HBO talk show host Bill Maher emerged tonight as a rare media defender of celebrity chef Paula Deen, saying that she made a racially insensitive comment in private and that shouldn’t warrant her being fired and sent away from her show.
Journalist Bob Herbert clashed with Maher over his assertion, saying that uttering the N-word just crosses the line, no matter who you are.
Maher maintained that Deen shouldn’t have been fired, because it’s a “free country, even to be an a**hole.”
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