Spending Some 'Real Time' With Bill Maher

Nov. 15, 2006 — -- It has been said that comedy is tragedy that happens to other people.

For Bill Maher, comedy is tragedy that happens to people in power.

Maher has been skewering Washington on stand-up stages and talk-show sets for decades, but he is enjoying fresh acclaim in an era when political satire --- a genre of which Maher says he is "The Godfather"-- is often preferred instead of political news.

Maher has a best-selling book, sold-out stand-up routines, and a hit HBO show, "Real Time With Bill Maher," which, when added together, help him live up to his "Godfather" claim.

And with last week's shift in power in Congress, he has something else: vindication.

President Bush, whom Maher recently called "a retarded child emperor," is without a doubt the biggest target of his wrath.

"He definitely should be impeached," Maher said. "The high crimes and misdemeanors he's done in office. … Yeah, I think he's done some terrible things. But I don't think it [an impeachment] would serve the country."

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That statement might make it easy for those unfamiliar with Maher to tag him as a frothing Democrat.

But he said that he had voted for both Bob Dole and Ralph Nader in recent years, and that he had equal disdain for what he views as the Democrats' weakness. And he believes that his dislike for political labels puts him in line with the majority of Americans.

"I could cherry-pick issues and do a whole show," he said. "And if the conservatives only watched that one show, they would go, 'Bill Maher is a great guy. He doesn't like unions. He's for the death penalty. He's for a strong military.'"

"I could certainly do a lot of shows where the liberals would go, 'Boy, he's great on gay marriage,'" Maher said.

"And I think the American people are with me on this. … They are over these kind of ideological labels, and a lot of them are over [the concept of a political] party. There's an awful lot of independents in numbers we never saw before, and they are the ones who controlled this election."