BILL MAHER HAS a request for America: “Please Stop Apologizing.” In a New York Times op-ed bearing that title, HBO‘s politico-celebrity calls for an end to politicians’ insincere demands for apologies from those who have supposedly offended them — and to the equally insincere apologies they so often elicit. Exhibit A, according to Mr. Maher, is the recent flap over actor Robert De Niro’s quip — for which he subsequently apologized — that Americans might not be ready for a “white first lady.” 
 
 Mr. Maher wants “an amnesty — from the left and the right — on every made-up, fake, totally insincere, play-acted hurt, insult, slight and affront.” If you see or hear something offensive, he instructs, just change the channel. To Mr. Maher’s credit, he’s willing to apply his permissive rule consistently, to include conservatives such as Rush Limbaugh, who apologized, under pressure, for labeling a Georgetown law student a “slut” on his radio show. 
 
 Though his tone is light, the funnyman has a point — both about the way political parties exploit their opponents’ impolite or, sometimes, merely impolitic comments, and about the fact that the Constitution protects offensive speech. Long before Harry Truman articulated it, one of the cardinal rules of American-style democracy, was “If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.” Phony umbrage is an old and increasingly tired pose. 
 
 Mr. Maher is a strange one to make this argument, though, since it is so obviously self-serving. Though his article does not say so, he too is under fire for, among many other things, using vile words to refer to former Alaska governor Sarah Palin and calling her family “inbred weirdos.” 
 
 This is rhetoric that goes beyond ridiculing or satirizing political adversaries to dehumanizing them. It encourages Americans to hate one another; or, at best, to tune one another out, as Mr. Maher recommends. He and Mr. Limbaugh both have a constitutional right to express themselves. But there are Americans who sincerely hope for civil discourse — for a nation where not every opponent is seen as an enemy. And they have a right to draw distinctions between the merely risque and the corrosively hateful, and to wish for higher standards, even from those who straddle the divide between politics and entertainment. 
 
 Incivility, like any other issue, is subject to partisan manipulation. But that doesn’t make it a phony issue. On this matter, we’d rather heed the words of the president whose reelection Mr. Maher recently backed with a $1 million “super PAC” donation. 
 
 “I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper,” then-Illinois State Sen. Barack Obama told the Democratic National Convention in 2004. “Now, even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us — the spin masters, the negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of ‘anything goes.’ Well, I say to them tonight, there is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America.” ||||| Share this: 
 
 "Will Conservatives Call Roger Ailes Sexist For Saying He Hired Sarah Palin ‘Because She Was Hot’?" Share: 
 
 In an interview with the AP out today, Fox New chief Roger Ailes says he hired former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) “because she was hot”: 
 
 From the start, Ailes has steadfastly denied any such political bias or agenda on the part of his network. Politics, schmolitics: “I hired Sarah Palin because she was hot and got ratings,” he declares. 
 
 Ailes’ quote is stunning in its own right, but it’s worth noting that were it coming from a progressive figure, he would likely be immediately tarred and feathered by conservatives as a sexist. Since Palin was picked to run for vice president, conservatives have bristled at any reference to Palin’s looks or suggestions that her appearance has contributed to her popularity. 
 
 Take conservative media criticism site Newsbusters, for instance. When Fox News contributor Juan Williams called Palin a “centerfold” and said her attractiveness contributed to her success, Newsbusters cried “double standard,” writing that Williams’ “demeaning” comment reflects liberals’ “need [of] some way of dismissing her without addressing the issues.” When comedian Bill Maher made a similar suggestion, Newsbusters cried that Maher had “denigrated Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann as merely ‘attractive.'” When Newsweek magazine ran an article mentioning the “supposed hotness of Republican women,” including Palin, Newsbusters cried “sexism.” When the hosts of the entertainment show The Talk called Palin “hot,” Newsbusters questioned their “intelligence.” 
 
 Now, the head of the country’s most popular cable news network, to which Palin owes a good deal of her success, is making the same insensitive assertions as Williams and Maher, and essentially confirming them; will Newsbusters and other conservatives speak out? Of course, Ailes’ network happens to be an ideological ally of Newsbusters, and one that regularly features its president.
– Bill Maher is right to call for an end to political groups' "phony umbrage" at every potentially offensive remark. But the comedian's argument is "obviously self-serving," write the editors of the Washington Post. They note that in his New York Times editorial, Maher didn't mention the furor over his own comments—calling Sarah Palin a "vile" name and her family "inbred weirdos," for instance. "This is rhetoric that goes beyond ridiculing or satirizing political adversaries to dehumanizing them." Yes, Maher and Rush Limbaugh deserve the right to free speech, but some of us are looking for a conversation in which "not every opponent is seen as an enemy." Language like theirs prompts us to despise or just ignore each other. Yes, "incivility is subject to partisan manipulation. But that doesn’t make it a phony issue," the editors write. There's a difference between "the merely risque and the corrosively hateful"—one that even those who occupy the dual worlds of politics and entertainment should observe. Click through for the full editorial.