Wizblog

Dennis Miller Interview

The American Enterprise interviews comedian Dennis Miller. (hat tip to Parapundit) Here are some samples from the Q & A:

TAE: Professional athletes seem to make headlines for crime and corruption as much as they do for home runs and touchdowns. Did your work on “Monday Night Football” give you an insight into why professional sports are plagued with such excesses?

MILLER: Any time you hand people who are in their early twenties $10 million, you’re going to have some problems. By and large, I was impressed by how dedicated and charitable these guys were. We always read about the athlete with the gun who gets pulled over. But look, there are 50 players on a team, and there are 32 teams—about 1,500 players. Take any group of 1,500 men in that age bracket and I’ll bet you that over the course of a year one of them gets pulled over for speeding and has cocaine. It’s just the nature of the beast. Ninety-nine percent of those football players are some of the greatest guys I’ve ever met. A couple of them gave me a “screw you.” But, you know what, a couple of them should have said that. I’d think I was a punk, too.

TAE: Many conservatives believe that Hollywood thinks heartland America is just flyover country. Are they correct?

MILLER: I’m hardly a gregarious man but the friends I have in Hollywood are by and large some of the nicest people I’ve ever met in my life. It’s just that their attempts to be solicitous to the heartland sometimes are a little misguided and condescending. When I look at folks from the heartland I don’t think, “Boy, are they missing it.” I view them as the ones who are smart enough to know that going to Hollywood’s not really a cool way to lead your life. They’re put together well enough so that they never had to go solicit the approval of strangers to fill their self-esteem void.

How very refreshing. Check out the whole interview.