Bill Maher: #MeToo Is Becoming #MeCarthyism

Bill Maher says the #MeToo movement has gone too far, or at least failed to make distinctions.

"I'm down with #MeToo. I'm not down with #MeCarthyism," Maher said on Friday's season premiere of Real Time With Bill Maher on HBO. #MeCarthyism, he said, includes not distinguishing between degrees of sexual misconduct.

"I get it that Al Franken had to become roadkill on the zero tolerance highway - a highway it seems only Democrats have to drive on - but do liberals want to become the distinction deniers, the people who can't tell or don't want to see a difference between assault in a van and a backrub by the water cooler? ... Giving up on the idea that even bad things have degrees - that is as dumb as embracing alternative facts."

He criticized U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand as not wanting to make distinctions, and he agreed with her statement that concerning sexual harassment, assault, and rape, "none of it is OK," but he added, "We can't agree that groping and rape are both unacceptable - and one is worse?"

Maher further defended Matt Damon's assertion that there are degrees of misconduct, for which Minnie Driver and many others lambasted him, and shared a picture of himself "pulling an Al Franken on a sleeping Bob Saget," mimicking the photo of Franken appearing to grab a woman's breasts. After that photo and several allegations of groping emerged, Franken had to resign from the Senate.

The host went on to discuss degrees of homophobia, saying, "Mike Pence and ISIS are both homophobic, but Mike doesn't throw gay men off the roof - so he's better."

Watch video below.