Having been sick these past two weeks, I've found myself on the couch watching daytime television programming for the first time since my college roommate suckered me into "Days of Our Lives" the three months during which I didn't have a Tuesday 1pm class.
This time around, however, I'm not watching soap operas...or at least, not in the typical sense. I watch morning talk shows, travel documentaries, oodles of CNN (Jack Cafferty is my favorite curmudgeon), and of course, the gab-rific 'The View.'
Being a left-minded gal, I tend to find Elisabeth Hasselbeck as grating as the time my next-door neighbor left town and forgot to turn her alarm clock off. Being woken up at 5 in the morning by someone else's alarm is perhaps only slightly less annoying than having to hear it continuously for the next six hours until it finally reaches automatic shut-off.
What drives me bat-caca-crazy about this woman is not the fact that she's a staunch Republican. I have many right wing friends, and lately we've been having a heck of a time getting into political scuffles via email forums, which we all find invigorating and thought provoking. I enjoy hearing from people whose thoughts differ from my own. I'll argue the issues all to hell, but that doesn't mean I don't want to hear the other side.
Elisabeth Hasselbeck takes it to a whole new level. Well, the level isn't entirely new, seeing as how it was birthed by Fox News several years back...but it's a level which I find disturbing and absolutely disgusting. It's bigotry.
Bigot: A person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices.
---Merriam-Webster Dictionary
As Mrs. Hasselbeck stumps for McCain/Palin both on 'The View' and off, she makes one thing abundantly clear - she's dead set in her beliefs and she doesn't want to hear it any other way. Are the other women on the show vocal in their thoughts? Absolutely. But they rarely let those thoughts sweep them up in an emotional tidal wave like Hasselbeck does on a regular basis. There is a difference between passion and hysterics. Each day I watch, Lizzie either goes on the attack - and I feel like she's on the verge of throwing a punch - or else she goes on the defensive - and I feel like she's on the verge of breaking into tears.
I totally believe that we should all fight for what we believe in. But in a forum like this, a daytime television round-table discussion show, shouldn't we be talking before we start yelling? There's no discussion with Hasselbeck. There is no debate. There is her way or the highway.
She refuses to listen. Even when the other ladies are trying to be rational, trying to ask her calmly about her beliefs, or questioning the rationality behind them, she immediately jumps to her emotional cannons and begins to fire.
There have been rumors of late that Elisabeth Hasselbeck is considering leaving 'The View' in search of greener pastures over at - who could've guessed it? - Fox News. An inside source claimed that she felt she was being 'picked on' at the View, and that she wasn't being allowed equal and fair time to express her side of the issues.
She may even be right. I do think the show tends to lean to the left. But if her 'side' (meaning the right-wing policies she embraces) doesn't get equal time, there's no one to blame but Hasselbeck herself. I firmly believe that another more level-headed, less prone to emotional outbursts, intelligent conservative female could hold Hasselbeck's position and get those opinions out in a reasonable fashion that the other hosts could tolerate.
During a recent show, Hasselbeck even went so far as to ask why they always had to talk about Sarah Palin. Why? Isn't it painfully obvious why we've ALL been talking about Sarah Palin? Because before last month, none of us had a clue who the hell this woman WAS. And she's unique! She is the only woman on the big ticket, and only the second woman in U.S. history to run for the office of Vice President. Isn't this enough reason for us to be talking about her? How the hell else are we supposed to form any sort of opinion about her, and figure out if this is a person we'd like to see as the nation's number two?
In the interest of keeping this post from becoming a novella, I'll stop there. But let me propose this peace treaty for the ladies of 'The View': Elisabeth, Lizzie dearest, please stop the emotional outbursts and keep it to rational conversation, and perhaps the other hens will see fit to stop pecking you so much and let you have your time.
Hearing both sides of an argument is important. But if you're going to scream at me in my right ear until I'm deaf, all I'm gonna be able to hear is what's coming in from the left.
3 comments:
Love the hens pecking part. And since chickens eat their own shit, it is merely a perfect metaphor for the liberals to engulf the idiocy that seems to flow endless from her glossy lips. They couldn't find another bimbo as easy a target as that chick(en).
While I loathe the View, I do take a bit of exception to "bigotry." Now you may use it in it's correct form if we are to go by the definition given, but we know it's charged with a totally different meaning where there is absolutely no proof. I think it's easy for left wingers to call right wingers "bigots" but I most do so recklessly.
Thank you both for your comments. Jeff, that's why I chose to include the definition of the term 'bigot,' because I didn't want people to think I was insinuating that Elisabeth Hasselbeck is a racist - I don't think that for one minute. The word is simply meant to imply that she's an overly strong-minded individual who seems to be impervious to the opinions of others. And I stand by that.
Let me also say that I thought long and hard about my word usage, so I take umbrage with being called 'reckless.' I took great care to be fair with this post, and I will note again that it's not so much Ms. Hasselbeck's views that I take offense to, but the tone in which she chooses to voice them.
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