Elizabeth Hasselbeck is a fairly conservative wife and mother. Jenny McCarthy is a scandal-seeking former Playboy centerfold. How can a reporter say McCarthy is an “ideal replacement” for Hasselbeck? Perhaps because you couldn't say Jenny's just like Joy Behar?
On Tuesday, NPR media reporter David Folkenflik said the “blond bombshell” is somehow perfect to fill Hasselbeck’s shoes:
Many of today's new parents grew up seeing McCarthy as an instantly recognizable figure in popular culture, appearing on the cover of Playboy magazine, writing openly about sex, fame and love — and hosting a dating show on MTV.
That's a little mild. McCarthy's appeared naked in Hefner's pictorials numerous times, most recently in 2012 (just before turning 40). Hasselbeck came to ABC from a stint on the reality show “Survivor,” but she wasn’t a Playboy bunny. Folkenflik then properly focused on the controversy over McCarthy’s war on vaccines.
The newest co-host for Barbara Walters' chatfest The View is a vivacious and outspoken model, actor and activist for children, seemingly a perfect person to have at the table of the successful network talk show.
But Jenny McCarthy is also one of the nation's leading skeptics about the safety of vaccines. And in that role, ABC's newest star has stirred consternation.
"Her information at least when it comes to vaccines is absolutely baseless," said Dr. Edgar Marcuse, a pediatrician and professor of pediatrics and epidemiology at the University of Washington in Seattle. "It has no scientific support whatsoever."
It's always interesting to see how only the conservative gets a label, like in this passage from NPR: "Hasselbeck, its most reliably conservative voice, decamped for Fox News' morning show Fox and Friends. Joy Behar, who has appeared on the program since 1997, is leaving in August, while Whoopi Goldberg and Sherri Shepherd will remain."
