THERAN, YJC. -- Bill Maher ended Friday's "Real Time" by saying that he's concerned about North Korea. Not about Kim Jong Un's nuclear capabilities, but rather the way American politicians overreact to foreign threats by using them as an excuse to start expensive wars.
"With Afghanistan winding down, America is dangerously close to not having a war," Maher said. And when we don't have a war, he continued, the country "gets a little sad. A little introspective. It begins thinking about poverty, schools, our crumbling infrastructure."
But he joked that going to war since World War II is a foolish endeavor: "Offering to go to war with the U.S. is like offering to go out for drinks with Lindsay Lohan."
The North Korean threat could just be another ill-fated war like so many we've participated in over the half half-century -- including a few countries with whom we've been engaged in multiple wars, like Afghanistan. "That's when you know you're war mongers, when some countries are coming up twice."
For foreign policy, Maher suggested that U.S. presidents look to one man for inspiration: Jimmy Carter.
"He is the one out of all of them who figured out how to sit in office for four years and never fire a shot. The negative example should be Dick Cheney, who even shoots his friends in the face."
Maher closed out the segment with advice to the Democratic frontrunner for president in 2016, Hillary Clinton. "The reason you lost your primary battle in 2008 was because you voted for the Iraq war, and some guy named Obama was smart enough to be against it. In your upcoming campaign, I hope you know you don't have to run as an 'iron lady,'" referencing the late, hawkish British prime minister Margaret Thatcher. "Because what good is being the first female president if you still have to be a dick?"
Huffington Post