Your show, though, has a debate format. And in your first four broadcasts, you've been arguing about whether we should go to war. What do you this week?

Maher: Well, I think what we're going to talk about is what I'm talking about with you. What is the propriety in wartime. And then I think we want to talk about the future -- what is the right approach of basically an occupying force in Iraq. I know the administration thinks that we'll be held as liberators, and there is going to be some of that, and we are to a great extent liberators.

But we're also going to be occupiers. We thought the Vietnamese would love us, remember? You just got to get to know us! You will love it! I'm not sure that crowd in Washington gets it, that what we're selling is not what they're buying. Certainly they want freedom from the tyranny they live under. But they might think that we're not free because we're imprisoned by materialism, and godlessness, and that sort of stuff. Everybody's idea of freedom is different.

But when does this grace period end, when there shouldnt be criticism of war?

Maher: I can't give you a numerical date like six weeks. We just have to see how it goes. Obviously, in Vietnam, people went along with it for several years ... and then the tide really started turn. Back then we were less cynical, it was sort of our first test of whether we were going to go along 100 percent and back the government no matter what they did. I think now, because we have been through that experience before, people are not going to wait a couple of years if they think it's a quagmire.

In this case, it probably won't be a war, it will be a peace that might be a quagmire, keeping the peace there.

At the Oscars, there will surely be some acts of protest - some performers won't show -- but there will also be very tasteful and somber appearances and speeches by people not really saying anything. What's better?

Maher: To me that's the wrong call. Either do it or don't do it. But if you're going to do it, show the world, you know, what we're fighting for. Which is, of course, lavish overindulgence. Get out there in your cheesy tit suit. Say something stupid about your agent. Thank God and your mom and have all of us make fun of your dumb headdress. Don't take that away from us.

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