Garofalo Backs Rather, Declares Petraeus 'Dishonest...He Is Betraying Us'

Friday night on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, “actress/comic” Janeane Garofalo asserted she has “no doubt” that, on the Bush National Guard story, “there were executives at CBS that folded under right wing coercion” and she endorsed MoveOn.org's ad which maligned General David Petraeus as “General Betray Us.” The tattooed Garofalo, who has joined the cast of Fox's 24, charged: “Petraeus has been dishonest” and “is betraying us.”

On the Dan Rather lawsuit, she fretted incoherently about how “it's amazing how the right wing has done it in this country and it doesn't seem like it's a democracy at all when you let that happen.” On Petraeus and the MoveOn.org ad, she ludicrously saw the “mainstream media” as colluding with those who considered the ad over the line: “The thing is is to pretend that it's MoveOn.org that has the problem, and that the mainstream media allows that nonsense to continue. Yet, he is betraying us.”

Video clip (1:25) Real (2.4 MB) or Windows Media (2.8 MB), plus MP3 audio (500 KB)

Noel Sheppard's earlier posting, “Janeane Garofalo: 'Bush is a War Criminal,' 'O'Reilly Can Kiss My Fat A**,'” emphasized several other of her outrageous allegations expressed on the HBO show.

Garofalo was part of the show's all-liberal panel along with author Salman Rushdie and musician Rob Thomas.

The exchange, which matches the video clip, on the September 21 Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO, a weekly Friday night 11pm EDT show produced at CBS's studios in Los Angeles:

JANEANE GAROFALO: The CBS thing, Dan Rather's lawsuit. I have no doubt that there were executives at CBS that folded under right wing coercion and did it very readily, you know, fired him, or covered up the truth that the National Guard did provide preferential treatment to George Bush Junior. And it's amazing how the right wing has done it in this country and it doesn't seem like it's a democracy at all when you let that happen.

SALMAN RUSHDIE: What I think is strange is it's like the Republicans, in order to not talk about the war, you know, any excuse to not discuss the actual war means that you attack people who talk about the war in ways they don't like. So you talk about talking about the war instead of talking about the war. So you don't like Dan Rather because of the way he talks about the war, you don't MoveOn because of the way they talk about the war.

BILL MAHER: They've made it a whole referendum on this General Petraeus.

GAROFALO: And the thing is it's beside the point. And the mainstream media helps them out enormously. First of all, General Petraeus has been dishonest. That is sort of the role of a soldier like that, they, just like General Westmoreland and the 5 o'clock reports in Vietnam. Of course they are dishonest. That's what they do. And the thing is is to pretend that it's MoveOn.org that has the problem, and that the mainstream media allows that nonsense to continue. Yet, he is betraying us and I don't know why there aren't more brave Democrats who will say, “yeah, he is.”

[audience applause]