Bill Maher's final New Rule from Friday's show laid into Mitt Romney for running on his "business experience", and Maher showed why that line should ring hollow to anyone who's been paying attention.
And finally, New Rule: Contrary to what Republican candidates always sell, business experience does not make someone a good President. Honestly, do you people really want to get in this argument with me? George Bush had business experience. There, I win.
Now shut up before I mention Donald Trump, the business genius who's filed for bankruptcy more times than MC Hammer. By the way, you know what makes a really great businessman? When your father has $400 million dollars, and dies. Or as Trump calls it, "the art of the deal".
Oh, but he goes much further than that.
You see, businessmen generally make lousy political leaders, because government isn't about turning a profit. It's about taking care of the things that shouldn't have to turn a profit. You can't make everything better with business.
Full transcript below the fold.
And finally, New Rule: Contrary to what Republican candidates always sell, business experience does not make someone a good President. Honestly, do you people really want to get in this argument with me? George Bush had business experience. There, I win.
Now shut up before I mention Donald Trump, the business genius who's filed for bankruptcy more times than MC Hammer. By the way, you know what makes a really great businessman? When your father has $400 million dollars, and dies. Or as Trump calls it, "the art of the deal".
Now yesterday, Mitt Romney announced he's running for President, and last week at a rally in Iowa, almost 200 people showed up, leading folks to ask, what is the secret to Romney's almost Lady Gaga-like appeal? That 200 Iowans would brave a partly sunny day with temperatures in the low 70s, just to get a glimpse of the man. Is it because he looks like a model in the 1983 Montgomery Ward catalog? Yes, that's part of it.
But his big claim to fame is that he's a businessman. And in America, saying you're a businessman automatically makes you better than anyone who's not a businessman.
Obama never ran a business. He was a community organizer helping poor people. Where's the money in that, stupid loser? Romney, on the other hand, is all business. You get the impression that he delays orgasm by calculating interest rates.
In his speech, Romney said, "Unlike President Obama, I know how jobs are created and how jobs are lost."
Yeah, especially the "lost" part. Cuz here's what Romney's former company, Bain Capital, does. It buys companies and revamps them by "cost-cutting", otherwise known as firing people, and then sells them for a profit. Which is great if you're getting the profit. Not so much if you're getting fired so Mitt can live here.
No, that's not a hotel, that's Romney's old vacation home. Though to be fair, it's a little cramped for a Mormon family who breed like Irish Catholics on ecstasy.
Mitt Romney's other business success story besides Bain Capital is Staples. Yes, that Staples. The store that sells you ink cartridges. The store you put off going to for as long as you can. The store with zero decor, and a flickering fluorescent light that makes you think, has my life really come to this?
You see, businessmen generally make lousy political leaders, because government isn't about turning a profit. It's about taking care of the things that shouldn't have to turn a profit. You can't make everything better with business. Business can't turn coal into diamonds, or crap into food. That's soy sauce.
So Mitt, instead of pointing out your business experience, try using the fact that you were the Governor of Massachusetts, the most educated state in the country, and your main accomplishment was universal health care. Then again, you're trying to appeal to the Republican base, so you'll have to do that in a way that avoids mentioning Massachusetts, universal health care, or smart people.
Keep this in mind as well when talking with any right-wing acquaintances you have when it comes to Herman Cain, because trust me, if the others don't seem appealing, they WILL flock to him, all the while telling you, see, I can't possibly be racist because I like Cain! Getting into the racism arguments can get very prickly, so stick with arguments like the one Bill Maher laid out about how business experience does NOT make someone a good candidate for President.