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.
Right there with you ScottinVA!!
Todd Palin would be one of my top choices for not getting pounded by.
Obozo, through an executive order, removed the use of the term “retarded” and replaced it with “Intellectual Disability”. This is what we are using in assessing student’s IQ for anyone with an IQ score of 70 or below, combined with adaptive skill deficits.
Along with that free speech should be Todd’s right to beat Maher’s ass if he is offended. You cannot yell fire in a theater you should not be able to deride someone without consequence from that person (or parent).
I want Maher or someone to make a racial, derogatory, or sexual joke about the CiC kids and see what happens.
back in barbara’s day if you were a woman you slept your way up the corporate ladder - like she did. today that’s just being the empowered office slut.
Fidel is her one true love.
I’ve seen a lot of discussion of this issue, but very few specifics.
I think it’s pretty clear that the word was used and intended to be used, to be hurtful. HOW hurtful it was depends entirely on the context.
So why don’t we get to see the context?
Put it on pay per view and all proceeds go to Sarah’s campaign. She’d out raise moron boy 2 to 1. Ooops moron might be a bad word.
I still use the word retarded and I am not PC and don’t care. However, Mahler was using this to attack and insult a small child to get at a politician (Sarah Palin). Mahler is a turdburger shit-for-brains, used condom F***wad to be polite.
Babaweewee is retarded. I don’t know the words mentally challenged, as they relate to Babaweewee.
Sarah could beat me like a rented mule and I would die happy.
Another word trap. If a liberal says something ignorant, it’s OK. If a normal person says the same thing, the person is branded racist/sexist/homophobe/headchopperphobe/
In elementary school, in days before now, the good readers might be the “Red Birds” and the poor readers were the “Blue Birds”, but the students knew Blue Birds meant they couldn't read worth diddly. Then, maybe the names were changed and good readers were “Blue Birds” and poor readers were “Red Birds” - but it didn't matter, all the students knew which group could read “good” and which couldn't.
In testing, “Manic Depressive” was the term/diagnosis we used. Now, it's “Bipolar” and it seems everyone wants to be one of those - “I'm Bipolar - isn't that great!”, which is still “Manic Depressive” by another name. There are few people who actually are Manic Depressive or Bipolar. Shesh.
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…
Whoopi you mean like the word Negro? Because like quite literally, that is what you are. Yet, the Negroes found that to be offensive, so it has morphed over the years, out of respect to........anything but Negro. Let Bill Maher call you a Negro and see how that plays. What a bunch of hypocrites.
i like the word, “retarded”... it is a good word when used correctly... i loathe that society takes perfectly good words and makes them taboo... words that i allow my kids to use as long as they use them meaningfully are: retarded, idiot, stupid, queer, ass, damn, and every now and then they get away with using the word, “shit,” depending on the context...
I agree! We as a society need to stop banning perfectly good words simply because some find them offensive...
Pay for view, monies go to a pro-life charity, I am in...
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