Right.

Bill: Okay.
And Eddie Izzard, looking --

[ Laughter ]

Looking very butch.
One of our finest comedy imports.
You'll be starring in "The Cat's Meow," opening on April 26th.
Give a hand to our panel.

[ Cheers and applause ]

That's very nice.
Okay.
Now, I don't know if you get into the baby bust thing in this book, but this is all I have been seeing on the news for a week is that women who are middle-aged are suddenly shocked that they can't have children.
And all I could think of is, for years, I've been saying that women are in big trouble because we live in such a feminized society that they never hear the truth.
They're like a pampered rock star.
Nobody ever says, "Elvis, stop eating the peanut butter sandwiches, you're gonna die."
[ Laughter ]

And --
what? Right? I mean --

Farai: What feminized society are we living in again? Explain this to me.

Janice: Well, what has happened is we're now saying to women what we said for men all these years.
You know, we said to men "Oh, devote yourself completely to your career.
That's the only thing that's important." And now we're saying to women that that's the only way you can measure your significance is if you've got a prestigious career and you're making a huge salary.

Bill: Well, I know that's your point of view because I've read part of your book, and you believe the answer's in the Bible.
Now, I was with you at the part where you said that they worship this false god of feminism, but then when you started with the "But really look to Christ," I was like, "Okay."
[ Laughter ]

I see where you're going with this.
But that's not where I'm going with it.
I mean, I understand that part of it.
And I think that part of it is valid, that women, yes, sometimes want to be on the career track.
But the point wasn't that they wanted to be on the career track exclusively, the point was they thought they could have it both ways.
To answer your question, there's the feminized society is that they have this sense of entitlement that they got fed on television or wherever that they could have everything.
And nobody ever told them, "Elvis, stop eating the peanut butter and jelly sandwich."

Janice: But it's not just women.
We say that to men as well.
This is not just a women's issue.

Bill: You mean I can I have baby?

Janice: Well, you probably will by the time you're 50.
I'd put money on it.

Bill: You'd lose that bet.

[ Laughter ]

And we are running out of time rapidly, let me tell you.

Janice: You can go out and marry any 20-year-old you want to and have a child any time you want to.

Eddie: But we can't actually have a baby.
He can't have baby.

Janice: No, he can't have one --

[ Laughter ]

Eddie: I'm up for that.
I don't think that's happening till I'm 105.

Bill: If any one of us is going to have a baby, it's going to be you.

[ Laughter ]

Harry: Wait a minute.
This is not all women.
I know a lawyer who is in her early 50s, she has six children.
She's got a flourishing career as a lawyer.
She's now a manager.
She somehow has done that.

Farai: Does she have a nanny, though?

Harry: Well, I mean, probably she has a nanny.
How is she going to be a lawyer and do that at the same time? Are you saying that women can't have nannies?

Farai: Not at all.
And in fact, one of the women that I've gotten to know this year has four kids, she's a newspaper publisher, has a great husband, and she has a nanny.
I think a lot of this is economics.
I think a lot of it is, if you're a woman who has to work, your husband has to work and your kids rely on both of you working, which is basically what's happened in the economy.
The one-earner family is now a two-earner family.

Bill: Wait, wait, wait --

Harry: Are we talking about women who have to work? Or are we talking about women who have chosen a career path that requires them to put so much time into the job that they can't be a mother?

Farai: I think that basically, in this society, it's a combination of want-to and have-to.
There are some people who are really squeezed, economically, and absolutely have to work.

Bill: But that's a different issue.
We're talking about women who don't have children, not women who have too many that they can't --

Farai: Basically, I think a lot of the women who are not having kids see the other women, who are basically working 120 hour weeks between home --
I mean, basically --
a lot of women who don't have kids are seen as selfish.
But when they look at their sisters, their cousins, who are basically losing their minds working 120 hours a week --

Bill: We're talking about women who get to middle age and want children but go, "Oh, gosh, where did the time go? I put all my eggs in no basket."
[ Laughter ]

And they find out --
'cause they saw on the news that Madonna and Jane Seymour and some other really rich freaks of nature had children.

[ Laughter ]

I mean freaks in good way.

Harry: My son's mother was 44 when he was born.
Is she a freak of nature? I don't think so.

Bill: Yes.
According to the statistics, she is.
And that's the problem is that women --

Harry: I'll tell her that the next time I talk to her.

Bill: But in a good way.
You know, a good freak.
You know --

[ Laughter ]

Farai: They're beautiful, wonderful freaks.

Bill: But not someone to be emulated because everyone else is these women, "Oh, you know what? I'll wait till I'm 40."

Janice: She's one of the very, very fortunate ones because the statistics say that you're not going to have children after 40.
90% of the eggs of women, after 40, are abnormal.

Bill: The eggs are toast.

[ Light laughter ]

Janice: That was bad.

Bill: Oh, well.

Eddie: What's the fertilization thing called? The in vitro --

Farai: In vitro.

Eddie: With that is it more likely you can have a baby if you use that process? Or is that process very expensive?

Janice: It's very expensive and it doesn't work.

Farai: It doesn't work all the time.

Eddie: Well, they'll probably come out with something better.
I think women should be allowed to say, "I want to have a baby and I don't want to have a career." Or "I do want to have a career and I want to have a baby later." And if they haven't got the in vitro up to speed, let's get some new stuff.

[ Laughter ]


[ Applause ]

I just think women should have the choice if they want to have a long career and work till 40 and have a baby at 50.
Have a baby at 90.
Why not? We're all getting older.

Janice: That's a utopian world, Ed.

Bill: See, you sound just like a woman.

[ Laughter ]

Eddie: As an active transvestite, I have to put forth a new agenda here.
Which is, basically, opening up the possibility if women do want to have a baby at 50, then let's get some new in vitro.
Get the guy who's got the --

Bill: How about changing the attitude from "You can do everything all the time," to "Make choices in life."

Eddie: I'm saying make choices.
Give them the choice.

Bill: They can have a baby at 90!

Eddie: Have the choice to have a baby at 90.

Farai: These women, I believe, have already made choices.
You're asking like --
I think that everyone is acting like these women just woke up one day and were totally not making choices the other times.
I think a lot of women are disappointed that now they couldn't have children.
But it's not like they weren't making choices.
They made choices all the way along.

Bill: But they only made that choice 'cause they thought --

Janice: But they didn't have the information.

Bill: They thought they could have both.

Harry: Are you saying they were duped? They were duped into thinking that they could have both?

Bill: No.
They duped themselves because no one said, "Elvis, don't eat the --
"

Eddie: Yeah, but hang on.
Until these figures came out, they didn't know.
And so maybe they didn't have the correct information.
At the moment, the in vitro only works in "X" and if we get better in vitro, then we will have new information and we can go ahead and have a baby at 50.
Why not?

Janice: They don't have the egg.
It physically --

Harry: Well, there's always cloning.

Eddie: We can get new egg machine going.

[ Laughter ]


[ Applause ]

We go to the moon --

Bill: All right.
I have to take a commercial.
We'll be back.

[ Applause ]

Well, yet another Osama bin Laden videotape has surfaced.
This one shows the "Evil Doer" with a deputy and one the 9/11 hijackers is there speaking to the camera.
It's not clear exactly when the tapes were made, but there was one embarrassing moment.
The hijacker complains that he can't find his visa, and bin Laden says, "Don't worry, they'll send it to you."
[ Laughter ]

Bill: Well, Pope John Paul has summoned all the cardinals in the United States to the Vatican to discuss this pesky pedophile situation.

[ Light laughter ]

So next week, all 13 Cardinals will fly to Rome, that's gonna be a switch, airport security giving them an anal cavity search.

[ Laughter ]


[ Applause ]

Okay, we were discussing women --
you okay?

Eddie: I'm falling apart.

Bill: --
Women and their eggs.
And you mentioned cloning.
Now, last week, President Bush suddenly went on the warpath against cloning, said, "No how, no way, no where, no type." I thought it was very disingenuous because he really muddied the distinction between cloning for spare body parts and the types, the stem-cell types, that really could cure diseases and is not creating life.
But he said also that we would, "Create a massive national market for eggs, and egg donors and exploitation of women's bodies." And of course everyone applauded, because who wants to be seen not applauding being against the exploitation of women's bodies? But what an insult to women, right? To think that they have no more control, they find out their eggs are valuable and they just all run down and sell them.

Eddie: It does sound that if we've got sperm banks for men then why can't we have egg banks for women? I mean --

[ Applause ]


[ Laughter ]

30%, yeah.

Bill: Your applause meter, I see.

Eddie: All of you are going, "What?"
[ Light laughter ]

But I was --
on the cloning thing, I think like most people I was going, "Whoa, this sounds like sheep are gonna attack me or something."
[ Laughter ]

We're all gonna wait until "Star Wars" comes out and then we can find out exactly what happened in the "Attack of the Clones."
[ Laughter ]

But then when it was explained to me just before, it isn't actually like growing a baby on a hook and everything.

[ Light laughter ]

It's actually the cell with a nucleus taken out and information, but it's right down to a little cell, the --

Janice: No, no, you guys.
It is --

Eddie: A baby on a hook?
[ Laughter and applause ]

Bill: Turns out you had it, Eddie.

Janice: If they weren't human beings, why would these scientists be interested in them? It would not work in --

Bill: For disease research.
That's why they're interested.

Janice: Oh, that snake oil stuff.

Bill: Snake oil?

Harry: No, no, you're starting the snake oil stuff over there.

[ Talking over each other ]

Harry: This research is there to cure human disease.
And the people who are against this research are putting these little things in a petri dish ahead of people who are sick, who have families, who have children --

[ Applause ]

--
Who need this research to have their diseases cured.
Anything else is baloney.

Janice: This is a promissory note that has never come --

Bill: Never come through --

Janice: --
Seen reality, no.

Bill: A DNA research, is responsible for human insulin for diabetes, Herceptin for patients with breast cancer, epogen for patients with kidney disease, enbrel to help patients with rheumatoid arthritis --
others for cystic fibrosis --

Janice: Hey, we know how well DNA works, what about O.J.? Yeah.

Harry: That's really relevant, okay.

Eddie: Europeans don't understand.
I know what snake oil is, that well with snakes in it --
and I don't know what the O.J. thing is --

Bill: Snake oil.
They used to sell snake oil in the 19th century as an elixir for everything.
It means --

Eddie: But was it good?
[ Laughter ]

No, explanation on what the cloning thing is, and I think we're gonna do it in Europe, so you guys --

Harry: Well, it's gonna happen, anyway.

[ Laughter ]

Farai: We know the first people who did it was China, but they only announced it late.
So if you want to find the babies on hooks, we'll just wait for the delayed announcement.

Eddie: I don't want the baby on hook thing.
That's where everyone goes, "Ooh, that's a bad thing."

Farai: Yes, I know.

Eddie: If you seen "Aliens 4", that's where --
"Ooh, that stuff's wrong."
[ Laughter ]

Farai: To me the cloning thing is all about money, you know? It's really --
it's not about exploitation of women's bodies, it's all about money, because it's all gonna be about what products you can get.
And frankly, the egg thing is already happening.
People already advertise for egg donors and they get very specific.
They're like, "Okay, well, I want a blond woman who has X, Y, and Z college education." Very stratified by race, very stratified by education.
You know what? Human beings are already bought and sold.
Did anybody read "The New York Times" things about people who sell their organs? And, basically, you can go to other countries and say that you're on an organ list here, you can go to other countries and buy someone's organs, just pretty much off the street.
And say, "Oh, you're poor.
I'd like your kidney." And people will give it to you because --

Harry: Research cloning and nuclear --

Farai: It's because everything has a price.
Everything has a price.
And cloning --

Harry: Well, does curing cancer have a price?
[ Talking over each other ]

Farai: I'm not saying that I'm against cloning.
I'm saying that all of these issues that we think of as very theoretical and very human-centered, all of these barriers, I think, are gonna fall along price points.

Bill: But the price point I think you're missing is --
what's really expensive is getting elected president.

[ Laughter ]

And you sometimes --

Eddie: Well, they cloned him.
They cloned the senior one, now get that junior one.

[ Laughter ]

You've already done that.

Bill: And so sometimes you have to pander to certain constituencies in order to achieve --

Farai: So that's how women got --
?

Bill: I can't understand why George Bush would say this unless he was pandering to that --

Harry: Well, there's no question.

Bill: --
Very, very far, insane, right-wing --

Harry: Absolutely.

Bill: That 30 cells in a petri dish is human life.
And it is better to ban that than to use that to cure people of the diseases I mentioned in --

Harry: Well, he didn't call it human life, he called it nascent human life.
And the definition of nascent is evolving.
So it hasn't really gotten there yet.
It's in the process of becoming human life.

Eddie: And you just have prenascent on that, and then you can just keep going back --

[ Laughter ]

Harry: You can go all the way back --
wait a minute, the dinner that I had with my date that led to the thing that created my --
could have been the actual nascent-human, you know, experience.

Janice: Oh, you guys, we're talking about money here.
And we're talking about scientists who are using human beings, potential human beings, and if we don't have respect for this type of human being, where do we draw the line?
[ Talking over each other ]

Harry: We want to use these cells to cure disease.
And if --

Janice: That's all rhetoric, and none of that --

[ Talking over each other ]

Bill: The rhetoric is what is anti-science.

Harry: Yeah, you have the rhetoric point.

Bill: The rhetoric never cured anybody.

[ Light laughter ]

Eddie: But it's not rhetoric, yours is rhetoric.
Rhetoric is the word, so the words that come mean that you're saying that it's also rhetoric.
This is a rhetoric show.

[ Light laughter ]

Janice: I know.
We have adult stem cells that will do the same thing.
We don't need to go to embryonic stem cells.
And this is manipulating science for human purposes and for financial purposes.

Harry: So you think the only reason they're doing it is to make money? That's the only reason anybody is doing any of this stem-cell research and this cloning of human-embryonic cells, is just to make money? No one's really interested in curing disease?

Janice: No, I think people are very interested in curing diseases.

Harry: Well, I'm glad to hear you say that because they are.

[ Light laughter ]

40 Nobel Prize-winning scientists have come behind the research cloning effort and they have, basically, said that if we don't do this, we will be missing a huge opportunity to cure some of the worst and most egregious diseases in the world.
Now, who's right here? I mean, 40 Nobel Prize-winning scientists --

Bill: --
Or a guy who just learned what the word nascent meant?
[ Laughter and applause ]

We gotta take a break.
We'll be right back.

[ Applause ]

Bill: Pamela Anderson and Kid Rock are officially engaged now.
It happened over the weekend.
The asked the press to respect their privacy and they issued a simple statement saying they were looking forward to the honeymoon and having lots and lots of videos together.

[ Laughter ]


[ Applause ]

Okay.
Well, today is tax day.
I guess that doesn't affect you, but for the rest of us, it's a painful day.
We got to set our wallets back six months.
An interesting sidelight to this today, in the last two years, 100,000 African-Americans claimed the slavery tax credit which is a demand for reparations.
And, of course, the IRS gave it out to a lot of them.
It doesn't exist.
The IRS paid out $30 million --

[ Audience gasps ]

--
For the slavery --
yeah.
And it's based on, in 1993, "Essence" magazine had an article that said, with inflation, the price of 40 acres and a mule today would be about $43,000.
And that's what these people have claimed.
They're getting it.

[ Laughter ]

Which I think is hysterical.

Janice: You want to move to the U.S.?

Eddie: No, I'm fine, thanks.

[ Laughter ]

And they're not giving transvestites any money.

Bill: Yeah, right.

Harry: All you have to do is apply for the tax credit.
You'll get it.

Eddie: Yeah, but I've got two questions.
One --
40 acres and mule, that was a Civil War thing, wasn't it?

Bill: Again we have to explain to our friend from not America --
yes, after the Civil War, right? Help me out on my history here, but this was reconstruction when they were trying to curry favor this was back in the days when the Republicans favored the blacks.
That's how long ago this was.

[ Laughter ]

And the Republicans won elections in the South by promising 40 acres and a mule to the recently freed slaves.

Eddie: Gotcha.

Farai: And it was promptly rescinded in, basically, a cutthroat measure of retrenchment pretty much right afterwards --

Bill: So they never got their 40 acres and a mule.

Eddie: So it was a continuation of the Native Americans promissory --

Farai: Yeah, sort of.
Yeah, Native American genocide, enslavement.

[ Talking over each other ]

Eddie: "No, we want it.
Oh, we got tuberculosis." "No, you have this." I want to know why.
Did they just fill in a piece of paper and say, "Can I have $43,000?"

Farai: I think it's pretty extraordinary to start off with that the government actually paid this out.
I'm gonna write a magazine article saying that people who have braids get $1 million dollars each.

Harry: I claimed my credit for tennis elbow already.
I got tennis elbow a couple of years ago.
Then I got audited.

[ Laughter ]

Farai: But let me just frame a little bit of the reparation thing.
There's a guy out of Harvard named Charles Ogletree who's a law professor who's running a big thing about reparations.
And I'm not going to explain all of it, but to put it simply, black people built America.
I'm just going to say like that, simply.
We built the White House, we built the Capitol.
Any time you go to Washington, we built it.
You know, 400 of the 600 people who built the White House were slaves.

Bill: Excuse me, you built some of America.
Let's not get ridiculous.

Farai: This is "Politically Incorrect" so I can be politically incorrect.

Bill: Well, that's just plain wrong.
It's politically incorrect, which is --

Farai: It's hyperbole, but I'm saying --

Bill: Hyperbole, okay.

Janice: For reparations?

Farai: Basically, what reparations talks about is, on many levels, taxation without representation.
And so you talk about Washington, D.C., which is pretty much the only place you can live in the continental United States and not have voting representation.

Bill: Right.

Farai: Voting representation in the democracy of America.
Washington, D.C., is mostly black.
My goodness.
So we have this sort of trickle down effect.
I think we need to talk about stuff.
I think reparations is a great chance to drag stuff out.

Bill: You're right.
But not now.
We have to have a commercial.
Sorry.

[ Applause ]

Bill: All right.
Baby on a hook.
Thank you.
There's your book, Janice, "A Different Kind of Strength." Babies the old fashioned way, from the stork, the way it's supposed to be.

[ Applause ]