For those who haven’t seen it: O’Reilly was braying about the infamous Ground Zero mosque (insert standard disclaimers here that it’s not a mosque and it’s not on Ground Zero) and made several comments about Muslims killing Americans on 9-11 and Obama’s cowardice in denouncing the movie. (O’Reilly did state that there’s no question they have the legal and constitutional rights to do so.) Behar and Goldberg both became furious and walked off stage; Barbara Walters and others remained and Walters was openly livid with them.
The video. Meltdown begins around 2:30, walkout at 3:00.
So your opinion: was this a “serves O’Reilly right” moment, do you think they did it for legitimate offense or to draw attention to themselves, do you think it was unprofessional, do you think it was total kayfabe, or what?
The only surprise to me was “Does Whoopi have arthritis?” because she seems to move so slow. I also thought that even for a fluff show that doesn’t pretend to serious journalism it was an extraordinarily unprofessional thing and that O’Reilly’s penis probably engorged to its full three inches with his glee over their reaction.
DAMN IT! Somehow it didn’t save the poll part- no idea why.
So rather than start a new one, whaddya think in general?
I think Behar and Goldberg are not only total drama queens and every bit as full of themselves as O’Reilly but that both are completely out of their depth when discussing politics or much of anything outside show biz. O’Reilly was being O’Reilly- no surprise he’s opinionated, belittling and obnoxious and they totally knew he would be when he came on the show. I see it as no points subtracted from Slytherin but 50 points each from Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff for Whoopi and Behar respectively.
O’Reilly is one of the world’s leading douchebags, but walking off the stage doesn’t accomplish anything. The proper resonse is take him down verbally and on point. Walking away rarely looks good and squanders the opportunity to factually rebut him in front of an audience.
I think it would serve everyone involved right if (for deterrent effect only) both Whoopi and Joy were forced to rub a falafel all over their bare breasts, (where’s the vomit smiley when you really need it?) while Patriot O’Reilly is forced to “pleasure himeself” (with Whoopi and Joy in this scenario, I use the term loosely) which is apparently something he finds arousing…
The reason O’Reilly likes to go on The View in the first place is that it affords him an opportunity to face off with "liberals, who aren’t really strong or informed debaters. They’re tomato cans. He also likes to try to dominate women.
Joy Behar is the biggest -‘I can’t say the C-Word’ on this site- in television. Whoopie Goldberg is a generally decent, but sometimes whitey-hating dork who was simply out of her element.
Behar should be spanked in front of the Washington Monument for her egotistical BS. Whoopie should be allowed to stay on the View, but only offered TNG the next next next Generation you are only a holographic bartender roles for the next ten years.
O’Reilly is a bully who knew exactly what he was doing here. He wouldn’t have pulled this crap if the person he was interviewing had a brain.
As for The View, all four of them are childish and frankly not very bright. I’m not at all surprised Behar and Goldberg chose this option. He never lost his cool, this is a victory for O’Reilly. He’s still a dick.
I don’t consider Sarah Palin as anything but a media creation and as such - - - well nothing. I am embarrassed for Republicans who actually consider her as a viable … anything.
Joy Behar, as much as I hate her, has actually accomplished things to get to her View role, as has Whoopie. Sarah Palin has done nothing - and so deserves not an iota of consideration.
Behar is fine when she’s interviewing Liza Minnelli or David Hasselhoff but when she tries to discuss anything of importance it makes my sphincter close with the embarrassment she doesn’t have sense enough to feel for herself. Even though I’m on the left side of the spectrum I hate it when my side’s represented by an imbecile. The best I can say is that she’s the CNN person who’s not Nancy Grace.
Whoopi Goldberg is at her best a very talented actress but she’s WAY too far left for me and is more used to an echo chamber than debate.
Really painful: Joy Behar interviewing Jesse Ventura the other night as he talked about his new conspiracy theories show. He’s an avid 911 theorists already and said he has an interview that’s going to reopen the JFK assassination because it has to do with an old man on his deathbed coming forward. I have a suspicion he’s talking about Howard Hunt whose deathbed “revelation” that LBJ was behind it is 1) not news and 2) not helped by the fact Hunt was a pathological liar who at that time needed money and had been trying to pump various memoirs of that sort for years, but is or isn’t Behar was eating out of his hand. If he’d said he learned Jackie was the real shooter and the woman next to JFK in the car was in fact Joan Rivers I’ve little doubt Joy would have looked at him with awe and non-critical acceptance.
Palin is, I’m increasingly convinced, a bonafide she sociopath. She absolutely has to know how utterly unqualified to lead or speak authoritatively on much of anything outside Wasilla she is but I don’t think she gives a damn who she maligns or what damage she causes with her recommendations and meddling as long as she’s getting adulation and money. Her supporters are making me rethink the wisdom of Alexander Hamilton and his “Most people are just too damned stupid to vote” views.
I’m disappointed in Whoopi and Joy. They knew what they were getting into, they knew Bill was a dick who’d come on there with every intention of pushing their buttons, they knew they’d disagree with just about everything that came out of his mouth…they should have expected that and acted accordingly. Losing their cool and stalking off all righteously indignant didn’t send the message “Woah, these other opinions are so far off that right-thinking people can’t even stand being in the room with them!” but instead that “liberals” are weak and stupid and unprofessional. That women are incapable of debating intelligently, not that Bill was debating honestly or intelligently but that point won’t be remembered, because he didn’t lose his shit.
I think walking out was silly – they needed to make O’Reilly elaborate.
E.g., “Are you saying all Muslims are responsible?”
“All the people involved had dark hair and beards. Are *all *people with dark hair and beards responsible?”
What he said was not bigoted unless he meant to place the blame anywhere outside of Al Queda. It’s a fact they were Muslim; it becomes bigotry when you claim that this was why the did it, or that all Muslims are responsible. They cut O’Reilly off before he made that point.
Around the time of the 2008 US election I used to watch The View every day but haven’t really since then because I’ve since been working or studying during the day. Seems like nothing much has changed - the possibility of a fight like this was the reason you watched.
It was probably a silly thing for them to do, but on The View when everybody is just yelling over the top of each other, I think it can be hard for anyone to try and have a serious debate with anyone, so instead what you get is:
Bill O’Reilly, Whoopi and Joy all yelling from all directions,
Barbara quietly and feebly attempting to stop the yelling,
Elizabeth quietly and feebly attempting to join in with the yelling, all the while filled with pride that somebody is pissing off Whoopi and Joy,
and Sherri looking silently terrified.
If I were Whoopi and Joy I probably would have walked out in the heat of the moment because it probably would have felt like nothing I said would break through the yelling and the only way to grab attention for my side would be to do something huge and controversial. But is that the right thing to do as a professional talk show host? No.
You didn’t see Ellen storming off in a huff from the set of her own show when she had John McCain on.
I watch The View every day after recording. (In my defense, I have to say that I don’t watch their interviews with self-absorbed actors plugging their latest movies, or fashionistas showing off their latest wares.) I mute the tv when the audience is screaming and clapping (a standing ovation? oh please). I think all of the gals (well, except Sherri) are intelligent and well-informed. Trouble is, to quote McLuhan, “the medium is the message.” Barbara continues to tolerate the hysterics and everyone talking at once, so it was impossible to get a coherent conversation going with O’Reilly. He was loving it. I don’t watch his show, but I’m sure he replayed The View segment for his audience. The View got a lot of publicity out of it too. I don’t think it was staged, but Barbara needed to quiet everyone down and get a calm, reasoned debate going instead of the hysterics and dramatic walk out.
Given that the show, as I understand it, makes no pretenses to be journalism, is instead supposed to replicate some strongly opinionated women getting together to chat socially and maybe have a guest over …
Are there times, in the social environments that this show is a virtual reality for, when the best reaction to a statement is to walk out of a room in disgust? If so what would justify it? And should these personas stick with replicating that environment as their pretend world, or, when having someone like O’Reilly on, try to instead pretend that they are journalists? (And it must be noted that Jon Stewart handles O’Reilly just fine.)
