Michelle Malkin:

The left-wing blogs (and a few short-sighted rightie ones) are having a field day. What they all seem to have missed is the context for the discussion. The AP says the "context of what led to the comment is not clear."

But it is if you paid close attention to the clip:

At 1:03 in the video, one of the panelists on the show criticizes O'Donnell for criticizing Halloween - "Wait a minute, I love this, you're a witch, you go ‘Halloween is bad,' I'm not the witch, I mean wait a minute." She responds by explaining that she opposes witchcraft because she has had first-hand experience with what they do.

So, she tried it. She rejected it. And she learned from it.

Somehow, this Maher-edited clip (which was never aired on TV, by the way) warrants a declaration from my friend John Hinderaker at Power Line that O'Donnell's career is "RIP."

Nonsense. She has nothing to be ashamed of - except, perhaps, for going on Maher's show so many times. He promises to release 22 more clips until she sits down with him in front of the cameras and brags, in typical TV chauvinist fashion, that he "created her" and that she "owe[s]" him.

Malkin is correct. This is much more about Maher than O'Donnell. In an outstanding piece on Big Hollywood, John Nolte perceptively notes how the world has turned upside down with regard to the traditional role of satirists and comedians in America. The paradigm has been flipped to where they now speak for, and prop up those in power rather than poke fun of them:

Remember when American comedians went after the powerful in an effort to bring them down to earth with the sharp satire of accountability? Today, they appear to only protect the powerful. Well, unless the powerful aren’t liberal enough. As things stand now you have the likes of David Letterman and Louis C.K. savaging Sarah Palin’s family, SNL terrified to rip Obama with any real zeal, cartoonists proclaiming President Teleprompter too cool to mock, and Will Ferrell films flaking for corrupt public unions, all in an effort to protect the corrupted leftist elitists currently holding power.

It’s like we now live in an alternate universe you might call … North Korea.

In desperate Hail Mary moves to protect Obama and Democrats from what’s looking like a November rout, three of the left’s most beloved Palace Guards have just upped their game considerably. Bill Maher’s now openly blackmailing Delaware Republican Senate Candidate Christine O’Donnell, threatening a weekly drip-drip-drip of videos he thinks will ruin her candidacy unless she agrees to appear on his show – which is where he’ll really pull out the stops to finally win that Emmy by attempting to destroy her:

O'Donnell is certainly not blameless; her prevarications about her personal financial situation have split the conservative movement with some believing her lies disqualify her while others say they are no worse than other politicians who run for office. But one thing is clear and should unite the right; left wing comedians who seek to destroy those who oppose the established powers that be are monumentally hypocritical when as recently as two years ago, they saw "speaking truth to power" as the highest calling of their profession.

Now they play toady and grovel at the feet of the powerful.