Maria Puente

USA TODAY

When Bill Maher took credit for helping take down internet troll Milo Yiannopoulos after he defended sex between teens and adults, the comedian/talk show host neglected to mention — or forgot — he said some similar words on TV nearly two decades ago.

Now a media monitor with a long memory has dug up the old videotape from Maher's ABC show, Politically Incorrect, that shows Maher defending the notorious case of Mary Kay Letourneau, the Seattle teacher convicted of having sex (and becoming pregnant) with her 12-year-old male student. Letourneau and the student had two children together while he was a teenager, and they married in 2005 after she got out of jail.

“She is in jail because she is in love. That’s how I view it,” Maher said in the 1998 clip posted by Mediaite. “Basically, they’re having a family and they’re keeping the mother in jail because she won’t conform to what society feels should be the perfect American family.”

When one of his conservative panelists on the show, Celeste Grieg, pointed out in horrified tones that Letourneau had raped her student (which under the law is exactly the case), Maher was dismissive.

“Raped? Come on,” Maher responded. “How can a woman rape a man?”

It was a reminder that Maher, 61, made his comic bones being transgressive when the way nastier Yiannopoulos, 33, was in short pants. Defending the seemingly indefensible was one of Maher's comic themes, especially on Politically Incorrect, which was canceled in 2002 — for poor ratings according to ABC — following Maher's ill-advised remarks about cowardice and the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The edgy exchange on sex between minors and adults was unearthed by Mediaite, the media monitor founded by NBC's legal analyst Dan Abrams, and was subsequently picked by such outlets as CBS News and The Hollywood Reporter.

The reason: Maher took a lot of heat for booking Yiannopoulos on his HBO show, Real Time, last week, despite the British writer/provocateur's history of digital trashing of gays, liberals, Jews, blacks, feminists, reporters and many others.

Milo Yiannopoulos spars with Bill Maher, panel in 'Real Time' debut

Then, after year-old podcast clips of Yiannopoulos seeming to condone sex between some teen boys and men emerged over the weekend, he was abandoned by his political pals, by his employers at Breitbart News and by his publisher who abruptly killed his rich book deal.

Milo Yiannopoulos' controversial book is canceled

Maher took credit, perhaps jokingly, for Milo on the ropes: It was a tipping point, he said. "As I say, sunlight is the best disinfectant. You’re welcome," he told the New York Times.

'You're welcome': Bill Maher takes credit for Milo Yiannopoulos' takedown

But Mediaite found other examples of Maher defending Letourneau and at least some types of illegal sex between minors and adults.

“I’m the only guy I’ve ever heard who defends Mary Kay Letourneau,” he told Playboy in a 2007 interview.

“Are you saying teachers should be allowed to have sex with their 13-year-old students, as she did, and not go to jail?” asked the reporter (even Playboy could be shocked).

Maher said he believed in a “double standard… If a 28-year-old male teacher is screwing a 13-year-old girl, that’s a crime.

"But with Debra Lafave (another teacher who had sex with a student) screwing her 14-year-old boy student, the crime is that we didn’t get it on videotape. Was he being taken advantage of? I wish I had been taken advantage of like that. What a memory she gave him!”

A representative for Maher did not immediately return an email from USA TODAY requesting comment.

Maher and liberals in general took some more heat on Twitter Thursday night as the Politically Incorrect clip began spreading, with many tweets including the word "hypocrites" in all-caps. Others tweeted about their loss of respect for Maher.