You recently chastised Jay Leno for mocking Bush for "being stupid" instead of addressing what you think is a bigger flaw, that Bush is "deceitful." What do you mean by that, and didn't you also mock Bush for his malapropisms?

Well, I'm a comedian, so I'm sure I made my share of "Bush is dumb" jokes. But that's not the point -- I also held George Bush's feet to the fire on every single thing he's ever done.

That's what Leno hasn't done. The point is, if you only make fun of him for being dumb, you let him off the hook. I mean, Clinton loved it when we made McDonald's pudgy-wudgy jokes, because it meant we were avoiding talking about his greatest vulnerability, which was obviously his love life.

There's a big difference between the way most comedians handle George Bush -- going after that obvious "dumb" line of humor -- and what I did, which was mentioning things like how he jumps on the bandwagon of something like the recent financial CEO scandals and stages a big photo-op and says things like, "We will hold corporate America to high ethical standards" when the reason corporate America is behaving unethically is because of politicians like Mr. Bush. [Corporations] give him millions in campaign contributions so he can print up a sign saying he's demanding the highest ethical standards, and fools the people into thinking that when in fact he's doing the opposite. That's what I want Jay Leno and the others to make fun of. But they won't. They make fun of him for mispronouncing a word.

Don't you see any comedians doing that kind of humor? What about Jon Stewart?

He does the same thing Jay Leno does. And that's OK. Please don't make it sound like I'm criticizing Jay and Jon -- they're my friends, and they're not advertising themselves or purporting to be social commentators. The point is that George Bush gets an amazing pass from this country -- from right, left and center. One thing I've heard as I've traveled this country is "We'd like to see you back on TV because no one is holding Bush's feet to the fire." The media are star-fuckers; especially now that he won the midterm elections. You'd think he was Julius Caesar.

A point you make repeatedly in your book is that Americans didn't take current affairs seriously enough pre-9/11. Do you think "Politically Incorrect" helped or hurt that cause? Some thought it blurred the line between entertainment and politics too much.

Absolutely it helped. Anyone who would make the choice to watch "Politically Incorrect" was at least interested in something of substance. Sometimes on our show we would have some sitcom star who wasn't terribly bright or in some way not up to the level they felt they could find with George Will and William F. Buckley. But I was doing a show pitted against two other purely entertainment shows that would not even attempt to tackle the subjects we were tackling. There had to be entertainment elements -- we didn't want the dog to smell the pill in his food. But I think people would be way better off, as far as education goes, from having a half hour of "Politically Incorrect" as opposed to anything else on another channel at that hour of the night.

You're a big fan of Playboy -- the mansion, the parties, the ethos. You're such a thinking man, doesn't that lifestyle embody rather the opposite?

It's never been my goal to think 24 hours a day, so I make no apologies about that. But first of all lot there are of interesting people up at the Playboy Mansion, including Mr. Hefner himself, who's quite a thinking man. Playboy has been on the forefront of several issues, sex being just one of them. Hef has been out there on civil rights and the drug war and half a dozen other issues. And you know something? I work very hard and do plenty of thinking. I put it out there. It wasn't like, "Hey, the show's over, now it's time to goof off." I work hard and I play hard, much as I hate that cliché.

Do you value bright women?

Absolutely. At my age I have no patience to suffer through even two minutes of anyone -- man, woman or farm animal -- who's not bright. No one knows what anyone else's social life is like; mine gets speculated on a bit. Mine is probably a lot more honest and transparent than most. I'm not married and I'm not looking to get married and I enjoy that.

Which world is more fickle, show business or politics?

That's quite a good question. I think if you flipped a coin to try to divine the answer to that one, it would land on its edge.

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