why IS it ok for Maher to say hideous things about women

[Warren Stupidity]

107. Then you are blind.

Howard Stern, Larry Flynt and Bill Maher are all vocal supporters of women's rights. None of them are working day and night to promote the ascendency of a rightwing theocratic regime that would attempt to roll back the clock to some mythical prior era. The word police here are shooting their friends.

The difference between calling a nobody, some college student activist on women's health care issues, a slut and a whore and demanding porno tapes in exchange for birth control, and calling the snarly nasty race baiting Palin a cunt is clear to many. What Rush did is equivalent to what Imus did to that basketball player from Rutgers: he used the power of his media outlet to verbally abuse a person with no ability to respond in kind. He beat up somebody who could not defend herself. That this difference isn't clear to you is just sad.