Belzer Links Reagan with Iraq 'Heist,' Calls Giuliani a 'Fascist Thug'

The right wing's “big heist” in Iraq led by bankers who “are screwing everyone” all “started with Ronald Reagan crushing the poor, crushing the unions,” actor/comedian Richard Belzer bizarrely claimed Friday night on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher before proceeding to smear Rudy Giuliani as a “fascist thug with a comb-over trying to suppress his speech impediment.” [This item includes an accurate quotation of a vulgarity.]

Belzer, who plays “Detective John Munch” on NBC's Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, appeared on the show's panel with musician Herbie Hancock and ABC News reporter Martha Raddatz. When Hancock asserted $80 billion is unaccounted for in Iraq, Belzer launched into this tirade:

This is a big heist, this is a big heist. The right wing is in power, the bankers are screwing everyone -- the oil companies, Halliburton -- this is no fucking mystery. These people have been after this. It started with Reagan crushing the poor, crushing the unions, rewarding people, putting them into heads of certain departments of the government and then disassembling those departments because they have contempt for the government.

What government department was ever disassembled in the Reagan years?

About 25 minutes later on the January 25 show, the topic turned to Giuliani's plummet in Republican presidential candidate polls, and Belzer took advantage of the opportunity to malign him with personal insults:

He has run the most unconscionable campaign, mentioning 9/11 every other second, trying to instill fear in us. Americans are tough. We don't need this fascist thug with a comb-over trying to suppress his speech impediment and change his entire personality. I mean, what you see on TV, that's not really Rudy Giuliani. Before 9/11 his approval rating was 32 percent in New York. He was detested in New York.