Bill Maher cut his critics off at the pass Friday night, certain that they’d once again label him Islamaphobic for pointing out that Salman Rushdie had every reason to be afraid of the “dangerous” religion.
“A good friend of this show got stabbed today, Sal Rushdie,” Maher began the roundtable chat. “He was stabbed by someone named Hadi Matar. We don’t know the motivation yet, but Sal did have some enemies in the past, as I recall. So I’m guessing Hadi is not Amish.”
Rushdie — who has been a target of the Islamic world since the publication in 1988 of “The Satanic Verses” because many see it as a blasphemous depiction of Muhammad — was about to deliver a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution in New York State, when a man rushed the staged and stabbed him at least twice, once in the neck.