A strong argument can be made that Hasslebeck's not even the show's real problem. She hasn't, for example, insisted on air that the world might be flat and then, off air, repeated her claim that the world might be flat. Saturday Night Live's doing jokes or 'jokes' about Hasselbeck when you've got a fool who not only ignores the work of Pythagoras, Aristotle, et al but also of satellite imagery. The fool we're speaking of is failed actress Sherri Shepherd whose only real shot at fame was via "The One With Phoebe's Uterus" episode of Friends when she hollered, "Peter! Hey, Peter! It's me, Rhonda from PS-129! I shared my pudding with you man! I gave you my Snack Pack!" She then told Joey (Matt LeBlanc), "See, he pretends he don't even hear me." To which Joey replies, "I-I think everybody's pretending they don't hear you."
The folks at Saturday Night Live certainly were. Hasslebeck was mocked and ridiculed for her political beliefs while the idiot was given a past. Hasslebeck's political opinons are her own and she's entitled to them. But Sherri Shepherd not knowing whether or not the earth is round is not opinion, it is ignorance and it should be ridiculed. The failed actress is now on network television as an expert and she's completely uninformed -- as she proved most recently this summer with remarks that resulted in a GLAAD alert.
But if you're an idiot, the mother ship is ABC's The View -- as was again demonstrated last week when 'the girls' sat down with War Hawk Tony Blair. The forever poodle and former prime minister of England showed up sporting his heavily bronzed and recently face-lifted face to chat and chew. His opening line? "Yeah, I just couldn't find the way out, really."
And some might have thought the War Hawk was being confessional about the illegal war he joined George W. Bush in starting, however, he was attempting to make fun of a discussion about oils being marketed to women to increase their sexual satisfaction. Blair was looking down on the "Hot Topic" of oils? We were instantly reminded of Nick Cohen (Guardian) article that
we last quoted May 27, 2007:
During their stay at the Maroma Hotel, a pricey retreat on Mexico's Caribbean coast, Cherie Booth/Blair took her husband by the hand and led him along the beach to a 'Temazcal', a steam bath enclosed in a brick pyramid. It was dusk and they had stripped down to their swimming costumes. Inside, they met Nancy Aguilar, a new-age therapist. She told them that the pyramid was a womb in which they would be reborn. The Blairs became one with 'Mother Earth'. They saw the shapes of phantom animals in the steam and experienced 'inner-feelings and visions'. As they smeared each other with melon, papaya and mud from the jungle, they confronted their fears and screamed. The joyous agonies of 'rebirth' were upon them. The ceremony over, the Prime Minister and First Lady waded into the sea and cleaned themselves up as best they could.
Oh, yes, smearing papya, melon and mud on your bodies is so much better than so-called sensual oils. Tony has an act to play, most frauds do. So he stayed with the topic insisting, "I found it educational actually. [Cross talk] All that stuff about women and oil. The trouble is, as a prime minister, you lead a sheltered life." "Oh, I know," insisted show creator/culprit Barbara Walters, loose facial skin heavily taped back beneath the wig she seemed to have bought at a Bette Davis estate sale. (The false eye lashes were apparently tossed in for free.)
It was all so damn disgusting. The recently made over 'liberal' Joy Behar flirted with Tony Blair and implied he had amazing sexual powers while Barbara demonstrated yet again the soft-ball routine that made her the easiest lay -- interview wise -- of the seventies for any politician. At almost four minutes into the segment promoting Blair's bad book, she mentions Iraq in passing, notes that they'll get to it, but wants to deal with the really 'important' matters first: Blair says in the book "that you were never quite comfortable with the Queen" of England, Elizabeth the II. Then Shepard wanted to talk about Blair calling the late Princess Diana "manipulative." Then Whoopi revealed how uninformed she can be by talking about how Tony Blair ("You used to have") would go before the Parliament for questions. Whoopi was unaware that wasn't a Tony Blair creation, that it pre-dated him and that it continues. But what was really disgusting was seeing Whoopi make nice with the War Hawk.
What, Whoopi? You couldn't have called in and taken a sick day if it was too damn much for you to call the liar out?
What a disgrace Whoopi Goldberg has become what with her defense of rape (which Saturday Night Live did mock on Weekend Update) to her make-nice bit with Tony Blair. This is the woman who, try to remember, made remarks about War Hawk George W. Bush that were considered so offensive by some (we didn't find them offensive) that the DNC apologized for putting her on stage at a campaign event. And there she was grinning and playing footsie with Tony Blair.
Nearly ten minutes into the segment, Barbara whimpered, "We also have to come back and talk about the controversy with Iraq -- which you've answer a thousand times we're going to do it once more."
Poor Tones. He's had to answer about Iraq "a thousand times." Multiply that number by 4 and it still won't be the number of US service members who have been killed in the illegal war thus far. Multiply it by 1000 and it still won't equal the number of Iraqis who have died. But poor Tony Blair's being forced to talk about his decision to start an illegal war. Oh, the horror. How does he manage to go on after being questioned. He deserves a Purple Heart just for hawking his book, apparently.
Joy Behar, refusing to look him in the eye because she's such a coward, brought up the fact that "we then later found out" there were no WMD and we now know, Joy said staring at the carpet, that it was "a mistake." It was time for Tony to pontificate and Joy kept her eyes on him as did Sherri and Elizabeth while Barbara stared down at her notes the entire time and Whoopi stared over at Barbara.
Tony Blair: Well obviously I don't think so. I mean the important thing is to realize that Saddam actually used chemical weapons against his own people. There were hundreds of thousands of people that died in Iraq. Now we know from the people that we sent in after the war that he still had those ambitions both in nuclear and chemical weapons, And I took the decision really after September 11th that we should be shoulder-to-shoulder with America, that this threat that we faced from this terrorism was intense and difficult and profound and we had, therefore, to change our attitude towards countries like Iraq who were in breach of United Nations resolutions. So I took that decision then. It was the most difficult decision I took as a leader and, you know, I never disrespected someone who took an opposite point of view.
Now if Rosie O'Donnell were still on The View, Blair's lies would have been ripped apart, O'Donnell being a host who actually did the pre-taping work required. But O'Donnell wasn't present.
"Well obviously I don't think so. I mean the important thing is to realize that Saddam actually used chemical weapons against his own people." Blair is referring to a 1988 attack, claiming that an illegal war started in 2003 over a 15-year-old assault. And the reality on the 1988 assault was reviewed in 2003 by The Toronto Star's then-ombudsperson Don Sellar:
No doubt, Saddam has mistreated Kurds during his rule. But it's misleading to say, so simply and without context, that he killed his own people by gassing 5,000 Kurds at Halabja.
The fog of war that enveloped the battle at Halabja in 1988 never really lifted. With a new war threatening in Iraq, it's coming back stronger than ever. Journalists risking their lives to cover an American-led attack on Iraq would face many obvious obstacles in trying to get at the truth.
In light of that, editors need to consider assigning staff back home to do reality checks on claims and counter-claims made in the fog of war.
As our retrospective on the Halabja story suggests, the bang-bang coverage -- gripping though it may be -- may not be enough to get the job done.
Let's again note that the above is from 2003. The hosts of The View are highly uninformed.
"There were hundreds of thousands of people that died in Iraq." Yes, that is a conservative estimate of the number of people killed during the ongoing illegal war. Also true of the number of people who died as a result of the 90s-era sanctions imposed by the West upon Iraq. Which number was Tony taking responsibility for?
"Now we know from the people that we sent in after the war that he still had those ambitions both in nuclear and chemical weapons." If ambition was a crime that came with the death penalty, Blair never would have lived long enough to become prime minister.
"And I took the decision really after September 11th that we should be shoulder-to-shoulder with America, that this threat that we faced from this terrorism was intense and difficult and profound and we had, therefore, to change our attitude towards countries like Iraq who were in breach of United Nations resolutions." Like a cheap whore, Blair keeps making the same pitch, in this case falsely linking Iraq and 9-11. He also lies that Iraq was in breach of UN resolutions. Which ones would those be? The one for inspectors to go back into Iraq? That was happening until the inspectors had to flee because Bush and Blair were declaring war. Iraq was not a threat to the US or England, was not conducting terrorism in either country.
"It was the most difficult decision I took as a leader and, you know, I never disrespected someone who took an opposite point of view." What a damn liar. He has repeatedly attacked those opposed to the Iraq War and the most recent example via Jason Groves (Daily Mail) in February of this year:
In an outspoken interview in the U.S., the former prime minister dismissed the inquiry as part of a ' continual desire to sort of uncover some great conspiracy'.
Speaking on Fox News he said critics of the war were obsessed with conspiracy theories, and refused to accept that his motives were 'genuine'.
Without Rosie or anyone else who might have a functioning brain, Tony Blair wasn't challenged. But Sherri did pussyfoot around and insist that some people had trouble understanding because Blair states he still would have invaded even if there was no WMD.
Blair replied, "Yeah, but let me explain why, the question was was he a threat? Did he threaten our security and when you look back at what he did and when you analyze what he would have done had we left him there, then I believe that we were justified in thinking he was a threat."
It was all such nonsense and what viewers mainly learned was how stupid the hosts of The View were. They'd never heard of the Iraq Inquiry, apparently, and were unaware of how Tony's many lies had been refuted in public hearings.
Eliza Manningham-Buller: As I said to Lady Prashar, we regarded the threat, the direct threat from Iraq as low. We did think -- and it comes in that letter -- that Saddam Hussein might resort to terrorism in the theatre if he thought his regime was toppled, but we did not believe he had the capability to do anything much in the UK. That turned out to be the right judgment. What the letter -- has been redacted from the letter, like I say, in general terms is that is partly as a result of action we took. But I don't think the threat in the UK was anything other than very limited.
That's the head of MI6, British intelligence, testifying. Again, Rosie would have known that. Any functioning person should have.
The View has been a eye sore for years. It's a bunch of liars lying daily. Take the self-styled 'liberal' Joy Behar whose acting was so awful in Manhattan Murder Mystery that Woody Allen couldn't stop complaining about what an editing nightmare Behar's scenes were. (That's also why her part is so small in the film.) Despite being a lousy actress, she's managed to convince many that she's a lefty, even getting a cable fluff show out of it (HLN's low rated The Joy Behar Show). Joy's so very lucky that the internet was in its relative infancy during the early moments of the Bush presidency. Back then the 'brave liberal' was daily attacking Bush critics. In its most outrageous form, that attacks found her joining Meredith Vieira in banning Bush critic Jane Fonda from The View. This happened on air. Live. With producer Bill Geddie attempting to stop the trainwreck in progress. [Barbra Walters wasn't present. She'd show up the next day to retract the Fonda ban.] Behar ripped apart Fonda as unpatriotic and much worse. She also attacked Lisa Ling when Ling attempted to disagree with the attacks on Fonda and, yes, on the Vietnamese. That's Joy Behar, the real Joy Behar. She cheered on the Afghanistan War (on live television) and she cheered on the Iraq War. Had Bush not tanked in the polls, she probably would have continued cheering him on.
The May 1, 2003 broadcast of The View not only found Joy and Meredith defending the Iraq War, it found them defending it to Janeane Garofalo and attacking Janeane for being opposed to it. And when Janeane noted Bush's attempt to lie and claim "combat operations" were over when they weren't, Behar snapped, "Americans, I think are smart enough to understand that." What viewers need to understand is that Joy Behar a loud mouth with a little brain. Which makes her the perfect fit for The View. Though they didn't have time to counter Blair's lies with facts, they had plenty of time to come up with a wish list of countries to go to war with next. Tony Blair brought up Iran and Joy agreed they must not develop nuclear weapons, Pakistan was mentioned, a whole host of countries were mentioned (Whoopi declared, "Kim Jong Ill"), it was a War Hawk paradise and you had to wonder how anyone could mistake any of the current View hosts for liberals?
Forget liberal, it's hard to mistake them for a thinking human being. Barbara noted that Tony was recently protested in Ireland due to the Iraq War and just canceled two events in London to avoid antiwar protests. She then declared, "There are people who are very, very angry with you. Does that hurt you?"
That question is such crap that we're not even going to bother to provide Tony Blair's ridiculous answer to it. In fact, after asking that and looking like Bette Davis in her final year, we'd say it was time for Barbara to attempt a hasty exit -- fully grasping that the chances for a graceful one passed some time ago. At 80, Barbara is now older than her one-time 20/20 co-host Hugh Downs was when he had the good sense to retire.
For years, Barbara's insulted the intelligence of everyone and helped to dumb down society by sitting across from various leaders and honing in on trivia while ignoring real issues that effect people's real lives. In the case of Tony Blair, he's a War Hawk and 'the girls' of The View whored for him. Played up to him, even got him some applause for being married for 30 years.
Know what?
Ryan Wrathall wasn't married 30 years, has no chance of being married 30 years. He died serving in Iraq Feb. 21, 2009, one of the 179 UK service members who have died in this illegal war.
And that's the reality about The View. Five overpaid, underinformed women, whose average age has to be somewhere around 67, blather on about gossip and unimportant trivia while trying to convince you that they're on your side. But the reality is, they're on the world leaders' side, the reality is that they don't give a damn about the working class, they never have. They're whores and, truth be told, they're ugly whores.