The truth is what is, not what should be, and describing the first is treated as an attack on the second.
Bruce's formulation distinguishes description from endorsement, and his career was largely a demonstration that audiences and courts do not hold them apart. The claim generalises well beyond comedy: in most institutions, naming a state of affairs that the official account denies is read as advocating it, which is why accurate description is so often the punishable act.
In practice
- An analyst who reports what the numbers show is asked whose side he is on.
- A report describing how a process actually runs is received as a criticism of the people running it.