Watching The View

The first topic on The View today was that the hosts went out partying last night with Whoopi Goldberg. She had an event at the 21 Club. Joy Behar said that she is hungover. Sherri Shepherd said it was her first experience with fancy dinners. It was in a wine cellar with wine tasting and an eight course meal. Sherri said that Joy is really funny when she is drunk.

Whoopi said that she spoke with Gil Cates, producer of the Academy Awards called her and apologized for the oversight of leaving her out of the montage. She accepted his apology.

Whoopi also mentioned that she will be on QVC to sell her line of bedding on Thursday night.

The next topic was the Democratic debate. Joy said that the media has been relentlessly against Hillary Clinton during the campaign. Elisabeth brought up how Bill Cunningham was speaking and repeated Barack Obama’s full name; his middle name is Hussein. John McCain repudiated Cunningham’s comments and support. Whoopi said if you are running a campaign you should know who you are putting out there. Joy wished McCain would have repudiated the comment earlier in the campaign when one of his supporters called Hillary a “bitch” and McCain kind of laughed it off. Sherri said it is obvious what kind of fear Cunningham is trying to create by using Barack’s middle name.

Joy said that she is upset with all of the sexism in the media against Hillary Clinton. She then read a list of names that Chris Matthews had called Hillary, such as “she-devil” and “uppity.” Sherri said that if he said Barack was uppity…Whoopi then finished her thought and said he would never work again. Whoopi added that you could not not say many of those names against a man and maybe we should be more concerned about the gender issue than the race issues. Joy heard a woman on CNN say that many people like to hear men’s voices and not women’s voices. Joy said, though, whenever they have men on the panel at The View, no one pays attention to them. She added that women don’t care what men have to say on The View.

During the debate, Hillary referred to the SNL skit that showed how the media is more favorable to Barack. Joy said that it is true. Sherri also pointed out that Hillary talked about always getting the first question in the debate and she has gotten the first question more often. Elisabeth said that Hillary gets to finish often and that is a better position to be in. Hillary criticized Barack for not “rejecting” the support of Louis Farrakhan, instead choosing to “denounce him.” Barack then said he would both reject and denounce. Joy looked up the words and denounce is actually the stronger of the two words.

Elisabeth then showed a clip from Hannity and Colmes where the “focus group” following the debate could not name any accomplishments that Barack Obama had in his lifetime. One woman said that being African-American and making it this far is an accomplishment. Elisabeth asked if having less experience is better or having the kind of experience you may not respect. Joy said that it is coming down to experience versus energy, judgment, and rallying the people. Sherri said that you also have to look at what Barack hasn’t done. He went to Harvard Law and could have made a lot of money, but instead went and became a community organizer to help people. She added that she likes Barack because he is like that great boyfriend who is a great talker and you wake up the next morning and can’t remember how you took your clothes off. She said Barack just makes you feel good. Whoopi said that is not enough. Whoopi brought up the safe food issue again, as well as safe toys. She also wants people to talk about safe harbors. Elisabeth said that the next president should have to sign a pre-nup and if they don’t do what they are saying what they are going to do, they should be removed. Whoopi also added that it “agitates the heck” out of her that we don’t know who the person’s running mate is until it is too late.

Elisabeth brought up a follow-up to the Moment of Truth conversation from earlier in the week. The wife said that she still wants to be the husband, but she doesn’t know if her husband still wants to be with her. She also said that she was disappointed that her appearance did not get her any job offers, which sort of proved Whoopi’s point from earlier that the woman was an actress.

Whoopi said that there is a new law in Los Angeles that all dogs and cats must be spayed and neutered by the time they are four months, except if they are breeding animals. Sherri said that would eliminate all the mutts, though, and everyone would have to go to breeders. Joy said that they should do it to Kevin Federline and Charlie Sheen. She obviously was thinking of that joke and not listening to what Sherri just said, because then she added that she has a problem with the law in that she always has had mutts as pets and mutts are cute. Elisabeth said it is like canine cleansing. Whoopi doesn’t think that law is a terrible idea because it can help control the population. Sherri said, using a funny voice, that her brother always says that he is always buying dogs and talking about breeding them. Whoopi asked who he was, Fred Sanford, because that was what her voice sounded like. Sherri said that the voice is changed to protect the innocent. Whoopi said that white people never change the voices like that when they talk. Joy said that she does. She added that people should adopt animals from shelters.

Valerie Bertinelli appeared on the show to promote her new book Losing It-And Gaining My Life Back One Pound at a Time. She lost 40 pounds on Jenny Craig and she feels lighter in her being, not just because of the pounds. She will always be a fat girl inside and she needs to not eat when she is emotional. She said that she doesn’t fear that the weight will come back because Jenny will always be in her freezer.

Going back to the hot topics conversation, she said that they wished they had a pre-nup with George Bush because she wanted a divorce six years ago.

In her book she talked about her marriage to Eddie Van Halen and it wasn’t what is appeared to be. They were married a long time, but they still had problems from early on in the marriage. She wanted to have an intact family for her son, but she realized eventually, after 9/11, that the relationship was not good for her or her son. She did not want her son to think that is how people treated each other, which was terribly. They cheated on each other and they were not kind to each other. Joy asked her which was harder “Being faithful or losing weight?” She said that now being faithful is easy, “Right, honey?” directed at her boyfriend in the audience.

Valerie’s son, who is almost 17, is playing bass on tour with his father Eddie Van Halen. She didn’t want him go because she knows the lifestyle. However, the guys in the band are now in their 50s, so they don’t party like they used to.

Valerie dated Steven Spielberg when she was 19. She said that she was very intimidated because he was very smart and a lot older than her. Plus, he didn’t like garlic and she is Italian so that didn’t work out.

She said that she is “just happy” and looking forward to the rest of her life. She is just sorry that she didn’t learn her lessons earlier in her life.

Tracey Gold appeared on the show to promote her new reality show The Secret Life of a Soccer Mom. On the show, mothers get a chance to participate in the career that they gave up to be stay at home moms. She is almost nine months pregnant. It will be her fourth boy and he will be named Dylan. She said that she says she is done with children, but she is not closing the door completely. She has no doubt that it would probably be a fifth boy if they had another child. She said that she is the “queen” of her home, being the only female.

On her show, some of the husbands were supportive of the mom working for a day, others were not. Some of the husbands even laughed at the idea of their wife working. She said that after she left there were going to be some heavy discussions. She said that her show is not saying that between staying at home or working one is better than the other, but really says that it is different for each family. Tracey said that she has the best of both worlds because she has period of times when she works and other times she is a stay at home mom.

On the show, while the mom is off for the day working outside the home, the husband has to take care of the children. Tracey said that some were very inept, but some dads did a good job. Tracey said that for some moms they are better at being mothers when they are outside of the home working as well.

Tracey is healthiest when she is pregnant because she has to look out for someone other just than herself. She loves being pregnant because she loves feeling the baby kick. Elisabeth agreed saying that when she is pregnant, it is like her body is not hers and it is has a special purpose. She doesn’t put the judgment on herself when she is pregnant.

The View, Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Sherri Shepherd, Barack Obama, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Hillary Clinton, Tracey Gold, Donny Osmond, Steven Spielberg, Jenny Craig, Secret Life of a Soccer Mom