Why is ABC even asking Bill Maher to offer political commentary?

Lately, we’ve experienced many examples of media bias, the discrepancy in the cover of #OWS and the Tea Parties, the focus on allegations against a Republican presidential candidate while downplaying scandalous activity of a Democratic president’s administration, an absence of scrutiny of Democrats’ conflicts of interest.

And here’s yet another example, a man known for his mean-spirited attacks on Republicans secures an invitation to a morning show on one of the “big three” networks.  Wonder if his one-time Democratic associates  helped persuade former Clinton advisor (now co-anchor for ABC’s Good Morning America) George Stephanopolous to include Mr. Maher in his program.

And that former funnyman damned Mitt Romney with faint praise by saying that in contrast to his fellow Republicans, the immediate past Massachusetts governor “is all that stands between us and the rise of the apes.”

Interesting the longtime Democratic operative did not follow up on Maher’s characterization of the GOP, never even challenging the guy on his critiques of Republicans.  It’s just a good-natured exchange with a man otherwise quite mean-spirited and most uncivil.  Why did they even invite him on to do political commentary?  Would Stephanopolous have shown similar deference to a conservative commentator who regularly hurled slurs at Democrats?

Given this exchange, it should come as no surprise that a Media Resarch Center study found the network morning shows shilling for the incumbent president (while trashing the opposition):

As might be expected, given the lack of a contest for the Democratic nomination, most of the segments were about the Republican nomination process. Yet of the approximately 60 percent of items that mainly focused on just one candidate, there were more than three times as many segments about President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign (129) than about any individual Republican candidates. (This tally only includes stories that discuss Obama as a candidate, excluding items that dealt with him strictly as President.)

. . . .

While in 2007 the morning shows were promoting that year’s top Democrats, this time around, those shows aimed to showcase what they saw as the weakest elements of the Republican field — even as President Obama continued to enjoy some of the same celebrity coverage that helped his campaign four years ago.

The eventual Republican nominee must be prepared not merely to challenge the failed incumbent, but to, in Ed Driscoll’s words, “survive the coming onslaught of the Obama-MSM-Journolist smear machine“.

RELATED: Obama’s ‘Famous’ ’57 States’ Gaffe Went Virtually Unmentioned in the NYTimes

UPDATE:  Bill Maher, according to this individual commenting at Ann Althouse’s blog is hardly politically incorrect, “The thing that bugs me the most about Bill Maher [is] all that ‘Politically Incorrect’ BS, when in reality he has never in his life uttered a word that wasn’t calculated to get applause from the audience in front him. He’s a coward pretending to heroism.” (Via Instapundit).