Whoopi Goldberg

Author Ann Coulter sparred with Joy Behar on Reaganomics on Wednesday's episode of The View.  "How are you going to solve it if you don't have any revenue coming in?" asked Joy Behar of the conservative commentator, who is currently promoting her latest book, Demonic.  "When Reagan cut taxes, each year, as the taxes went down, revenue to the treasury went up"  Coulter responded.

As The View's most ardent leftist, Behar went on to try to blame bad loans and the housing crisis on Republicans.  Coulter merely rebutted with the facts.  "You cannot blame the Republicans on that" said Coulter.  "The big banks then bundled them to the mortgage-backed securities, they got spread out into everyone's portfolio. So it was like a poison in the economy."

(video after the break)

According to Joy Behar of 'The View,' someone is "out to get" Anthony Weiner because "they don't like his politics." Behar and her co-host Whoopi Goldberg advanced a conspiracy theory on Thursday and included the possibility that the Congressman could have been at a beach and had an innocent photo digitally manipulated. Meanwhile, Barbara Walters pronounced dead the political goal of the politician to one day be New York's mayor.

Offering cover for Weiner, Goldberg theorized, "Well, you know, if you have been on a beach in a bathing suit with friends- and I've had this happen, so I know that this can get done- where they take, you know, a little piece of you and they put you in a diaper or whatever."

[See video below. MP3 audio here.]

Joy Behar on Monday's "The View" crowed about Barack Obama being "a very intelligent guy" because he went to Harvard Law School and Columbia University.

Without skipping a beat, Elisabeth Hasselbeck marvelously asked, "Then doesn't that make President Bush very smart as well then? Yeah?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

ABC's The View on Thursday neglected one side of the abortion debate by bringing on two staunch supporters of Planned Parenthood in Congress without any other guests arguing the pro-life side. As the two championed giving tax money to the abortion provider, Barbara Walters herself defended the organization, while Whoopi Goldberg assisted in spreading a falsehood about "federal dollars" for abortion (audio clips available here).

The show's co-hosts brought on Representatives Gwen Moore and Jackie Speier, two of the current "pro-choice" heroes in Congress supporting Planned Parenthood funding, near the end of their 11 am Eastern hour program to discuss the controversial issue. After playing clips from two of their recent floor speeches in the House of Representatives (they omitted Moore's infamous "ramen noodles" remark), co-host Elizabeth Hasselbeck echoed her colleague Joy Behar's compliment from earlier in the week: "We're glad you're both here. Courageous, indeed, what you did to bring your own personal stories....I think it touched many women, including us."

[Video embedded below the page break]

The View's Whoopi Goldberg on Tuesday compared today's political environment to that of when she was a child, talk that led to people get "lynched." Discussing Last week's Arizona shooting, she warned, "When I was growing up, people talking and saying things, whipping folks up, caused a lot of people to get lynched."

Continuing this theme, she added, "Now, had those people not done all that, would it have happened any way? It may have. I don't know. But I do know that sometimes we, as a society, have to sort of be aware of what we are doing."

(Of course, Goldberg's historical analogy falls apart when you consider the fact that she was born in 1955 and grew up in the '60s, a time when lynchings were at a historical low.) The normally conservative Elisabeth Hasselbeck even inquired if Sarah Palin's career might be over as a result of the cross hairs ad her political action committee released in 2010.

Sarah Palin found a very strange ally on Monday.

With media outlet after media outlet disgracefully accusing the former Alaska governor of inciting Jared Lee Loughner to go on a shooting rampage in Tucson Saturday, Barbara Walters said on "The View," "To blame Sarah Palin as some are doing I think is very unfair to her" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Ever the classy bunch, the ladies of "The View" spent a few minutes Monday mocking incoming Speaker of the House John Boehner for tearing up during an interview with CBS's Lesley Stahl.

The usual suspects, apparently no longer bothered by dramatic showings of disrespect towards national leaders, hit Boehner with characteristically immature and uninformed attacks.

The bigger surprise, though, was self-proclaimed "objective" reporter Barbara Walters, who claimed that Boehner "has an emotional problem," since "every time he talks about something that's not 'raise taxes,' he cries."

  Appearing as a guest on Saturday’s Huckabee show on FNC, Whoopi Goldberg - co-host of ABC’s The View - complained that bloggers disseminate inaccurate information about her without the need to "fact check," and that "they poop on you and they walk away." Goldberg: "But a blogger can say endless stuff. They don't have to fact check. ... And then that is picked up and made into some other story on another station, and it becomes the truth. See, I think fact outweighs assumption. So if you have facts in your hands, then you can talk, then you can have a conversation... People just, they poop on you and they walk away."

After asserting that she has said "not one thing" on ABC’s The View that she regrets saying, Goldberg soon added, "And I've gotten flack for what I felt was fact as opposed to someone's speculation."

But Goldberg has her own history of helping spread misinformation on The View. Last May, she and other co-hosts repeated the distorted claims of a left-wing organization in Texas which alleged that conservatives on the Texas State Board of Education were trying to downplay or eliminate references to slavery in its grade school history curriculum. On the Monday, May 17 show, Behar misinformed viewers with sarcasm: "Remember that thing called the 'slave trade'? Remember that? Okay, it turns out, what you learned was all wrong. Because it wasn't some evil buying and selling of human beings. It was simply called 'Atlantic triangular trade.' That's what they want to call it now. It's called revisionism. People do it about the Holocaust, and now Texas wants to do it about our country."

Moments later, Goldberg chimed in, "I’m sorry. Slavery was slavery. You can’t recall it." Instead of reading out the actual wording from the curriculum plan, panel members seemed only to refer to third-party accounts of the proposed changes.

And in April, the panel on the View helped feed the misinformed hysteria over Arizona’s effort to enforce federal immigration laws as some of her co-hosts assumed the new state law would require racial profiling and targeting of Hispanics, failing to convey that Arizona law enforcement would only check immigration documents of suspects who have been detained for some other reason. Goldberg acted more as moderator on this occasion and was not as outspoken as other co-hosts in making assertions about the new law, but she did not challenge the claims of her co-hosts and seemed to assume they were accurate. Goldberg, from the April 26 The View:

Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani took on the ladies of "The View" along with their highly-partisan audience Wednesday in a post-election discussion about Sarah Palin, Barack Obama, and healthcare reform.

So strongly did most of those in attendance disagree with Giuliani that he ended saying "You don't get it" when they booed him for criticizing the President (video follows with partial transcript and commentary):

Barbara Walters on Wednesday told Joy Behar she's so offensive to so many people they will give money to folks she doesn't like.

This marvelously was "The View" co-host's response to Nevada Republican senatorial candidate Sharron Angle raising $150,000 online after Behar called her a bitch on Tuesday's program (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Against the opinion of the "Morning Joe" panel (and Barbara Walters herself), NBC's Norah O'Donnell half-defended Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg for brazenly walking off the set of ABC's "The View" when guest Bill O'Reilly got too controversial for them.

Without saying that she personally was okay with Goldberg's and Behar's stunt, O'Donnell hinted that they had a legitimate reason for doing so. "You know, if Whoopi and Joy felt that [O'Reilly] was being demeaning to them, they felt like they should walk off," she posited.

The MSNBC reporter was a fill-in co-host on Friday's MSNBC's "Morning Joe" along with brew crew regular contributor Willie Geist. Guest and columnist Mike Barnicle was the first to disagree with her sentiment. "Stay there," he said about Behar and Goldberg, "Keep going. Confront [O'Reilly]."

O'Donnell was careful not to heatedly argue the point further, but rather was content to echo the responses from Barnicle and Geist.
 

If you can’t stand the heat, then don’t invite Bill O’Reilly on your show to talk about current events. Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar flew off the handle during a live taping of “The View” on Thursday, storming off-stage during a dispute with O’Reilly over the Ground Zero mosque.

O’Reilly set the two women off after he said that, “Muslims killed us on 9/11.” Goldberg took offense at the statement, exclaiming “That is such bull----!”

“Extremists did that!” yelled a clearly agitated Goldberg. “What religion was Mr. McVeigh? There was an extremist as well and he killed people --”

(video below fold)

When I think of people well-suited to lead a crusade against declining public civility, somehow Whoopi Goldberg doesn't spring to mind.  Yet there was The View co-host on Morning Joe today, promoting what Amazon describes as: "her new book of observations [that] takes a funny and excruciatingly honest look at how a loss of civility is messing with the quality of life for all of us."

And sure enough, Whoopi engaged in a [seemingly endless] discussion with the MJ folks on the subject.  Mika read a passage from the book in which Goldberg bemoaned the rise of "political incivility."  Added Whoopi "it's not just the politicians. It's also just human beings interacting."

You mean, human beings like . . . Whoopi Goldberg?  Just last month, while the debate over the Ground Zero mosque was raging, our Lachlan Markay caught Whoopi in a blatant breach of civility.

Catching up on an item from the Thursday, September 9, The View on ABC, Barbara Walters was at odds with her co-hosts over the issue of whether racism was the primary motivation of the Arizona illegal immigration law as well as opposition to the Ground Zero mosque. Whoopi Goldberg raised the question of whether "there may be an undercurrent of racism in the USA that’s building up," leading co-host Sherri Shepherd to assert that "you certainly hear racism a lot more, I think, than you ever heard it." Walters soon jumped in to voice dissent:

I think that we're kind of mixing things up. When you say there's more racism now, oh, there's so much less racism than 20 years ago or 50 years ago. ... There is racism in this country. That's not new. There is racism against the President. That's not new. But I disagree with putting the mosque and the Arizona laws. I think the Arizona laws have to do with losing jobs and people coming across the border to get those jobs.

After Goldberg responded, "Then why don't they say that?" Walters continued:

The View's resident political sage Whoopi Goldberg offered her usual degree of intellectualism on Wednesaday's show, when she told people protesting against the Ground Zero mosque to "kiss my butt" and "get out of here."

Apparently fed up with Americans voicing their collective discontent with individuals and actions they find highly offensive, Whoopi stated (video below the fold):

The fact that there were protests on 9/11 really also irritated me. You know what, I don't have time to listen to your side or your side. This is about the people that lost their lives. That's why we're coming together. And the fact that y'all are fighting in the streets - kiss my butt, get out of here.

Although there are few tough interviews on ABC's "The View" – this was an exception to the rule – Vice President Joe Biden received a surprisingly more serious reception than did President Obama on the daytime celebrity show. He even had a snide remark for Whoopi Goldberg about high taxes for the wealthy.

As Newsbusters reported, President Obama's interview was essentially a rousing festival of praise for the administration and Obama's family. By contrast, Vice President Biden's interview, although by no means tough, was missing the slew of softball questions that Obama enjoyed. There were even some awkward exchanges between Biden and co-hosts Barbara Walters and Whoopi Goldberg, on the issues of foreign policy and taxes, respectively.

While the show's hosts continually fawned over President Obama, token conservative co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck soon brought up Biden's infamous F-bomb gaffe at the health care bill's signing. Sherri Shepherd followed up by asking about the administration's answers for angry Tea Partiers, and Whoopi Goldberg then pressed about the problem of high taxes.

Biden quipped, "You have a lot of money, that's why it bothers you," before assuring Goldberg that he was kidding.

Over 6.5 million people watched President Obama on Thursday surrounded by gushing females sitting on a couch.

Tells you a lot about the state of the union, doesn't it?

Of course, the bigger question is whether folks were tuning in to ABC's "The View" that day to watch Joy Behar faint in His presence or to see if the lone conservative Elisabeth Hasselbeck was actually going to ask the President a tough question.

Unfortunately, those hoping for either were deeply disappointed.

Regardless, ABC proudly released the numbers along with some truly hysterical opinions Friday (h/t TV By The Numbers):

Barack Obama will make history this week when he becomes the first sitting president to appear on ABC's daytime ladies talk show "The View."

I guess when you're likely the most liberal Commander in Chief the nation has ever seen with poll numbers plummeting faster than a coin tossed off the Empire State Building there isn't a better place to have your ego massaged than on a couch surrounded by gushing females tossing softballs at you as the cameras roll.

Most interestingly, the announcement published at ABCNews.com referred to the President's sagging approval ratings giving one the impression that even the show's producers know why he's coming to chat with the girls (h/t NBer SickofLibs):

As the Texas State Board of Education worked to complete its once-every-ten-year revision of the curriculum for the state’s schools in May, much of the mainstream media promoted complaints and distortions from the left – many originating with the left-leaning Texas Freedom Network – about the nature of the changes in the guidelines and how they would effect textbooks that might end up in other states. One of the more incendiary distortions was that the conservative-leaning Texas Board of Education was trying to downplay or ignore the existence of slavery in America’s history as some on the left claimed that the term "slave trade" was being renamed "Atlantic triangular trade" thus removing the word "slave" or "slavery" from the curriculum. Joy Behar of ABC’s The View and of HLN’s Joy Behar Show went the furthest in slamming the board of education as she charged on the May 17 The View that "It's called revisionism. People do it about the Holocaust, and now Texas wants to do it about our country." She soon mockingly declared: "You know what, next they'll be burning books. Next step, burn books."

NBC’s Rehema Ellis mentioned the issue on the NBC Nightly News on two consecutive nights, on the May 22 show charging, "And the expression 'slave trade' would be changed to the 'Atlantic triangular trade.' Some critics see that as a move to deny slavery," while ABC’s Dan Harris on the May 21 World News asserted, "Here are some of the things the conservatives tried and failed to do: Have the President called by his full name, Barack Hussein Obama, which some called an attempt to raise questions about his faith, and even rename the 'slave trade' as the 'Atlantic triangular trade.'"

But CNN’s T.J. Holmes deserves credit because he actually took the time to inform viewers of the wording in question, first as he, on the May 22 CNN Saturday Morning, hosted a debate between NAACP President Benjamin Jealous and Jonathan Saenz of the Liberty Institute, with the CNN anchor revealing that the new wording still used the word "slavery" as he posed a question to the NAACP president. Holmes: "I want to make sure, because I read this thing as well and I did see 'Atlantic triangular trade' in there, but then in the next, almost couple of words I saw the word 'slavery' ... Now, what is the issue with that that you call it a 'triangular trade' and then you're still talking about slavery and you used the word ' slavery'? What's the issue?"

On Wednesday’s The View on ABC, co-host Joy Behar defended author Joe McGinniss’s decision to purchase a home right next door to Sarah Palin as he plans to write an unauthorized biography of her, and his recent comments on NBC's Today show comparing her criticism of him to the behavior of Nazi troopers of the Third Reich. Behar found no agreement from the other co-hosts, and faced stiff resistance from Elisabeth Hasselbeck, in particular. Behar: "He's not saying she's a Nazi. He's saying the tactic was Nazi-like. ... This is the inference Ms. Palin put on her Facebook: ‘Wonder what kind of material he'll gather while overlooking Piper's bedroom?’ ... so now she writes something like that, she unleashes hatred among the Palinites who are very dittohead-ish and carry guns..."

Hasselbeck objected to being called a "dittohead," prompting Behar bring up Rush Limbaugh embrace of the term as a description of audience members, but also mocked Hasselbeck by calling him and Palin her "idols."

Catching up on an item from ABC’s The View from Monday, April 26, as the group discussed the new immigration law in Arizona that attempts to enforce federal immigration law, co-host Joy Behar invoked Nazi Germany and suggested that those who oppose the law should be inspired by the story – which is apparently just a legend – of King Christian X of Denmark and other Danes wearing the Star of David on their arms during World War II to make it difficult for Nazi occupiers to discern who was Jewish. After making her first Nazi reference of the day by asserting that "this smells very much of, ‘May I see your papers?’" she soon continued:

During World War II, in one of the countries where the Nazis were occupying – I believe it was Denmark – the king of Denmark also wore the Jewish star. So then everybody had the star, and the Nazis did not know who was Jewish and who wasn't. I suggest that the people in Arizona all get out there and protest this and get some kind of thing to show that they don't like this.

After co-host Barbara Walters pointed out that 70 percent of the people of Arizona "like" the new law, Behar looked for a silver lining in the poll numbers:

On Monday’s The View on ABC, as the group discussed a recent appearance by Sarah Palin with Arizona’s Republican Governor Jan Brewer, at which Palin called on Americans to say, "We’re all Arizonans, now," to show unity with the state’s struggle with illegal immigration, co-host Joy Behar cracked: "I wish she would stop speaking for everyone. We are not all Arizonans. She has an issue with immigrants – at least they finish the job."

She later suggested that Governor Brewer is only pushing the enforcement of immigration laws for political reasons, and, after guest co-host Bryant Renfroe theorized that Palin "just wants to fight for her brand name," Behar agreed: "Right, exactly, so she can make more money."

Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the Monday, May 17, The View on ABC:

On Thursday’s The View on ABC, during a discussion of Laura Bush’s recent revelation that she disagrees with her husband on the issues of abortion and same-sex marriage, normally right-leaning co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck voiced agreement with the former First Lady, but also used a surprising choice of words as she recommended that conservatives talk to gay couples about the issue rather than "hating on it." Hasselbeck:

I think there are a lot of, maybe, conservatives out there who are talking about gay marriage and not necessarily with someone who wants to have gay marriage or has been in a gay marriage. You know, I had Melissa Etheridge over, we had dinner, we talked for hours about gay marriage, and I would really challenge people: Get out there. Instead of just talking about it and hating on it, actually talk to someone who’s loved someone else and have the conversation about what can be done...

Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the Thursday, May 13, The View on ABC:

On ABC’s The View on Tuesday, as the group discussed a new law in Oklahoma that requires an ultrasound of an unborn baby be performed and the image offered to a pregnant woman before an abortion could take place, none of the panel members spoke up in favor of the Oklahoma law, although right-leaning Elisabeth Hasselbeck supported "nudging" pregnant women to look at an ultrasound to be informed about the life signs of their unborn babies.

Whoopi Goldberg became emotional as she dismissed the effectiveness of viewing an ultrasound in encouraging women not to have abortions, but also seemed to worry that making such images available would make a woman more upset as she decides whether to have an abortion. She went on to express concern that if some women facing difficult circumstances chose not to have an abortion, that the baby would be murdered later in life at the hands of its desperate parents. Goldberg: "Let me tell you something. There's not a woman that goes, there's not a woman out there who makes a decision to have an abortion lightly. It is a tough, a tough, but to have someone compound what you are already carrying, you are already going in there with that pain because maybe you didn't want to have an abortion, maybe you can't have a baby. Maybe you can't afford it."

After Hasselbeck posed, "Are you going in there with all the knowledge of what's actually going on inside of you at 16 weeks?" Goldberg started losing control: "But what difference does it make if you can't have the baby? What difference does it make if you're going to bring a baby in and you can't feed it and you can't take care of it and then people end up killing their kids? I hate it!"

It was a metaphysical certitude the classic battle between Fox News's Roger Ailes and liberal publisher Arianna Huffington on Sunday's "This Week" would send many in the mainstream media over the top, and comedian Joy Behar didn't disappoint.

As "View" co-host Whoopi Goldberg gave the audience the background of the matter Monday -- "Fox News president Roger Ailes pointed out that on the Huffington Post he's been called quote a malignant tumor with a face like a fist" -- Behar interrupted, "It's not true."

Moments later, the opinionated comedian demonstrated her astounding lack of knowledge saying, "According to what I've read, first of all, the guy who wrote this tumor thing was not talking about him. He was talking about Fox."

She erroneously continued (video embedded below the fold, h/t NB reader Carla Brehm):

[Update, 3:00 pm Eastern: Video added.]

On HLN’s Joy Behar Show on Thursday, Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg gave a racial explanation for Chris Matthews’ recent “I forgot he was black” remark about President Obama. Goldberg cracked that “this has been quite a year for the white man.” Behar replied, “Traumatic,” and Goldberg continued it was “traumatic in many ways because...you have to think before you speak” [audio clip from the segment are available here].

The HLN host brought up Matthews post-State of the Union comment during her interview of her colleague from The View. After playing the clip of the MSNBC host, Behar asked Goldberg, “What do you think he was driving at there? Because he’s a lefty- you know, he’s liberal, and he likes Obama. And yet, he says something stupid like that- you know, I forgot he was black. He would never say I forgot he was white if he was looking at Bush.”

Goldberg responded half-jokingly, “Well, white people- you know, this is- this has been quite a year for the white man.” After laughs both on and off-camera, Behar interjected, “Traumatic.” Her guest agreed and continued with her point:

It was a year in which the dominant cultural story was the sad, but eerily almost predictable drug-addled death of Michael Jackson. But there were a few good moments sprinkled in with the outrageous and the tawdry in 2009. My choices for cultural winners and losers this year:

Winner: Farrah Fawcett. Unlike Jackson, she fought and ultimately lost her battle with cancer with extraordinary grace, faith, and dignity.

Winner: "Up." The elite and the people agree that Pixar films are sublimely entertaining. The eight-minute montage near the beginning of this film sweetly chronicling a loving marriage moved millions to tears from coast to coast.

In fact, animated movies continued to earn massive box-office receipts. "Up" drew almost $300 million, "Monsters vs. Aliens" and "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs" came very close to $200 million, and the offbeat "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" grossed more than $120 million.