Bill Maher: Stop saying sorry!

The New York Times ran an op-ed today by HBO's Bill Maher in which the liberal comedian chimes in on the "white first lady" joke Robert De Niro made at a Democratic fundraiser this week.

After Michelle Obama's press secretary called the joke "inappropriate" and Newt Gingrich called it "inexcusable," De Niro apologized for the joke, saying it wasn't "meant to offend or embarrass anyone."

From Maher's column:

I don’t want to live in a country where no one ever says anything that offends anyone. That’s why we have Canada. That’s not us. If we sand down our rough edges and drain all the color, emotion and spontaneity out of our discourse, we’ll end up with political candidates who never say anything but the safest, blandest, emptiest, most unctuous focus-grouped platitudes and cant. In other words, we’ll get Mitt Romney.