Bill Maher may have finally crossed the line even his artful defenders, the ones eager to gin up an alleged GOP “war on women,” can’t spin.
Maher, the host of HBO’s weekly political chatfest “Real Time with Bill Maher,” routinely says things that, had a conservative uttered them, he or she would be standing in the unemployment line. Instead, Maher gets a pass … and a pass … and a pass.
Insult a child with Down syndrome? Pass.
Call an ex-governor the “C” word? Pass.
Joke about a presidential contender’s wife using a sex toy? Pass.
Now, Maher has waded into the Hilary Rosen affair, and once more he says something gross and indefensible.
“[Ann Romney] has never gotten her ass out of the house to work,” Maher said of the mother of five, a woman who has battled both breast cancer and Multiple Sclerosis.
Even his own audience couldn’t clap or laugh at it.
At least the “Real Time” crowd had the dignity to be silent during the harangue. Maher guest Kim Campbell, chair of the World Movement for Democracy, simply kept the conversation going, making sure to trash Republicans rather than be even remotely aghast at Maher’s slap at stay-at-home moms.
The fallout may be only beginning for Maher.
ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, who rarely finds an issue he can’t spin to the Left’s benefit, wondered if President Barack Obama will have to sever ties with Maher. The HBO comic famously handed Obama a cool $1 million to go toward the president’s re-election PAC.
Most Democrats swiftly distanced themselves from Rosen’s cheap comments, and with lightning speed. So it’s hard to imagine that same crowd doing anything but treating Maher’s comments like radioactive material – at best.