After Shepherd’s praising remarks, Barbara Walters addressed the daytime show’s very soft treatment of Bill Clinton versus the women’s grilling, some would say sandbagging, of John McCain. Walters expressed she has "the utmost respect for John McCain." Whoopi Goldberg responded "Bill Clinton’s not running for president."
Whoopi Goldberg then proceeded to invite all of the remaining major party presidential and vice presidential candidates, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Sarah Palin. Whoopi pledged "we are going to ask the same questions that people are asking." How many Americans are worried a McCain administration will appoint pro-slavery Supreme Court justices?
Relevant pieces of the transcript follow.
WHOOPI GOLDBERG: And Sherri, you had never met him before, have you?
SHERRI SHEPHERD: I had never met him and I went and I said "President Clinton, my name is Sherri and I’m the new kid on the block." And he said to me "I saw ‘Beauty Shop’ and ‘Who’s Your Caddy’ twice and you are really funny, girl." And I went AH!
ELISABETH HASSELBECK: She was on cloud nine for the rest of the day.
SHEPHERD: I was on cloud nine and we got a picture and Whoopi you got me in with a picture with Clinton and all of the black women flocked to Bill Clinton. We were in there grinning, Bill Clinton and his women. We love you. It was nice.
BARBARA WALTERS: Can I give equal time?
GOLDBERG: Yes, absolutely.
WALTERS: First I want to say a little something about John and Cindy McCain who were on with us last week. Was it last week that they were on with us?
HASSELBECK: It was last Friday.
WALTERS: So there was, there was, you know, "The View" has gotten to the point where our clips are being played on all different shows and we’re being reviewed and so on. And there were a lot of people who felt that we were very hard on the McCains. And, you know- you’re coughing in general, not coughing about what I said.
GOLDBERG: No, I literally did choke.
WALTERS: So-
BEHAR: Well, allergies. We have allergies.
WALTERS: So, I mean, there were just so many questions and some of them were very strong questions. So I would just like to say for me- and I hope I’m representing whatever- whoever you are for. I personally have the utmost respect for John McCain. And Cindy McCain has been on with us as a guest host and was gracious enough to come on with us again. And I fervently hope that there are no hard feelings because no matter who wins, this is, this is a great man who’s had a great career and I would not want people to feel that we deliberately went after him and now Bill Clinton’s on and it’s a lovefest. So I want to say that.
GOLDBERG: And Bill Clinton’s not running for president though. That’s the other thing. There’s the difference.
[...]
GOLDBERG: Barack, you need to come in and sit with us because people are now starting to say that we haven’t invited you. So I want to put it out there that we have invited both you and Michelle several times. And I know you’re trying to work it in your schedule. Governor Palin we extend the same question- invitation to you. And Joe Biden we do the same to you.
WALTERS: And they’ve all been with us before, especially when they had books.
BEHAR: But not when the heat’s been on with McCain.
GOLDBERG: And here’s what we will promise you. We will promise to give you the ability to say what you need to say. We are going to ask the questions that people are asking. But you’ll have fun with us in spite of what you’ve heard.
