OPINION:
If Bill Maher were Tim Allen, he’d be toast right now.
Why? Maher, who dropped the N-word during his Friday broadcast, is hardcore leftist — a pure Barack Obama Kool-Aid drinking type of guy. Allen, on the other hand, is one of the comedy world’s few and far between conservatives — a true blue Obama critic with a knack for pissing off Hollywood.
Just ask his fans; he just lost his top-ranked, long-running network comedy series, “Last Man Standing,” for reasons that are fuzzy, at best. But note to non-watchers: Allen did regularly poke fun of the left, and notable leftists, on his show.
The same left, to circle back to the point, that hates, hates, hates racism and use of racist words, like the dreaded N-word — unless, of course, you’re a rapper or your last name is Maher.
During a recent chat with Republican Sen. Ben Sasse, Maher called himself a “house [expletive],” a remark that fired up social media and brought on the calls for HBO to cancel his show. Sen. Al Franken, a scheduled guest, backed off the appearance; CNN’s opinion writers jumped aboard the anti-Maher bandwagon and rode it hard. You get the picture.
Maher, for his part, issued an apology.
“The word was offensive and I regret saying it and am very sorry,” he said.
And that was it.
The world moved on, and HBO forgave.
Maher’s still going to be the obnoxiously liberal, soundbite-quipping, quasi-comedian, quasi-political pundit he’s been for so many years.
But a conservative comedian who dared to say the same?
Well, we all know how that story would end, don’t we?
Brad Garrett, star of the show “Everybody Loves Raymond,” saw his career stutter and stall for a bit in 2009 after he was captured on video in a street scuffle with a photographer, saying “Wear the turban! Wear the turban!”
As TMZ reported, Garrett “ignited a new racial firestorm” with his dropping of “some serious slurs at a paparazzo.” Perez Hilton, gossip to the stars, blasted out the actor’s photograph with a big “Racist” label written across his forehead. Hilton also posted some choice words for Garrett, not fit to print, reminding readers that this was the “second time in two years” the actor’s been involved in a racist-tied incident. His first?
“Brad found himself in a world of trouble back in 2007 when the actor told a pap, ’I didn’t know there were black people in Malibu. Go back to where you came from,’ ” Hilton wrote.
That’s not even the N-word.
Michael Richards, of “Seinfeld” Cosmo Kramer fame, made world headlines — World Headlines — when he dropped that bomb during a Los Angeles comedy club act in 2006.
He was caught on camera back-talking to an audience member, finally shouting in frustration, “Fifty years ago, we’d have you upside down with a f—ing fork up your ass. … Throw his ass out. He’s a N-word! He’s a N-word!”
Richards apologized, like Maher.
Richards lost his future opportunity to ever appear at the club — unlike Maher.
Food for thought, yes? Just sayin.’ The left, when it comes to principles and absolutes — when it comes to the N-word and what’s racist versus what’s not — can be like a feather in the wind.
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