Bill Maher Defends Teacher, Police In Ahmed Mohamed Clockmaking Debacle

Bill Maher welcomed guests Mark Cuban, Jorge Ramos, and George Pataki on the latest edition of his HBO series Real Time.

Not surprisingly, the outspoken critic of Islam felt compelled to talk about this last week’s “bomb scare” when 14-year-old Muslim student Ahmed Mohamed was arrested for bringing a homemade device to school that looked like a bomb.

While many liberals in the media and social networks were outraged that the teacher and police acted as they did, believing the misunderstanding “only happened because of his religion,” Maher commended the teacher and police for erring on the side of caution and not “pausing to check my white privilege,” the comedian joked.

When setting up the clip, Bill Maher quipped that “people at the school thought it might be a bomb, perhaps because it looks exactly like a f***ing bomb,” to laughs from his audience.

He then spoke to Mark Cuban, the billionaire entrepreneur and star of Shark Tank, who also felt the teacher and police acted correctly.

Cuban said he’d spoken to Ahmed on the phone, and it was pretty clear that his sister was “feeding him answers.” He also noted that Mohamed had made it through virtually the entire school day without incident from his other teachers, and that he was “unresponsive” when the English teacher at the center of the scandal advised him to put away the bomb because it might “make people nervous.”

It was only after Ahmed’s unresponsiveness, Cuban said, that things escalated.

While Maher did believe the kid did nothing wrong, he felt that a “little perspective” was needed noting that the location of the incident was approximately 25 miles from where a “Draw Muhammad” contest was held that motivated Muslim gunmen to attempt to kill citizens.

(They were gunned down before that could happen.)

He also noted that young Muslim men — some around Ahmed’s age — “are blowing s**t up all over the world.”

Maher also left his liberal friends with a challenge: to take some of their social media heroism “standing with Ahmed” and apply it to a young man recently sentenced to crucifixion and beheading by a Muslim country.

Here’s the whole exchange.

This, of course, isn’t the first time that Bill Maher has criticized the Muslim faith.

He has also attacked polls among Muslims that show a strong majority believe women should obey what their husbands tell them to do as well as human rights atrocities in places like Saudi Arabia aimed against homosexuals.

Do you think Bill Maher was right to support the teacher and police behind Ahmed Mohamed’s detainment? Sound off in the comments section.

[Image of Bill Maher via screen grab]