Bill Maher, Tavis Smiley Argue About Treatment of Women in the Arab World vs. in the U.S.

There was some serious weirdness going on over at the Real Time With Bill Maher studios last night. First, Maher got into controversial territory (as he is wont to do) in a discussion of the Lara Logan assault case, making the bold pronouncement that "It's fair to say that Muslim men have a bad attitude about women, in general." None of the guests were quick to get on Maher's side with that one -- and with good reason, because Maher was seriously missing the point about the assault, not to mention jumping to some less-than-nuanced conclusions about "Muslim men," as a singular entity. It wasn't his most shining pronouncement, is what I'm saying.

So guest Tavis Smiley took Maher to task. "I'm not going to disagree with you" about the treatment of women in the Arab world, Smiley said. "But if our readiness for democracy in this country is demonstrated by our respect for women, the we ain't ready for democracy in this country." Maher called that a false equivalency, but Smiley went on. "If you think that the way we treat women in this country, with the patriarchy still alive and well, sexism still alive and well, is demonstrative of how well our democracy runs? I think you don't understand how mistreated women still are in this society."

The two continued to argue for a while. (Maher, getting into even more cringe-worthy territory: "Talk to women who’ve ever dated an Arab man. The results are not good.”) And then the whole discussion was interrupted by a bizarre audience member who stood up and started ranting (and ranting and ranting), until he was shown out of the studio. Watch it all go down here: