Ron Paul on Bill Maher's HBO TV show

US Rep. Ron Paul, our Favorite Son candidate for president as well as representative of The Fightin' 14th Congressional District of Texas, appeared on "Real Time with Bill Maher" on the HBO Friday night.

Predictably, Maher tried to further the popular characterization that Paul is a nut.

First off, Maher set the table by saying he thought he was a Libertarian, "but I'm Chairman Mao compared to you. You think we should get rid of the CIA!"

Paul responded by saying there's room for intelligence gathering, but he doesn't like it when the agency assassinates the elected leaders of foreign of governments, citing Diem in Vietnam as an example.

"We're under attack by crazy Muslim fanatics," Maher responded. "Don't you think even if they're doing a bad job it's better than no job at all. I would feel pretty naked without the CIA."

Paul replied, "You'd be a lot safer cause you'd be less likely to be attacked by terrorists. I mean, our CIA was in operation getting rid of an elected leader in Iran in 1953, and they never forgot that, and that helped lead to the radicalization..."

Maher cut him off, saying, "You are pretty far out there as far as the Libertarian thing. I mean I read that you said you don't think we should have fought the Civil War."

Paul said there could have been a better way back in the 19th Century to solve the country's problems other than civil war, noting that every other major country in the world rid itself of slavery without a civil insurrection. "The Civil War wasn't fought over slavery, the Civil War was fought over unifying and making a strong centralized state. You could have paid for all the slaves and released them and there were proposals like that. That's the way the British did it..."

"Alright," Mahr said. "Not for the Civil War. What about global warming?"

Paul said there are reputable scientists on both sides of the argument.

"No you don't!" Maher said. "On the other side you only have Professor Irwin Corey and the Shell Answer Man..."

Maher offered that only the government can solve a problem as huge as global warning.

Paul replied, "Well, then you have to deal with the volcanoes and you have to deal with the pollution of China, so do you want to invade China to make sure they don't pollute? What are you gonna do about the volcanoes, they are all contributing factors to global warning. That doesn't mean you shouldn't do what we can to slow up the emissions and stop subsidizing big oil companies. I don't like subsidizing oil companies. They've been doing that for years. We go to war to protect oil so we can buy more oil, burn more oil, so I would say our foreign policy contributes to global warming by subsidizing a policy that is deeply flawed, and that's why we're in the Middle East, to protect oil interests..."

The audience then applauded, and Maher went for a laugh (unsuccessfully) by saying, "But still against the Civil War, okay."


Then he asked Paul about the Federal Aviation Administration, saying we need the government to run that important agency, right?

You could privatize the FAA, Paul said, adding:

"Of course you didn't do a very good job with your FAA in preventing four aircraft from going down in wrong places, where if it had been private and you had not depended on government for protection you might not have had a rule that said you can't have a gun on airplane and you can't resist, so because we were dependent on the federal government to protect us and the FAA, we weren't really protected. So I would say there's lots of room for an alternative to a government monopolized FAA and we'd be just as safe."

But hasn't the fiasco at Walter Reed Army Hospital shown that private enterprise does a worse job than the government can do because private enterprise has "absolutely no conscience"? Maher asked.

Paul: "What makes you think the Veteran's Association (sic) is private? This is a demonstration of what government-run medicine will be like. If you like government medicine, go to the veterans hospitals and you'll find out what it's like. As a physican and that's been been trained in veteran's hospitals, most physicians and doctors always knew what the quality of medical care was in many of our veteran's hospitals. We need to allow every veteran to have decent health care, but we should permit 'em and pay for it to allow him to go to the doctor he wants to go to and not make him stand in line to get second-class care in some of our VA hospitals."

That's where the interview ended, whereupon D.L. Hughley, an African-American actor/comedian who was on Maher's discussion panel , said, "I'm just glad they fought the civil war."

So there you have it.