Posted on 06/18/2013 12:41:52 PM PDT by Morgana
As NewsBusters reported last week, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin called out vulgarian comedian Bill Maher for referring to her Down Syndrome son Trig as “retarded.”
On ABC’s The View Monday, co-host Barbara Walters astonishingly defended Maher saying, “I don’t think he intended it to be mean-spirited” (video follows with transcript and commentary):
WHOOPI GOLDBERG: At a recent standup show in Las Vegas, comedian Bill Maher apparently called Sarah Palin’s five-year-old developmentally-challenged son Trig retarded. And Sarah blasted him on Twitter as a bully. Is that, is it, is he a bully? Is he a bad, what is he?
BARBARA WALTERS: Can I address that?
GOLDBERG: Absolutely.
WALTERS: Okay. [Takes deep breath.] I had an older sister named Jackie. I named my baby after her. You can see her, there am I with all the feathers, there’s my father. There’s my sister. She passed away. All our life my sister was called retarded. That was the term. It was a derogatory term. But that was the term. Then it was changed to mentally-challenged. I’m happy about that. I think it was very hard for my sister and very hard for me even to this day to say, as I often had to, I have a retarded sister. My sister is retarded, and mentally challenged. There are physically challenged, whatever. I’m very grateful that it has changed. But there are people who don’t know that, and they use the word retarded.
ELISABETH HASSELBECK: Do you think Bill Maher is one of those?
WALTERS: I don’t know, I don’t. I think that, you know, unless you’re a little more familiar, you don’t even know the term mentally challenged.
HASSELBECK: So you don’t think Bill Maher meant harm in calling Trig retarded?
SHERRI SHEPHERD: I also want to know what was he joking about that he had to even bring Trig up.
WALTERS: I don’t know. There are comedians, we have other things here. We have comedians who say, “Oh well, you know, I’m being funny.” Do I think it was unfortunate that he did it? Yes, I do. Do I, do I think he realized what it was? No, I don’t. I mean, I don’t think he intended it to be mean-spirited. He likes to take on Sarah Palin, a lot of people do. She can fight back. And she did. And I’m glad she did.
GOLDBERG: You know, I think that we, society took the word “retarded” and made it into something derogatory. I think we made it a bad word by utilizing, well because we turned it into, you know, something that you call somebody to make them feel bad, to feel different. And I think we, you know, and as we have changed it into developmentally-challenged, you know, we, society has that…
HASSELBECK: We’re in 2013, right?
WALTERS: Retarded means, retard means slow. What it meant was the person was slow.
HASSELBECK: I think there’s not a person on this earth right now who has a sense of mercy and love and understanding who wouldn’t go to a group of people or in front of an audience, perhaps, and not know that that would maybe make someone feel bad. So I think it’s odd that we would give any person, namely the person we mentioned before, the benefit of the doubt. I feel that that’s really generous.
WALTERS: I wish that everybody were as enlightened as you. Believe me they are not.
GOLDBERG: I wasn’t giving anybody the benefit of the doubt. I was saying to Barbara, because she said it was derogatory, and she didn’t realize it. But that she realized it early on. And I’m saying when I was a kid, it wasn’t derogatory. We turned it into something that is so sort of crappy, that you know, we have to keep an eye on this because t’s our responsibility to watch out for that you know.
WALTERS: When I was a kid, and this is what I’m talking about, when my sister was a kid for many, many years, it was a derogatory and painful remark. Okay?
As NewsBusters has been reporting the contortions liberal media members that eviscerated George W. Bush for warrantless wiretaps have been exhibiting in support of Barack Obama’s far more intrusive domestive surveillance, here too was such hypocrisy on display.
This seems particularly absurd of Walters to defend Maher given her sister’s impairment.
Surely Walters knows that Maher has been attacking the Palin family for years.
He’s called Sarah the C-word, a “dumb twat,” and said she would “f–k” Rick Perry if he was black. Maher’s also gone after Palin’s daughter Bristol on several occasions.
So why would anyone in their right mind – especially someone that had a mentally-challenged sister – believe Maher didn’t intend to be mean-spirited?
Honestly, this was not one of Walters’ finer moments. She could have made a nice statement – especially someone with her family background – by coming down on this innocent child being the butt of anyone’s jokes.
But no. She had to defend this disgusting man who’s gotten rich viciously attacking folks whose political views he disagrees with.
And what about all that talk about the kids of politicians being off limits?
Sadly, what we’ve learned is that such children are only protected if their parents are Democrats.
Republicans’ kids?
Be my guest. I’m sure it’s just a joke that wasn’t intended to be mean-spirited.
Liberals always find way to rationalize trashing Conservatives..so Babs is saying that Maher did not understand what the word “Retard” meant..fine, two can play at that game..Rush Limbaugh should go on his show and say that he takes back his apology to Sandra Fluke, he had no idea what “Slut” meant, he was just making a joke..lets see how liberals like them apples
The word “retarded” did not carry the stigma it does today when Bawbwah was growing-up. Back during the Civil War.
Is she gonna use that logic to defend use of the N-word next???
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA Whoopi, many folks do not know it’s Not Proper to use the “N” word, because that’s what they use to call folks,not Black people So why don’t we give those people a break too!! Let’s Be Generous!!
OK, here goes...
The whole Stoooopid group on The View is RETARDED!!!!
There, I said it.....
I would love for Todd Palin to just beat the crap out of Maher.
Sorry to say, but Palin should have applauded Maher for not surrendering his freedom of speech to liberal political correctness. Conservatives need to pay attention here and not get sucked into the liberal game of denouncing people for uttering ‘hate speech’.
Free speech means exactly what it says and I won’t trade it for PC speech any day of the week. Nor should anyone else.
Right. Prior to "retarded" the accepted term was "imbecile". Then imbecile was regarded as having negative connotations so the term "retarded" started being used as the more neutral term. Then "retarded" started being considered negative so the current "intellectually challenged" started being used. It seems that whatever term is being used, as soon its meaning becomes widely understood it is considered as negative.
“The word “retarded” did not carry the stigma it does today when Bawbwah was growing-up.”
If it never carried a stigma then why did one of the Kennedys lock one of their own in an institution under without telling the public?
The bigger part of this is.. Maher should have his guts stomped out for derisively mentioning Trig in a comedy bit. Nothing’s ever off-limits when it comes to the family members of conservatives to these people. What an obnoxious a**hole.
If I ever saw two less qualified to make a statement about retards, Baba Wawa and Whoopi are those two.
They are too stupid to be called idiots.
“Dumb Twat” as has been defined by Bill Maher, what an F’ng loser that POS is.
Please don’t ban me . . .
Back in the day she was actually a half decent news reporter.
Since she got on “The View” however I have lost all respect for her. Like someone said everyone of them on the “View” is retarded.
Nailed It!!!!
Todd Palin has shown remarkable dignity and forebearance as his wife and kids have been attacked by liberals.... I could not blame him one iota if he finally flew off the handle and pounded the sh*t out of one them.
one *of* them
I was too quick with my reply . . . “I would love for Todd Palin to just beat the crap out of Maher.” I would pay major dollars to watch thata!
““I don’t think he intended it to be mean-spirited”
Is she stupid or just liberal (or am I being redundant)? He meant it in the nastiest way possible.
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