I won't say that lying under oath is wrong? Lying under oath is wrong.

In every case, every time?

In every case, every time.

And he was wrong to do it, wasn't he?

Yes. OK, so now that we've established that --

You're a card-carrying conservative.

No, I am not.

But if I said that, you would say, "You seem very conservative in your positions."

No, I wouldn't.

But people do. They say, "You are picking on Clinton." I say, "Well, he's a liar. He lied under oath. It's a bad thing to do. I don't approve of it." That doesn't make me some raving, right-wing lunatic.

I'm really proud and glad that you said that, so I know I'm talking to a kindred spirit, somebody who can actually take each case on a per-case basis and examine it.

But I do think you're letting Bush off a bit easy on the WMD issue.

But there are way bigger issues than that.

I tell you why these conversations sadden me. I don't ever like to do press anymore and that's only because there's never any advantage for me to do it. The only thing the press is ever interested in is controversy and creating it even if it's not there. They can't pick on my personal life because I live an exemplary, decent person's life, so they pick on my politics. Do you think I want to be the one lone voice against the Hollywood liberal establishment? It's not going to do me any good. So I prefer never to have these conversations because, quite frankly, nobody on either side is going to be convinced by anybody on the other side. It's just too polemical and it's too polarized, so I'm not interested in having them.

OK.

But wait, wait, but secondly. What happens to me is, I'm talking to you and you seem from what I can tell not only intelligent but a decent person, but you know, this is Salon.com, so of course it's going to be "right-wing lunatic James Woods blah-blah-blah." And in fact, I don't want to A) volunteer this, B) don't want to be labeled for it, C) I'm totally at your mercy.

If a rational person heard this conversation they'd think, Oh, he's making a good point or she's making a good point, they'd hear it that way. But the way you could potentially report it, I could sound horrible: "James Woods and Arnold Schwarzenegger," or whatever the fuck. I don't even want to be in that category.

So I, to try to help my friends who made a beautiful film, try to get their film promoted, am making a deal with the devil. You're going to talk about the film for five minutes and never mention it in the article, I'm sure, or mention it in one line just to get it out of the way. And I actually tried to help you get through it quickly because I knew it was just a pretext to talk about the other stuff.

No, that's not true.

I don't know if these are facts. I'm just saying they're impressions. So I'm just sitting here getting my ass again to the gangplank, getting my ass chopped off by the pirates, and talking to Salon.com so I can be humiliated and degraded, and it's fine because I'm doing it for the movie, but honestly, it just saddens me because it would be wonderful to have a conversation with somebody who says, "Well, yeah, that's a good point," and then wrote a kind of balanced article about it. That would be great. Then I'd be actually interested in talking about politics.

You feel like you've been burned in the past.

No, I've dealt with so many journalists. I've had to put up with it because I wanted to promote my friend's movie. I made $5,000 doing this movie. I didn't make any money. I did it for love and respect and I'm happy to do whatever I can to promote it. So you can say whatever you want and quote me however you want about politics and make the next payday, and that's fine because I'm making that deal with you, but just mention the movie along the way, OK?

This seems a little disingenuous to me. You're clearly interested in politics, and this is an opportunity to get your opinion out there.

I'm neither inclined nor really in any way interested in disabusing people of their political positions, however ridiculous they may be or however sound they may be. They can think whatever they want. I've never talked to an extreme liberal or conservative who could be disabused of his or her notions about their positions. They are intractable in their thinking, they are unreasoning and unreasonable and it's just a waste of breath to talk to them. I always say to them, "Look, just go sit at the card table with the rest of the kids and let the adults run the country." No matter what position you may take about the Bush presidency, if George Bush parted the Red Sea, found every single terrorist, found every weapon of mass destruction, fed the poor, opened the shores of America, gave every starving kid a college education, do you think Salon.com would write about it? No, you wouldn't.

Let me ask you a question, OK?

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