Tuesday, April 08, 2008

I wish she would keep her "views" to herself

Do any of you watch THE VIEW, the daytime all-women talk show? Since I work from home I often have the tv on in the background and neglect to change channels after Good Morning America. Inevitably, this leads me to subject myself to the journalistic delights of Sacramento & Company and, shortly thereafter, the occasionally amusing chit-chat and cat fights of The View.

For those of you that don't watch, there are five women co-hosts who spent 90% of the show bantering between them about the issues of the day. This is the same show that Rosie O'Donnell got so famously booted from last year, ditto for Star Jones. The chief matriach of the show is Barbara Walters and Whoopi Goldberg is the comic relief, hired to replace Rosie O.

Most of the crew are pretty left-of-center in their views, although I'd place at least 2 of them somewhere closer to dead-center. But then there is Elisabeth Hasselback.

Elisabeth has been with the show for a few years and her dubious pedigree for the job includes being one of the final four in one of the 60 billion Survivor shows. Elisabeth is the token Republican of the show and she drives me crazy. It's not so much that she's Republican (although under normal circumstances this would be enough to turn my nose up) but that she espouses her right-wing views like a rock-star groupie, rapt with adoration for the Bush adminstration and just about any action taken by someone who leans slightly to the right. The right wing can do no wrong in her eyes. She grabs skewed and seemingly ridiculous facts to try and support her ill-informed and ignorant opinions, she's beligerant, and she's not very smart. I have no idea what she's doing on this show but I wish they would get her off.

Nothing gets my goat more than someone who runs their mouth off without knowing what they're talking about. Case in point today, Elisabeth tried arguing with Barbara Walters about the success (or not) of the surge in Iraq. Ms. Hasselback asserted to Barbara (who I consider eminently better positioned to express an opinion on the subject) that (and I paraphrase only slightly) the surge was an exercise in political and military brilliance that would be studied for decades to come.

Um, huh? Is she studying the same surge? Tell that to the families of the 4,000 service men who have been killed and the 40 or so each month who continue to be killed over there. Or to the servicemen themselves who try in vain to train a home-grown security force that is well recognized to be easily corruptible, and with a sticking-rate of about 10%. (My source: NPR) Or, to the Iraqis themselves who live in a war zone, fearful for their lives, and exasperated with their ineffective government.

It's not that I think there shouldn't be a balance of political views on a show that frequently discusses political issues. Just that the person should be well-informed and rational in their presentation of the issues and their opinions.

2 comments:

e said...

I find any dogmatic opinion annoying, be it liberal or conservative (including my own opinions, by the way - LOL). As you say, nothing wrong with having another opinion, but have your own thoughts about it and base on something that is not made up. Grr. I'm annoyed just reading about this woman. Grrr.

Mike said...

You know I can appreciate anyone's point of view, as long as they approach it logically.

Perhaps McCain's next big thing will be that the current failure of the troop surge is a left wing plot to discredit him...

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