Media Memory Holes Bill Maher’s GOP Hate
Bill Maher is getting a crash course in politically correct speech…again
The host of HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” is under fire anew. Why? He used the term “house N-word” on his Friday night show.
#StartTheClock! @BillMaher is LIVE with Sen. @BenSasse @rtraister @JimVandeHei #EliotSpitzer + @tristanharris on @HBO. pic.twitter.com/t1xNWByuPX
— Real Time (@RealTimers) June 3, 2017
The off-the-cuff comment came after “Real Time” guest Sen. Bill Sasse suggested Maher come to his Nebraska turf. The conversation concerned millennials, work habits and, of all things, adults dressing up for Halloween.
“We’d love to have you work in the fields with us,” Sasse said.
“Work in the fields? Senator, I’m a house n—–,” Maher said, raising both of his hands up. “No it’s — it’s a joke.”
The crowd laughed even though the gag wasn’t exactly funny. It was offensive to many people, though, given the incendiary history of the N-word past and present.
Now, some are calling for the host’s firing (or directly saying he’s a repeat racist offender)
The latter suggest merely having Milo Yiannopoulos on his “Real Time” show should have been a fireable offense. Said reporter would fit in beautifully on any modern college campus.
FAST FACT: The “Real Time” host nearly lost a commencement speech gig at UC Berkeley after his fiery exchange with Ben Affleck about Islam.
What’s interesting in cases like this is the histories assembled to defend or reinforce the call for removal. The Washington Post, which insists “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” trotted out some of Maher’s tougher words on Islam.
Why?
To suggest he’s got a race problem and, potentially, needs to go. Never mind that Islam isn’t a race but a religion.
In 2014, Maher was accused of hate speech when he said it’s wrong to say only “a few bad apples” in the Muslim community have extremist beliefs.
Islam is “the only religion that acts like the mafia, that will f—— kill you if you say the wrong thing, draw the wrong picture, or write the wrong book,” Maher said during an episode on “Real Time” with atheist scholar Sam Harris and actor Ben Affleck.
Left unsaid?
When the “Real Time” host trashed the Palin family in 2011 no one batted an eye. Variety didn’t call for his ouster. Yet the pure hate of his comments, targeting not just Sarah Palin but her children (including a special needs child) was off the proverbial charts.
And when I point out that Sarah Palin is a vainglorious braggart, a liar, a whiner, a professional victim, a scold, a know-it-all, a chiseler, a bully who sells patriotism like a pimp, and the leader of a strange family of inbred weirdos straight out of “The Hills Have Eyes,” that’s not sexist. I’m saying it because it’s true, not because it’s true of a woman.
The comments appeared planned, too, unlike his exchange with Sasse.
The comedian also called Sarah Palin a dumb tw** and the C-word in separate exchanges.
More recently, the comic trashed President Donald Trump last month in a way that made Stephen Colbert’s “cock holster” crack seemed quaint.
He suggested the president’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, needs to manually stimulate him to change his mind on certain policies.
No outrage from HBO. No collective calls from the media to fire him.
Nor did anyone in the mainstream media yelp when Maher accused a war widow of letting herself be President Trump’s “prop.”
Let’s quickly say the obvious. If Maher had blasted President Barack Obama for using a war widow as a prop, called Nancy Pelosi a “c-word” or trashed the special needs child of a Democrat he might not have a gig at the moment.
He still has a job (for now). That might change if the usual forces amplify and demand his TV scalp.