Guests on this program were:

• David Paymer
• Robert Shapiro
• Julianne Malveaux
• David Cross

Bill's Monologue-

[ Cheers and applause ]

Bill: Thank you very much. All righty, thank you.

[ Applause ]

Well, thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. Did you see President Clinton's year-end press conference?

[ A few "Yeahs" ]

Yeah, I didn't think so, either.

[ Laughter ]

I didn't see -- apparently it set a record. He talked for over an hour and a half. Wow, that's a long time. And he got mad at a certain point, because the reporters were accusing him of being kind of a lame duck caretaker who only cared about golf at this point. Which he vehemently denied, but then sort of undercut himself by referring to his second term as "The back nine."

[ Laughter ]

Well, the one world leader who is stepping down -- big news overseas -- Nelson Mandela of South Africa had a, yes, a four- hour speech. Said he is stepping down as head of the African national Congress. Some people say it's because he's distraught over the testimony of his ex-wife, Winnie. You know what's going on, that Winnie Mandela's been testifying. They've been accusing her of horrible things, of beatings, of torture, of murder. And she denies it. Others say she's a liar. I think they have a good reason, because not only did she say that she is Nelson Mandela's wife, she also now says she's Bill Cosby's daughter.

[ Laughter and Applause ]

Now, the defense finally rested and it has gone to the jury in the Terry Nichols Oklahoma City bombing trial. Now, the defense, this is unbelievable. Did you see this yesterday? Michael Tigar, he is the defense lawyer for Terry Nichols. He closed his argument with tears rolling down his face. He put his hands on Terry Nichols' shoulders, said, "This is my brother." I mean, Tim McVeigh used less fertilizer to blow up the building.

[ Laughter ]

Wow.

[ Applause ]

But -- But it's Christmas, ladies and gentlemen. I didn't think that would go good. You know what's going on around the country? Christmas pageants. Do you go to these things? There was one in Dallas that's ending tonight. A church -- this is the new trend in churches -- with 14,000 parishioners. This is called the megachurch, it's the new thing. Where people basically get their religion in bulk.

[ Laughter ]

Or as they call it, Christ's Club.

[ Laughter and Applause ]

And finally, we would be remiss if we didn't report on the progress of the new first dog, Buddy. Yes. You know Clinton got a dog, named it Buddy. And apparently Buddy is really a good dog, because they say it has not messed up any of the priceless White House rugs. It seems to know to go on the subpoenas.

[ Laughter ]

All right. Thanks for coming. It's all been satirized for your protection.

[ Applause ]

Panel Discussion-

Bill: All righty, welcome to our show. Let us meet our panel. She is an economist writer and syndicated columnist -- Dr. Julianne Malveaux! There!

[ Applause ]

There's my friend. How are you, honey? Good to see you. Merry Christmas. He's an Emmy-winning writer and the David half of "Mr. Show with Bob and David," my favorite show -- David Cross! Yes, sir.

[ Applause ]

How are you, buddy?

David C.: Good.

[ Applause ]

Bill: He was nominated for an Academy Award for his role in "Mr. Saturday Night." His new movie is "Amistad" -- David Paymer!

[ Applause ]

Hey, Dave. Glad we got you here. Merry Christmas. And one of the best-known and most controversial attorneys of our time -- Robert Shapiro!

[ Applause ]

Bob, good to see you.

[ Applause ]

Hey, watch it. I'll sue you.

[ Laughter ]

All right.

Robert: You've got a good lawyer.

Bill: Well, I don't yet, but I need one. I want to talk about this movie, "Amistad," which is one of the big holiday movies. You are in it. I have not seen it yet, I'll be honest with you, but I want to. This time of year, I'm swamped with paternity suits.

[ Laughter ]

But there is a big controversy about this movie, because not only did it open, but apparently the filmmakers felt necessary to also educate our children about slavery. Now the film, like many films based on history, is not just history. It's history with a bunch of made-up stuff in the middle of it. And now they are presenting this to the school kids as the history itself. They are -- Michael Medved wrote a scathing article, where he said that what they're doing is they're handing out these educational kits in colleges and high schools, but they're not based on the history, they're based on the movie's history. Which is, you know, Medved says, it describes meetings that never happened, speeches that were never delivered, characters that never existed, and then presents them as history. Now, you could say these kids, without this, are not going to learn about the history at all, because they wouldn't care unless Steven Spielberg presented it to them. But on the other hand, should we be teaching kids based on Spielberg's history and not real history?

David P.:: Well, the thing is, that real history just buried this incident about the "Amistad." I mean, I never read about it when I was a kid.

Bill: That's true. I never heard of it.

David P.:: No one heard about it. You know, you had to be like a Ph.D. studying African-American history to find out about it. So, I don't know. I mean, you know, there are certain things that are fictionalized in the movie because he's got to dramatize this thing. I mean, the incident took place over several years. You could argue if you were making a World War II movie --

Bill: But then we're talking about -- I agree with your premise. I never heard any black problems until Denny's, actually.

[ Laughter ]

That's the first I'd heard that blacks were unhappy. No, I'm kidding. But I mean we're talking teaching kids in the school.

Robert: You know what concerns me when you read an article like this, is we have such influence to our kids in the media today. And most of it is negative.

Bill: Yeah.

Robert: From music to motion pictures to some television with all the violence, to see America's greatest filmmaker make a historical movie of overwhelming importance on one of the most horrific periods of time in world history, in world history, that to get a message across, and the real message about slavery, about the politics in the court system, is overwhelming.

[ All talking over each other ]

Julianne: The movie is a legal drama. I mean, this is, you know, a law drama taken into the 19th century. Spielberg missed a Golden opportunity. I'm glad he did the movie. Let's be clear. I knew about "Amistad" in high school, but then I'm one of those angry black folks who figured out every time we killed one of y'all, we wanted to comment on that. That turned all those folks. We kept records. But in any case, you know, I knew about it, and a lot of folks did.

Bill: Easy. Easy.

Julianne: Oh, sorry.

[ Laughter ]

Would you defend me later? Let's not go there. Basically, the Golden opportunity I think he missed was this -- kids need to know how movies are made, and how you take one character that is an amalgamation of a bunch of characters, what that's about. Because so many people turn on television, turn on a movie and act like that's real. The reason why I say it was a legal drama, I think that if you presented the real documents about what happened on that "Amistad" ship, about what happened in the middle passage, many Americans would not be able to look in the mirror, and that's why probably it has to be fictionalized.

David C.: The issue isn't whether the film should be made or shown to people, it's whether you --

Bill: Right.

David C.: -- Use that as a way, as an umbrella to give teaching guides to children. Now, I went to Nike high school in McDonald town.

[ Laughter ] We weren't taught those things, but you don't have -- you don't use it to -- it seems like pseudo-altruism.

Robert: No, it's not true. It's not true. The fictionalized characters are not the mainstay of the movie. The mainstay of the movie is the slavery issue and the --

Bill: We're talking education here.

Robert: But the educational message, Bill, that you see in this movie is how politics can take an important place --

Bill: You're saying it's okay to teach kids something that is absolutely not true?

[ All talking at once ]

Robert: You haven't seen the movie, so you shouldn't be commenting on it.

Bill: That's not the point. I know what goes on in this movie.

Robert: No, you don't. You didn't see it. And if you didn't see it --

Bill: But I didn't see "Titanic," I know the ship sinks.

[ Laughter and applause ]

And I know for a fact -- and I know for a fact that there are characters in this movie that did not exist. The character that is played by Morgan Freeman did not exist. And in the educational guide, they present that to the kids reading this as if he did. Now, I'm asking you, do you represent something that's not entirely true?

Julianne: What they're actually doing is providing kids with information.

[ Laughter ]

I think that again the missed opportunity is that they could have presented it as true by saying, "This character didn't exist but there were people like this that did exist. These are some of the documents." There's wonderful documentation --

David P.:: The key word is it's a guide. It's a guide.

Julianne: But it's a study guide. It's being passed out in school.

David P.:: You know, Spielberg is breathing life into these characters.

Bill: Yes, he is.

David P.:: Yes, Morgan Freeman is a composite of black abolitionists who were working as activists at the time to help get these Africans freed. So they condensed that character. Now, I think it's nitpicking. I mean, if students are going to see this movie, and they're going to go ahead and look back to the, you know, research sources and find out more about this, what's so bad about that? This Medved thing is nitpicking.

Bill: Okay.

Robert: It also opens up opportunities for people to examine these. And along with a study guide, if a teacher is there to go through it and to discuss it and say, "Yes, this is a form of entertainment. There are fictionalized characters here, but this is the real message that we are trying to teach you."

David C.: As long as that teacher is handpicked by DreamWorks, I don't have a problem.

[ Laughter ]

Bill: Speaking of messages, I have to take one. We will be right back.

[ Applause ]

Bill: All right. We were talking about slavery as if it's something that doesn't exist in the world today. But it does, some people would say, in the form of sweatshops. This is a big controversy. Nike has been very criticized, along with many other companies, for basically having sweatshops, where people work for a very little wage and work very hard. Now the other argument is that, hey, without these jobs, a lot of these people wouldn't be working at all, and that people sometimes have to pass through this economic phase to get somewhere better. Immigrants in this country did so much. And I don't think that's such an unreasonable argument.

Julianne: I hear what you're saying about, you know, 20 cents an hour is better than nothing, but if Nike spent 10% of their promotions budget just improving the conditions of work --

Bill: Right. But I don't see Michael Jordan giving his salary back.

Julianne: Those are golden handcuffs, and I wish he would. And I wish he would.

Bill: Yeah, but I mean, that's what you're talking about. When you say your promotional budget, that's a nice word for Michael Jordan. And nobody wants to attack him.

Julianne: So maybe he doesn't get $40 million. Maybe he gets $36 million. No big deal.

Bill: Especially you DreamWorks ass-kissers.

[ Laughter ]

David C.: It seems like, at its basic root, it's exploiting labor, and exploiting labor for the good of corporation and few. And there's not a profit-sharing plan, it doesn't seem.

[ Laughter ]

Bill: No.

Julianne: Profit sharing?

David C.: I'm guessing that's not part of it.

Julianne: If you don't work 12 hours a week -- you know, the conditions. Don't talk about the dollars, though. Just let's talk about the conditions of people working for 12 hours, not getting bathroom breaks.

Bill: How about perspective? How about what they were doing before the Nike factory opened? Because you know, when the Nike factory opened, they flocked to it. There's more people who want jobs there.

David C.: Yeah, but that's not an excuse to exploit people. I mean there should be some viable alternatives to that. And we should -- I think we should be responsible for policing the companies in America that go overseas because they can't come here -- they can't do the same thing here because we have laws against just such a thing because we believe in human rights. And they go to other countries and they exploit the labor there so that we can --

[ All talking at once ]

Robert: Those similar claims were made in America 100 years ago when we were going through our economic growth.

Bill: But that's the point. We were going through it.

Robert: We had children working in inhumane conditions. We had immigrants who were suffering.

Bill: Right.

Robert: We had people who were diseased, people who were sick, who were forced to work in these conditions. A lesson from history should be learned, and nobody should have to --

Bill: But people here don't want to give up the -- you know, how else are you gonna get --

[ Applause ]

They don't protest when they're buying a $9 prom dress at Wal-Mart.

Julianne: But the fact is that the dress will be --

Bill: And they still keep watching Kathie Lee.

Julianne: The dress will be $9.30 if indeed you pay people fairly. What needs to happen is that our country needs to make sure that we know that people are using exploited labor and what it's costing. Because if we know that, there may be Americans who will choose to vote with their feet and not purchase that stuff. But if it's hidden, people don't have those options. You're right. People are still watching Kathie Lee, and they probably need to stop. Because the child labor issue --

[ Laughter and applause ]

David C.: You don't have to qualify that statement.

Bill: Yeah, right. I have to take a break. We're a little late. We'll be right back.

[ Applause ]

Bill: All right. I thought as long was we had a very prominent lawyer here, I wanted to ask you about this Unabomber trial, which is going on now. And his lawyers are trying to get him to plead insane. I don't think he wants to. That's what it seems to be.

Robert: That's what may be a definition of insanity.

Bill: But see, that's the problem.

[ Laughter ]

Yeah, Is that it seems that we've gotten to this point in this country in our legal system, where if you do something horrific, if you kill somebody, if you do something outside the bounds, it seems like their defense always is, well, by very definition, if you kill a guy, you're insane. And I'm here to say, it just means you're a schmuck. It doesn't mean you're insane. It just means you have no moral conscience and then you should fry.

[ Laughter and applause ]

Robert: Juries across America agree with you in almost every case.

Bill: Really?

Robert: If you look at the number of cases where insanity is pled as a defense and the number of times it's successful, it is one of the least successful defenses that is ever put forward. The only one I can really think of in recent memory was Hinckley, of a prominent case where insanity took place.

Bill: Right.

Robert: And you know, in a civilized society, if somebody is truly crazy in the traditional sense, they don't know the difference between right and wrong and they cannot conform their behavior to right versus wrong. That person should, in my opinion, be treated differently than a sane person. That doesn't mean they should be excused.

Bill: How can you see into somebody's head? I mean, you mentioned John Hinckley.

Robert: Well, you can't.

Bill: He just petitioned to go home to spend the holidays with his parents. Isn't that insanity?

Robert: You and I can't --

[ Laughter ]

Bill: Ladies and gentlemen of the jury.

Robert: You have a point, Bill.

David P.:: But isn't it also about proving intent? And with Kaczynski, I mean, it's not like this guy had a bad night. I mean, this guy --

Julianne: He had a bad 20 years.

David P.:: A bad 20 years where he meticulously planned and --

Bill: Allegedly.

David P.:: Allegedly. Allegedly killed three people. Allegedly tried 16 times to do this. And he never took a bath.

Bill: Right.

Julianne: Are you suggesting that if he took a bath he wouldn't have had time to kill?

Bill: And that's part of their defense. They brought his shack back to say, "Look, he lived in this shack, so therefore he must be nuts. Let him go."

[ All talking over each other ]

Julianne: The fact is that he may be nuts, and let's keep him. I mean, you know, you have crimes that are committed in the heat of passion and you say, "Well, they're not going to do that again." But the fact is that he kept doing this. Let's just lock him up and throw away the key. I'm not with your fry thing, but lock him up somewhere. Give him, you know --

Robert: Why don't you wait until there's a trial and let's see what the evidence is?

Julianne: That might happen, too.

Robert: That might be a good idea.

David C.: If he's found guilty --

[ Laughter ]

Bill: Well, first of all -- We know what a lot of the evidence is. And it's completely overwhelming. You can't think that this guy is innocent.

Robert: You know, it's not --

[ Laughter and applause ]

Bill: I mean, they found diaries, they found the manifesto that he sent, almost a matching manifesto. They found a bomb that he was going to send, in the shack.

Julianne: His own brother turned him in.

Robert: But still, he is entitled in this country to a trial and to the deliberations of an impartial jury to reach that decision. He's also entitled to, if he wants to, have psychiatrists testify for both sides.

Julianne: But he refuses to be examined by psychiatrists.

Robert: If he wants to. So that is his right. He has a right to decide what his defense should be.

David C.: If he's guilty, can we send him to Sri Lanka to make dresses for Kathie Lee Gifford?

[ Laughter and applause ]

Bill: But I think we've moved the goal post of what's great. Charles Manson had a great quote. He once said, you know, "They said I was crazy, but when I was crazy, it meant something."

[ Laughter ]

Now it seems like the crime itself makes you crazy.

Robert: Well, that's a basic misconception, because in reality, first of all, most people in America do not accept psychiatry.

Bill: Yeah, but when most people sit on the juries, they get brainwashed by lawyers. No offense.

Julianne: We began to go downhill with the killing of Harvey Milk. When Dan White killed Harvey Milk and he used the Twinkie defense, "I had too many Twinkies, and that raised my sugar level which forced me to kill this man. Although I climbed in the window, evading the metal detector," and all that. But that's when you began to see the downhill slide. And quite frankly, the law has been repealed --

Robert: That has been changed, you know that.

Julianne: -- Lawyers act like it's still on the books.

Robert: But see, you know that. And you don't bring that up. The law was changed.

Julianne: I bring it up because that's the point where we really saw a turn.

Robert: That used to be what we called diminished capacity, if somebody was not totally insane --

Julianne: That their sugar level was up?

Robert: Diminished capacity. Somebody was not totally insane, but could not form intent. We don't have those laws anymore.

Bill: Okay.

Robert: And, you know, we can talk about it all day long.

Bill: No, we can't. We have to take a commercial.

[ Applause ]

Nick V.O.: Join us tomorrow when our guests will be Ann Coulter, Scott La Rose, Adam Werbach and Clint Black.

[ Applause ]

Bill: Okay, we're talking about the Unabomber trial. Bob, what do you think of what they have in England, where you can be guilty and insane? That can be the ruling.

Robert: Well, you know, every system has some advantages and some disadvantages.

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