Did Bill Maher forget that he is white?

After having elected a president who openly promised to "bomb the s--- out of ISIS," it sounds almost quaint to talk about the extreme rhetoric of television comedians.

Yet here we are sounding more shocked than ever over recent excesses by Bill Maher, Kathy Griffin and Stephen Colbert.

If extreme rhetoric has become more normalized in the era of President Donald Trump, how much should we blame Donald Trump? Just asking.

Comedians and other commentators need to beware of Anti-Trump Derangement Disorder. It's a lot like the syndrome that gripped liberals in the era of George W. Bush and conservatives under Barack Obama. In each case, raging fury over the sitting president drove critics to irrational extremes.

Last month, Stephen Colbert, said of the president in a rant, "The only thing your mouth is good for is being Vladimir Putin's c--- holster."

For that he received a combination of laughs, groans and angry complaints to the Federal Communications Commission that the joke was homophobic. The FCC decided not to penalize Colbert for the joke, which was broadcast with the C-word bleeped out anyway.

Comedian Kathy Griffin was not as lucky. She posed for a photo last week while holding a bloody Trump mask by the hair, producing an image as gruesome as an Islamic State snuff video. It backfired, making President Trump and his family look sympathetic, even to his usual critics. Griffin apologized but lost bookings, including her high-profile slot as co-host of CNN's New Year's Eve special since 2007.

Bill Maher opened a different can of worms with his use of the N-word on his show, "Real Time" on HBO. While interviewing Republican Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska about his new book, "The Vanishing American Adult," Maher said, "I've got to get to Nebraska more."

Sasse cheerfully invited Maher to come out to the Cornhusker State and "work in the fields with us."

"Work in the fields?" said Maher, noticing an opportunity to insert a punch line that he could not pass up, "Senator, I'm a house n---er."

Yes, he went there. Now Maher probably wishes he had been bleeped like Colbert.

Having been a guest panelist years ago on "Real Time" and on his earlier ABC show "Politically Incorrect," I thought Bill knew better. If there is anything black Americans have tried to maintain social control over, it is the N-word. Many let him know it in a Twitterstorm.

"Please, @HBO," tweeted Chicago's Chance the Rapper. "Do Not Air Another Episode of Real Time with Bill Maher."

DeRay Mckesson, a Baltimore-based leader in the Black Lives Matter movement, tweeted, "But really, @BillMaher has got to go. There are no explanations that make this acceptable."

The black-oriented website The Root tweeted, "Bill Maher is a white habitual line-stepper, and his show needs to be canceled after this latest stunt."

Although I am disappointed to see artists and activists who make good use of free speech themselves eagerly seek to muzzle others, I am not surprised by their rage. Everyone needs to pick their battles wisely, but this was one that Maher brought on himself.

So why did he have it? If anything, I think Maher, who has many black friends, may ironically have become too confident in his cross-racial knowledge. One of his longest and best friends, for example, is Chris "Kid" Reid of the 1990s hiphop duo Kid and Play, who also helps produce the HBO show.

"What people of color like about Bill is his honesty," Reid told a New York magazine reporter in 2012. "Black people can smell fear in white people. They're like bloodhounds. When Bill and I hang out, and there are people of color around, they gravitate to him."

I have seen Maher show that easy comfort level backstage. But it also may have created a perception problem for him. In the heat of the moment on his recent show, he may have forgotten that he's still white.

Another friend of Bill's, Atlanta-based rapper, actor and activist Killer Mike, who has been a guest on Maher's show, offered a more streetwise remedy:

"I would have punched Bill in his stomach and said, 'You sound stupid,' " he told reporters for TMZ. "And we would have smoked a joint afterward. Because ... that's what you do when your white friend ... gets a little too comfortable and says it (the N-word)."

Indeed, aside from the violence he suggests, Killer Mike sounds like a wise friend. To mangle an old saying, late night comedians on HBO can be obscene but not absurd, even when they're in the business of offending people.

========

(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@chicagotribune.com.)