Dennis Miller - Rants

DENNIS MILLER THE RANTS

PUBLISHED BY DOUBLEDAY a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036

DOUBLEDAY and the portrayal of an anchor with a dolphin are trademarks of Doubleday, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.

BOOK DESIGN BY TERRY KARYDES

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Miller, Dennis, comedian.

The rants/Dennis Miller.1st ed. p. cm.

I. Title. PN6162.M489 1996 792.7'028dc20

95-26159 CIP

ISBN 0-385-47804-6

COPYRIGHT 1996 BY DENNIS MILLER ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

APRIL 1996

10 9 8 7 6 5

FOR ALI, HOLDEN, AND MARLON

You are the loves of my life

Table of Contents

preface

I HOPE YOU FIND WHAT FOLLOWS TO BE AN amusing trifle. These rants are sometimes lacerated for being flimsy. I'm fine with that. I don't want to change your mind. I just want to make you laugh. I've dated some of these because they refer to a specific issue at a specific time. Many rants were performed for my HBO show "Dennis Miller Live" over the last three seasons. I'd like to thank Jeff Cesario, Eddie Feldman, Greg Greenberg, David Feldman, Ed Driscoll, Kevin Rooney, Bill Braudis, Leah Krinsky, and Rick Overton for their assistance on these rants.

I'd also like to thank David Gernert at Doubleday, Kevin Slattery, and Marc Gurvitz. Also Jeff Bewkes, Chris Albrecht, and Carolyn Strauss at HBO. And, most important, I'd like to thank Michael Fuchs for his unwavering belief in me.

Now I don't want to get off on a rant here, but ...

liberals a dying breed?

A RECENT SURVEY SHOWED THAT IN LAST November's election, only 18 percent of voters identified themselves as liberals. Wow. Liberals are running for cover faster than Mark Fuhrman at the Apollo Theater.

Now I don't want to get off on a rant here, but along with the KGB and Stevie Nicks, liberals seem to belong nowadays under the "Jeopardy!" heading: "Things Which No Longer Have Any Fucking Relevance Whatsoever." I know for me, liberalism died when the Archies broke up.

It really died though when all the middle-class kids who had been in the protest movement because Mommy and Daddy were footing the bill for their pot and Buffy Sainte-Marie albums found themselves in the big, cruel world with spouses and families to support. And nothing makes being a tool of the military-industrial complex look better than a nice, fat paycheck at the end of every week. If I had a hammer, I'd hammer out danger all over this land, but I got house payments to make, okay, Arlo?

Oh, you can still spot occasional dyed-in-the-wool liberals in their threadbare "Mondale '84" T-shirts having a decaf latte and a nonfat three-berry chocolate chip scone at a Barnes & Noble coffee bar, reading Joan Didion. That is if they can even get out of the house. Hell, it's nearly impossible for today's liberals to dress themselves trying to keep straight which color ribbon goes with what cause.

Bill Clinton has been trying to shake off his liberal label like it was a ski parka in an overheated station wagon.

You know there used to be two partiesDemocrat and Republican, and, separate from that , two schools of political thoughtliberal and conservative. Anybody remember liberal Republicans like Nelson Rockefeller and George Romney? Today, a liberal Republican is one who thinks a condemned man getting death by injection should be laid out on a comfy mattress.

The word "liberal" has replaced "Communist" as the red flag neo-conservatives wave in your face to denote what's wrong in this country. People are even making me out a liberal, when in actuality I'm a pragmatist, which means I think everybody is an asshole but me.

With the threat of communism gone, the power elite no longer has to be on their best behavior. And right now, you have as good a chance of seeing tolerance from them as you do Newt Gingrich dirty dancing with Harvey Fierstein.

Since the '92 elections, the Republicans are so power-hungry they're careening through our hallowed legislative halls like Gary Busey trying to find the john at House of Blues.

What's even more pathetic is the Democratic response. They can't even agree on which shade of white to use for the surrender flag. Some quit, others are now teaching a course in Defeatist Studies at Emerson, and those few that stayed in politics, hey, they dove to their right quicker than Brooks Robinson. Today's liberal leaders bring so much baggage with them they need a skycap Jesse Jackson, Ted Kennedy, Gary Hart.

You don't think liberals can be tough? I've got three words and one initial for youRichard J. Daley, Senior. The late don, excuse me, mayor of Chicago. Daley made Newt Gingrich look like a head shop clerk in Haight-Ashbury. Then there was Hubert Humphrey, Lyndon Johnson, or even Illinois Senator Everett Dirksen, who could've lowered his bifocals and made Bob Packwood resign just by staring at that fuckin' lowlife till he ran out of the Senate chambers.

What the hell happened to liberals? Well, they've been feeling the pulse of the American public about as accurately as the Pepsi Clear execs. Too many liberals settled into power like a fat guy in a hammock after a double deep-dish, extra-cheese-inside-the-crust, extra-cheese-inside-that-cheese, five-meat Sasquatch pizza followed by a Baskin-Robbins Mega-Gutbuster Tin Roof-Parfait-Accompli Sundae. When it came to spending bucks, liberals were the original Waterworld producers. When it came to big government, they got rubber stamp bursitis. And when it came to special interest groups, they drew up the schematics that now allow PACs to control three fifths of the fucking galaxy.

But as bloated as liberal politics has become, it grew from lean and noble rootsthe battle of the working class against the ruling class, the fight for the poor, the struggle of the underdog immigrantliterally, the battle for human rights, right here in this country. We can't afford to forget that.

Remember Mario Cuomo's speech at the '84 Democratic Convention? It was a stunning bolt of lightning that, if only for a brief moment, galvanized the American spirit in the hearts and minds of its people. It was electrifying prose fueled by brains, guts, and compassion, and it made you proud to be an American. Now compare that to the only memorable Republican speech of the last decade Pat Buchanan's derisive, petty, hate-filled diatribe at the '92 GOP Convention. There may not be a member of the current crop of American conservatives who could match Cuomo's speech. I think they may lack the compassion. Their conscience doesn't seem to bother them enough.

So, as far as the nuts-and-bolts legislative details are concerned, liberalism is most probably dead, and it doesn't look like a whole lot of us are gonna be at that wake. But when it comes to the ongoing battle over reshaping this ethereal thing we've dubbed the American spirit, well, liberalism had better be very much alive and breathing fire, or we have truly lost our way as a nation.

Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

the religious right

NOW I DON'T WANT TO GET OFF ON A RANT HERE, but don't these radical religious right leaders scare you a little? I'm not talking about good simple religious folk here. I empathize with you people. I know you're frightened. It looks like the bad guys are winning. And I know you want to do the good Christian thing and save some of the bad guys, but you're probably preaching to the unconvertible. This is a long trail ride, and occasionally a satanic heifer or two is gonna head over the ridge and go off on their own. Let them go. Quit trying to set God up on blind dates with people he has nothing in common with. Well, anyway, you're good people and I got no quarrel with you, Atticus. I'm talking about the overzealous ones. The ones with that bloodless, glazed-over "Prophets of the Caribbean" look. You know, the ones who look like the guys who kept Howard Hughes alive those last three years. Let's run down our roster of modern-day Pharisees: