I went to read Nader's interview on Hardball last night, and there's not too much interesting there. Cranky old Ralph, still criticizing how others handle money but refusing to disclose his tax returns.

And then Bill Maher came on the show, and there was this little exchange:

MATTHEWS: Why do you think he‘s so different from the old man? I mean, George Bush Sr....

MAHER: Because the old man lost. Because the old man lost. That‘s one reason. The other reason is, the old man grew up in Connecticut. You know, that was really the old kind of Bush family. George Bush, the president that we have now, grew up in Texas. And everything about him to me is infused by that.

You know, if he had just been honest about the Iraq war and said, you know what? It‘s a Texas thing.

MATTHEWS: Yes.

MAHER: That‘s really the reason. They tried to kill my daddy. It‘s a Texas thing.

But, you know, I personally don‘t think people from Texas should be able to run for this—for the presidency. I think they are crazy.

(LAUGHTER)

MAHER: Southerners are one thing. They are fine. But Texans, they had it right years ago. They should have stayed their own country, because they are nuts.

Hey...fuck you, Bill.

I've seen him perform live in Dallas, so he's been to the state. Must not have gotten out of his hotel room much, though. I know he's not technically a liberal, but I have met more supposedly liberal-minded people who hold the same kind of small-minded, backward-ass preconceptions about places and people they don't know that they make fun of.

You want to meet the biggest pack of liberals in the world...head down to Austin, Texas. Gosh darn, wouldn't you know it? We don't all ride horses and pack six-shooters. We even have computer programmers!

But really I think there is an issue here. I think a lot of the Bush hatred does have a lot to do the fact that he's a Texan. The West Wing has done a good job of portraying the ultimate liberal fantasy...an East Coast liberal genius in the White House who speaks 6 languages, plays chess like a grandmaster, and has quotations from Milan Kundera on the tip of his tongue.

The thought of a good ol' boy from Texas in the White House doesn't make such people want to rationally debate the issues...it makes their fucking heads explode.

Sure, Clinton was a Southerner, but he was all slick and polish. He was an articulate Rhodes scholar, as much at home (or moreso) in New York than in Arkansas. Bush, on the other hand, makes it clear that he'd much rather be barbecuing ribs out behind his ranch house in Crawford than welcoming visiting functionaries at a state dinner in Washington.

And it is this, his Southern accent and demeanor, that are in many ways more offensive to many Democrats than his actual policies. It comes out in offhand statements (and some not so offhand statements)...and guess what? It's small-minded bullshit.