The Hollywood trade paper Variety reported that ABC axed Nicolle Wallace from “The View” when this season is over. Reporter Ramin Setoodeh called her a “conservative personality,” which is not how she came across on ABC at all.
But Variety also suggested “The former communications chief for George W. Bush was selected as the resident Republican on the show in September, but underwhelmed ABC bosses by not offering enough dissent about political issues and continually voicing her lack of knowledge about celebrities.”
Wallace didn't mention this decision directly on Thursday's show, but joked: "There's a lot of news about our show always, right?... They crossed a line though....they called me Khardashian-illiterate!" She then offered a Khardashian briefing of sorts.
As for agreeing too much, Wallace did it again Thursday on Bruce Jenner’s ESPY “Courage” award spectacle: “I love her and I feel like the best gift she's given us is a way to talk about it and ask questions and sitting down with Diane Sawyer was an education for so many people in this country.”
This not-enough-dissent line is a fascinating line of spin, since Wallace was considered moderate and unthreatening enough to be acceptable to Rosie O'Donnell.
Wallace’s hire last season was championed by new executive producer Bill Wolff, who met her while he worked on The Rachel Maddow Show. In addition to The View, Wallace still appears on MSNBC as a contributor for Morning Joe.
She also filled in as a pundit on ABC News covering the midterm elections, but another source adds that ABC producers found her commentary too soft.
Don't the MSNBC credits suggest she's not exactly a right-winger? (Here's a dash of Maddow and Nicolle trashing Palin together.) As our Scott Whitlock pointed out, they could have easily noticed her liberal tilt on other channels, and that's what they received on ABC:
In fact, Wallace has made a second career out of attacking conservatives and defending liberals. On The View, in January of 2015, she assailed Palin's gaps in "knowledge," finding them "chilling." On September 22, 2014, Asked to talk about an alleged brawl that broke out at a Palin family party, the former political operative mocked, "I have political staffer version of PTSD. So, whenever I hear she's breaking her silence... my heart stops."
In October of 2014, she appeared to endorse a Hillary Clinton run for the White House, praising, "I'm a huge fan." On March 8, 2015, she downplayed Clinton's e-mail scandal as a "media problem."
Talking to Yahoo, she enthused of Clinton: "I'm not going to vote for her, but I wish her all the success. I hope she runs her best campaign."
Will she replaced on the (sort of) conservative side? Variety suggested Candace Cameron-Bure, “could take on the role of The View’s conservative expert. The former Full House actress has impressed producers as a fill-in host by offering strong opinions that have generated buzz on social media.”
They might be thinking about Cameron-Bure sparring with Raven-Symone on July 7 -- Battle of the Child Stars! -- on the right of bakers to "discriminate" and refuse to do gay-marriage cakes.
