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Leonard Pitts Jr.

Heres a good rule of thumb for aspiring comics. Whenever you are compelled to say, Hey, it was a joke, it probably wasnt. At the very least, it didnt land like one.

Bill Maher is an accomplished comic, not an aspiring one, but he deftly illustrated that rule recently on his HBO show, Real Time with Bill Maher.

As youve surely heard, Maher was interviewing Republican Sen. Ben Sasse, who invited him to come to Nebraska and work in the fields with us. Mahers riposte? Work in the fields? Senator, Im a house n-r.

Some people including Sasse laughed. Some groaned. Its a joke, said Maher with a dismissive wave of his hand.

A day later, he issued a statement proclaiming himself very sorry.

Which is well and good, but it doesnt answer the most vital question: Where did he get the idea that word was OK for him to say?

Yes, he has a constitutionally protected right to do so; thats not at issue.

One simply wonders where he got the notion he could get away with it. Maybe its the same place he got the notion he could get away with calling Sarah Palin a ct back in 2011?

Maher, of course, is just the latest high-profile comedic fail. Kathy Griffin is still smarting from the beating she took for a jarringly offensive picture of her holding up a prop meant to look like the bloody, severed head of Donald Trump.

But ugly as that joke was, it is of a different kind than Mahers transgression.

What he did is more of a piece with Stephen Colberts homophobic quip about Trumps mouth and Vladimir Putins man parts. Or his old Ching Chong Ding Dong routine, which offended many Asian Americans.

It calls to mind Seth MacFarlanes sexist We Saw Your Boobs song at the 2013 Oscars, which appalled many women. And Daniel Toshs 2012 joke about an audience member being raped.

We are not here to argue whether those men are or are not racist, sexist or homophobic. Thats immaterial.

No, we are here to deconstruct the sense of privileged, white, male, liberal entitlement that allows them to feel they can say and do such things in the first place.

Yes, humor is rude, comedy is shock and funny is whatever works on a given night.

Yes, satire is the art of undermining an asinine belief or behavior by magnifying or pretending to agree with it.

Yes, the business of laughter is the business of crossing that completely subjective, always moving line of decorum and propriety.

And yes, occasional failure is inevitable.

Ask Kathy Griffin.

But with all that duly conceded, imagine for a moment it was Rush Limbaugh who made Bill Mahers joke or Sean Hannity who sang Seth MacFarlanes song. The right wing is known for its hostility toward African-Americans and women, so the outrage would have been visceral, immediate and loud.

Many of us would have rightly decried jokes that bully and demean marginalized peoples.

Yet that fury feels muted or altogether absent when such jokes are told by the left-leaning likes of MacFarlane and Maher.

Lacking the right wings baggage of racial and gender hostility, they escape or expect to escape relatively unscathed.

But why? Because theyre on our side? Because theyre just joking?

Those of us who are marginalized and those who simply care may want to rethink that blank check forbearance, given that a smarmy white comic feels free to declare himself a house n-r.

If your ancestry traces to slavery, you might well ask: Is this guy laughing with us or at us? And thats the problem.

These days, its hard to tell.

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Pitts: Why would a privileged, white, liberal male say that? - The Columbian