Real Time host Bill Maher said on Friday that he's in no hurry to revisit any old jokes about Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky — and warned Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) to do likewise. "I want to pretend I was too young to have covered Monica Lewinsky or even know who she is," Maher told CNN host Jake Tapper. "I heard something about it when I was in graduate school, but I'm not really sure who she is. It's still pretty funny. Of course, it's going to backfire, because, this is supposed to hurt Hillary [Clinton]? As I recall, Hillary was only ever abetted by the fact that her husband cheated on her." Maher added that the 1998 revelations of then-President Clinton's illicit activities with Lewinsky, then a White House intern, only turned Hillary Clinton into "the Jennifer Aniston of America." Paul has recently begun pushing the theory that Bill Clinton should be blamed for the "war on women" because of his actions toward Lewinsky, but Maher countered on Friday that popular opinion has been kind toward Clinton in the years after his two White House terms. "I don't know how Rand Paul thinks he's going to drag Hillary into this," Maher said. "And plus Bill Clinton. Let's face it: if you hang around long enough, like an old building, they say, you become respectable. And that's Bill Clinton now. Somehow the guy who the Republicans accused of everything from rape to murdering Vince Foster, the most corrupt guy, he's great now." Meanwhile, Maher described Hillary Clinton as the clear Democratic Party presidential front-runner for 2016, contrasting her with a jumbled Republican field. "For my own selfish reasons I would like to see [Sen.] Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Rand Paul and the rest of the Insane Clown Posse run," he told Tapper. "And I'm sure there will be some people on the right who are great fodder for us. But, you know, I'm a patriot first, I like to think, so I want the most qualified people. I don't know who that is anymore."

• published: 22 May 2015
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