The co-hosts of "The View," where many people apparently get their news, have proven their ignorance on the Constitution and American history. On the March 5 episode, Whoopi Goldberg proposed that the runner up in a presidential election should be the vice president, as if it were a new and innovative idea. Joy Behar, who claims to be well researched exclaimed "it’s not the way the founders thought of it."
Actually, it was. Article II Section I of the Constitution states:
"In every case, after the Choice of the President, the Person having the greatest Number of Votes of the Electors shall be the Vice President."
In 1796, this led to John Adams’ opponent, Thomas Jefferson, as vice president. The 12th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1804, fixed that clause and remains the selection process to this day.
"The Electors shall meet in their respective states and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President...they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President."
When Barbara Walters offered the hypothetical scenario with a president and vice president of different parties, she and Elisabeth Hasselbeck claimed, "they’d get nothing done." Considering it is the president who makes policy and the vice president’s only power is to break a tie in the Senate, it is very unlikely it will lead to gridlock in the Executive branch.
Later in the show, Dan Rather appeared and Joy Behar, who called Ralph Nader "sexy" called the former CBS anchor a "sex god."
BEHAR: And apparently you’re a sex god because, just before you came out, one of the people on the staff, I won’t mention names said, "you know, he’s very sexy." Did you ever hear that before?
DAN RATHER: No, never in my life.
The transcript is below.
WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Can I ask you a question? Maybe you guys have the answer to this. How come we don’t just gather up all of the votes, who got the most votes, okay you’re the president? Who got the second amount of votes, okay, you’re the vice president. You know, and go that way.
JOY BEHAR: By popular vote you mean.
GOLDBERG: Yeah, why can’t, why can’t we.
BARBARA WALTERS: Look at politics. If you’re looking at politics supposedly what you’d want to do is have more of a balance. If both people- let’s say it’s Hillary- I’m not sure that she would want to have well, you, you-
GOLDBERG: It’s not her choice.
WALTERS: You’d say it should automatically be Barack. But, but, it’s also trying to reach out to other states. And I’m not sure that Hillary, at this point, we don’t know that she would take Barack as vice president.
BEHAR: I’m not sure that just that automatically makes you a good vice president. There are other jobs.
GOLDBERG: No, no, I’m simply saying neither is getting elected, that does not necessarily make you a great president.
BEHAR: That’s true.
GOLDBERG: So I’m saying-
WALTERS: On your terms, Huckabee should be John McCain’s vice president.
GOLDBERG: If, if, if, well, but you see, you hear what I’m saying, whoever got the most amount of votes. So if Hillary gets the most amount of votes and the second most amount of votes gotten is John McCain, why wouldn’t they have to work together?
ELISABETH HASSELBECK: Well, they should have to.
BEHAR: Well, you mean cross parties? Oh my God!
GOLDBERG: You know what a concept. What a concept.
BEHAR: It’s not the way the founders thought of it.
GOLDBERG: No, but you know, this is the way we’re living is not the way the founders thought of it either. There’s a lot of changes that have happened, and maybe we need to re-look at this one.
BEHAR: Well, that’s a big one.
GOLDBERG: Yeah, well, shoot, a black man in the White House is a gigantic change.
BEHAR: Thomas Jefferson would be proud.
WALTERS: Then every election from here on would have a Republican president and Democratic vice president-
GOLDBERG: If that’s how we voted.
WALTERS: Then a Democratic president and a Republican-
HASSELBECK: They’d get nothing done.
WALTERS: You get nothing done.
GOLDBERG: Well, but you know what? If it was in the hands of the people, I don’t think the people would sit for it.
[...]
BEHAR: And apparently you’re a sex god because, just before you came out, one of the people on the staff, I won’t mention names said, "you know, he’s very sexy." Did you ever hear that before?
DAN RATHER: No, never in my life.
Audio also available here (709 kB | 1:30).
—Justin McCarthy is a news analyst at Media Research Center.
Editor at Large
Comments Policy
Exactly
March 5, 2008 - 14:13 ET by iveseenitallExactly. Ignorance is bliss for uneducated "liberals" like Behar et. al., who simply run their mouths before engaging their minatuture brains.
NEVER,NEVER trust a "liberal"
Hand Picked for Ignorance
March 5, 2008 - 14:32 ET by allanfAt first I was stunned. But now I realize that these hosts were chosen for their ignorance.
The cohosts of the View are not chosen based on mental acuity. In fact that could be a draw back. They are supposed to be just girls sitting around the coffee table gossiping.
A Laura Ingaham, who has some constitutional grounding would only intimidate and make their target audience feel inferior.
Public skool
March 5, 2008 - 14:33 ET by TruthMongerPublic skool "ejucation"
I garintee none of them could pass the offisial test for US citazenship
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13442226/
me nether - I too attended a US public skool:(
80 percent, said 19th
March 5, 2008 - 15:05 ET by Dan The Man 280 percent, said 19th ammendment and got the rights wrong and teh 2 questions about forms.
Nuke em til they glow then shoot em in the dark.
Yeah, the forms one tripped
March 5, 2008 - 16:05 ET by Hero SquadYeah, the forms one tripped me up. Other than that... Yo soy Americano, hermano!
*****
"People only insist that a debate stop when they are afraid of what might be learned if it continues." - George Will
Damn!!
March 5, 2008 - 18:16 ET by RESTLESS 1I only got 70%. Forms got me and amendment about voting rights. Thought the 19th amendment was about prohibition. Oh well, better start brushing up on my Spanish.
Well Tm
March 5, 2008 - 15:51 ET by well99What you say maybe true.Just curious how many politicians went to private schools?I know I went to public school but at least I can build a fence.Plenty of practice when I was young.
i think it's fairly obvious
March 5, 2008 - 16:44 ET by TruthMongeri think it's fairly obvious that most moderates and lefties did
many conservatives probably not, however
Catholic/Protestant Schoolers no doubt:)
TM
March 5, 2008 - 18:32 ET by well99I'll agree about lefties.I am for school vouchers but I think one of the main problems with Public Schools is parent involvement.Also teachers union have too much power.They need to go back to teaching students and not trying to push agendas.Any found guilty should be canned.
Cool, I scored 85%. Can I
March 6, 2008 - 01:10 ET by cslepageCool, I scored 85%. Can I become a citizen now, please?
95%
March 6, 2008 - 01:22 ET by Free Stinker95%
Only question I got wrong was: What INS form is used to apply to become a naturalized citizen?
Pledge to not support RINOs ever again!
I'm sorry, I just opened the
March 5, 2008 - 14:49 ET by motherbeltI'm sorry, I just opened the NB homepage and read as far as "View Co-Hosts Clueless..." and that's as far as I got... I collapsed in laughter before I could read any more.
I have run into this great
March 5, 2008 - 14:17 ET by futbolisgreat1I have run into this great Liberal ignorance before.
My boss, who is a supder, duper Liberal, who has an Md.E, who claims to be well read and well educated (swears by the New York Times, NPR and PBS) made a similar comment to me a few months back....
"The person with the second highest votes should be elected VP."
I told her that the Constitution already had this and it was done like that for a while in American politics. She was completly shocked and bewildered that her "inovative" idea had already been proposed.
I did ask her, "Were you not taught this in school, college?" She was just baffled and bewildered. So much for Liberals being well educated individuals.
Funny how liberals, who
March 5, 2008 - 14:29 ET by RESTLESS 1Funny how liberals, who think that the founding fathers were so stupid that liberals must reinterpret the Constitution for the rest of us' are always bewildered when they are informed that their ideas are not so "out of the box" and that somebody else thought of them first. These guys are convinced that they so much smarter than the rest of us, but they could not tie the shoelaces of our Founding Fathers.
What morons...
March 5, 2008 - 14:19 ET by Warner Todd HustonWhat a bunch of clueless twits!
Clueless and classless when
March 5, 2008 - 14:27 ET by bigtimerClueless and classless when it comes to Joy for sure and her taste in men and sexiness...
Pathetically blind.
Right, bt.... BEHAR: And
March 5, 2008 - 14:52 ET by motherbeltRight, bt....
BEHAR: And apparently you’re a sex god because, just before you came out, one of the people on the staff, I won’t mention names said, "you know, he’s very sexy." Did you ever hear that before?
DAN RATHER: No, never in my life.
Now THAT I can believe!!
Bill Clinton
March 5, 2008 - 14:33 ET by iveseenitallI remember when Bill Clinton confused a quote from the Declaration of Independence with the Constitution (or vice versa). The media simply overlooked it. As should be clear to anyone today, our educational system has failed miserably in its mission to "educate" people. When the media puts the "smart" (or worse "genius") label on our politicians or pundits, it's simply the blind leading the blind, the pooly educated complimenting the less poorly educated. Sad.
NEVER,NEVER trust a "liberal"
I actually heard Bill
March 5, 2008 - 16:20 ET by motherbeltI actually heard Bill Clinton speaking one time when he commented that the founders did something or other to form a more "appropriate" union.
I kid you not. I'm not making it up, but I doubt I could ever find it without some kind of super-duper Lexis-Nexis.
I tried one time to find a transcript of a speech I heard him giving when he told the audience he wanted to fix Social Security to (paraphrasing) take care of your parents so you don't have to. Micropause as he caught himself and realized what he had said, so he added (pp again) in a way that reduces your standard of living.
Lord, I wish I could find those two quotes transcribed somewhere! Because of course the media just yawned and ignored them....
Career buster, the letter 'e'
March 5, 2008 - 16:28 ET by Mica the MagnificentBut be conservative and put an 'e' at the end of 'potato' . . .
A mind is a terrible waste . .umm . . .It's a waste to lose one's mind . . . A mind is terrible to lose . . if you lose your mind . . .- Whew! An embarrassing moment for all conservative life on the planet.
'View' Co-Hosts Clueless on Constitutional History
March 5, 2008 - 14:29 ET by heldmywDude...
The 'View' Co-Hosts are Clueless as to how Jell-O is made.
The title of this piece is rather like reporting that 'Hamsters Don't Understand Nuclear Reactors'.
No surprise.
a sine wave and color bars
March 5, 2008 - 14:30 ET by jwm45a sine wave and color bars for an hour would be more informative than this show
JWM
March 5, 2008 - 17:07 ET by IamTinmanCouldn't be more right on!! ROFL
popular vote, not Electoral College
March 5, 2008 - 14:32 ET by wizardjrI'm sure these airheads are talking about runner-up in the popular vote. Much like during the 2000 election debacle, they do not understand the Electoral College or how the Constitution actually work.
(Note to editors) Isn't "clueless" really redundant when talking about these people?
The concept that the United
March 5, 2008 - 14:45 ET by danboThe concept that the United States was a federation of independent states is probably lost on them.
"There is a clear attempt to establish truth not by scientific methods but by perpetual repetition."
- Richard S. Lindzen, Ph.D. Professor of Meteorology, MIT
live short, please don't prosper, easy on the carbon footprint
March 5, 2008 - 14:59 ET by TruthMongernot to mention the Earth as part of the federation of planets...
...as part of the larger old galactic republic - before the damn empire came along
they could learn more about it all at starfleet academy...
Electoral Vote and Vice President
March 5, 2008 - 14:51 ET by CGattonAnyone remember why Dick Cheney is now (again) a resident of Wyoming? After all, just before he became the VP nominee in 2000, he was a resident of Texas, and had been for many years.
It's because the VP is the VP nominee that has the highest number of electoral votes for VP. "So?" you might ask. Well there is amother provision that prohibits an elector from voting for both the Presidential candidate and the Vice Presidential candidate from his own state. Therefore, in 2000, if he had not changed his residency, the Texas electors would have run up against it.
They would have had to chose to either cast their ballot for Presidential nominee Bush, or Vice Presidential nomineee Cheney. Assuming they would have cast for a Bush presidency, then they would have had to either cast for a Lieberman vice presidency, or abstain. Because the election was so close, we would have had Pres: G. W. Bush, and Vice Pres: Joe Lieberman.
Wouldn't that have been exciting!
V/R
Clyde
"...the aspirants to tyranny are either the...men of the state, who in democracies are demagogues,... or those who hold great offices, and have a long tenure.." - Aristotle, Politics, c350BC
Don't be too surprised in Sen. Joe
March 5, 2008 - 15:51 ET by YahooWatcheris your VP along with Pres. McCain. That combination would slap any Hillary/Obama combo down to the gutter.
I might get to like that
March 5, 2008 - 16:01 ET by Dan The Man 2I might get to like that combo, at least Lieberman is no Dimocrat but he is a liberal for the most part. To say the very least it would be entertaining to watch the antics.
Nuke em til they glow then shoot em in the dark.
Drop-outs?
March 5, 2008 - 15:13 ET by ChrisMillsWhy don't we go easy on The View hosts? I remember learning this in 11th grade U.S. History. Maybe Behar and Goldberg dropped out of school at 16 and just never had this history lesson...
So much for those studies showing that dems are well eductated. The saddest part of this article is the link showing that people get their news from these no-talent a** clowns...
Free Advice
March 5, 2008 - 15:21 ET by Tom1969caIf John McCain were to become President with Shrillary as Veep, I would strongly encourage President McCain to refrain from taking relaxing evening walks in Fort Marcy Park ...
~~~
I admire FDR for not insisting on getting the approval of France and Germany before going to war.
--Anne Coulter
The View - problem solvers?
March 5, 2008 - 15:33 ET by Mica the MagnificentI wonder if, collectively, the cast of The View could solve the problem the girls in the opening scene of "Scary Movie (3?)" had:
Dizzy girl #1 Oh look! The remote for the t.v. doesn't work!
Dizzy girl #2: You're holding it backwards!
Dizzy girl #1: What should I do?
Dizzy girl #2: I don't know!!
The View consensus: Call a plumber!
Mica.... ROFL! ...'bout
March 5, 2008 - 15:38 ET by bigtimerMica....
ROFL!
...'bout says it all too.
bigtimer
March 5, 2008 - 15:40 ET by Mica the Magnificentyou're a great audience, bigtimer. Thanks.
Mica.... No problem, I'm
March 5, 2008 - 15:42 ET by bigtimerMica....
No problem, I'm just kickin' back enjoying myself today....lol.
They may be short on
March 5, 2008 - 15:50 ET by BuffNBoneThey may be short on Constitutional knowledge, but I have it on good authority that co-hosts of "The View" are acutely aware of who Curious George is.
"Fighters are fun but bombers make policy"
'View' Cohosts Clueless on Constitutional History
March 5, 2008 - 15:56 ET by Oregonian1Could be shortened to "'View' Cohosts Clueless" without any loss in accuracy, and used to cover the transcripts every day!
Lets be nice to Joy...maybe
March 5, 2008 - 16:18 ET by charlietexasLets be nice to Joy...maybe she was absent that day in high school.
KIDS......let this be a lesson.....don't skip school or you will turn into Joy Bayharrr
Anybody taking bets on
March 5, 2008 - 19:09 ET by ChaitealoverAnybody taking bets on whether or not they correct the information on tomorrow's show? Yeah, sure.
The sad part is that all their clueless followers will continue to believe what they were told.
Chai
“...Bury me on my face,” said Diogenes; and when he was asked why, he replied, “Because in a little while everything will be turned upside down.”