Sarah Silverman & Chris Anderson's 'Retarded' TED Squabble

Comedienne Sarah Silverman and TED Organizer Chris Anderson are in a squabble of 'retarded' proportions over Silverman's recent TED talk where she purposefully used the word 'retarded' as a mockery of Sarah Palin's recent railing of Rahm Emanuel for calling liberal activists “F---ing retarded."

Although the video of Silverman's talk is not on the website just yet, you can get the general gist of the talk from the quote,  “The only problem with adopting a retarded child is that the retarded child, when you are 80 is well, still retarded and that she wouldn’t enjoy the freedoms of setting them free at age 18, so she was only going to adopt a retarded child with a terminal illness so it has an expiration date, because who would adopt a retarded child with a terminal illness? Well, someone who was awesome like her”.

The debacle started after Silverman's talk when Anderson subsequently tweeted, "I know I shouldn't say this about one of my own speakers but I thought Sarah Silverman was god-awful." Silverman promptly responded via her Twitter page saying, "Kudos to @TEDChris for making TED an unsafe haven for all! You're a barnacle of mediocrity on Bill Gates' asshole."

But the spat didn't stop there, AOL founder Steve Case backed up Anderson by replying to Silverman's retalitory tweet saying, "Shame on you. The sad thing is you're not that funny." Silverman quickly quipped back responding, "@SteveCase You should be nicer to the last person on earth w an aol account."

What do you think? Did Silverman go to far or is Chris Anderson stifling her expression? TED talks are all about expressing ideas after all.