Why Mr. Anti-Bullshit Won't Call Out Islam or Scientology

The Las Vegas Weekly conducts a survey of "the personalities who define Vegas," and judges Penn Jillette to be #1. Selections from the brief, reliably interesting interview:

Let's talk about your TV show Bullshit! Will you ever run out of theories to debunk and people to expose? If you build a kingdom on bullshit, you're not in danger of running out of it. Our producer says that Teller and I can take any subject in the news and do a credible show on it. Sure, we like to have a villain, something to call "bullshit" on, but if we don't, we can depart from that model.

Are there any groups you won't go after? We haven't tackled Scientology because Showtime doesn't want us to. Maybe they have deals with individual Scientologists—I'm not sure. And we haven't tackled Islam because we have families.

Meaning, you won't attack Islam because you're afraid it'll attack back … Right, and I think the worst thing you can say about a group in a free society is that you're afraid to talk about it—I can't think of anything more horrific. […]

You do go after Christians, though … Teller and I have been brutal to Christians, and their response shows that they're good fucking Americans who believe in freedom of speech. We attack them all the time, and we still get letters that say, "We appreciate your passion. Sincerely yours, in Christ." Christians come to our show at the Rio and give us Bibles all the time. They're incredibly kind to us. Sure, there are a couple of them who live in garages, give themselves titles and send out death threats to me and Bill Maher and Trey Parker. But the vast majority are polite, open-minded people, and I respect them for that.

Reason on Jillette here; on critiquing Islam here.

Also making the list at #3 is Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman; see Radley Balko's short-and-classic interview with Goodman from our June issue.

Link via the Twitter feed of Teller (#21).