ABC's George Stephanopoulos: Is Obama 'Going to Have to Cut Ties' With Bill Maher?

April 15th, 2012 12:43 PM

HBO's Bill Maher might finally have gone too far in his attacks on conservative women.

On ABC's This Week Sunday, host George Stephanopoulos asked his Roundtable panel, "You saw those comments he made on Friday night...He’s the biggest single contributor to the Super PAC aligned with the president...Do you think the president is now going to have to cut ties?" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

In the middle of Sunday's Roundtable discussion about Ann Romney, Hilary Rosen, and the so-called "War on Women," Stephanopoulos said, "I tend to agree with you all that this particular dispute is going to flare up and flame out, but I wonder if the president has a continuing problem with Bill Maher."

Stephanopoulos continued, "You know, you saw those comments he made on Friday night. He’s given a million dollars. He’s the biggest single contributor to the Super PAC aligned with the president. This has now happened a couple of times. Do you think the president is now going to have to cut ties?"

For those missing the reference, on HBO's Real Time Friday, Maher weighed in on the Romney-Rosen dustup by saying Ann "has never gotten her ass out of the house to work."

With that in mind, the best answer to Stephanopoulos's question came from ABC’s Cokie Roberts who said, “That’s what they did with Hilary Rosen. They were instantly out there disassociating themselves.”

“But what Maher does and what Rosen did,” Roberts continued, “plays into an image of the Democrats as this out of touch with regular people and elitist and kind of snooty.”


Indeed.

Exit question: Is Stephanopoulos right? Has Maher finally gone too far forcing Obama to have to instruct his Super PAC to give the vulgar comedian his money back?

Stay tuned?