Elisabeth Hasselbeck: In a Room Without a View

[veracity]

snipped with permission:

Following FOX News’ pathetically unrealistic precedent, the ABC daytime talk show called The View decided that they had to “balance” the reality and common sense provided by Joy Behar and Rosie O’Donnell with the idiocy and blind establishment parroting of Elisabeth Hasslebeck. Sometimes ignorance is dangerous. In the case of Ms. Hasslebeck ignorance is not only dangerous, but it is painfully embarrassing.

Full article: http://tvnewslies.org/blog/?p=623

[Virginia Dare]

1. Last night Chris Matthews commented..

that Rosie O'Donnell doesn't help the anti-war left with her rantings, but I would argue that Elizabeth Hasselbeck doesn't help the jingoistic right with her empty headed jibberish.

Another interesting comment was that the debate is getting so heated about the war on what is supposed to be a "women's talk show".

[underpants]

3. Wow that's a shocker

Mathews supports the cocktail party circuit

[yurbud]

4. my mom, who didn't go to college and lives out in the woods in the sticks, meets with book club

and they read stuff like WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS.

If sexism ever died, male politicians would be an endangered species because women are much better talkers.

[muffin1]

5. We all know

women don't talk about things like war and politics!:sarcasm:
Also, every station I turned to last night implied that mean old Rosie had called the troops terrorists, and sweet little Elizabeth was given a free pass!
;(

[wryter2000]

15. Welcome to DU

:hi:

[muffin1]

50. Thanks!

:hi:

[liberal N proud]

6. Did he even watch that segment? or is that the media spin?

Rosie wasn't ranting, If she was ranting what the f@$# was the dingbat on the other end of the table doing?

[Virginia Dare]

7. They showed the clip, so I assume he did...

he totally slammed Rosie, so I guess this means the MSM isn't too happy with her right now.

[liberal N proud]

8. Just as Rosie put it

Gay Rosie picks on poor Christan Elizabeth

[wryter2000]

16. Actually what she said was

"Fat, lesbian, loud-mouth Rosie." :rofl:

[liberal N proud]

31. Yeah, I was paraphrasing

[ElboRuum]

22. Well I don't know exactly... But I'm sure that "batshit insane" enters into it.

[LibDemAlways]

11. Tweety was kissing repuke ass last night with his

anti-Rosie spew. He knows it's Bush she's criticizing, but he freely parrots rw lies anyway - and then sticks a couple of rw shills on to back him up. It was disgusting.

[PegDAC]

37. Lizzie

should have stuck to "The Look for Less".

[yurbud]

2. great paragraph on facts vs. balance:

The truth is that reality is rarely balanced. If it is raining outside you can not report that it is not raining just for the sake of being fair and balanced. Practicing “balanced” coverage of reality in essence distorts reality. This is dangerous. It prevents the public from accurately assessing important issues. It is like having one friend tell you not to drink and drive. They tell you the very real facts about how alcohol impairs your vision, affects your reflexes and is responsible for the overwhelming majority of vehicular homicides. Then, just to be balanced you listen to another persons who tells you that it is OK to drive because you only had a few drinks and you only live a few blocks away and so on and so on. Then they cite statistics that show that driving fatalities are caused by many things, not only alcohol and because they found a source for this information that does not view deaths related to drinking and driving as real “homicides”, the numbers look different. That’s balanced, but is it really the kind of balance that we need in this world? Do we really need an opinion that is clearly wrong and clearly dangerous just for the sake of having balance?

[The Count]

23. "You don't balance truth with a lie" E.R. Murrow

The word "balance" is code for muddling the truth.

[ElboRuum]

25. Typical Rhetorical Doublespeak...

Fair and balanced is a perfectly wonderful thing to do. Only you have to understand its nuance.

Fair... Fair means that on a particular issue all major salient points of view are being exposed. If there is only one major salient point (like the basic facts for example) and then other minor points are elevated to equality to this point for the purpose of conjecture, this is not fair. Fair means giving equivalent weight to equivalent points, but it also means giving unequal weight to unequal points.

Balanced... Balanced means assessing all representative points with equal scrutiny. Points that show a high degree of accuracy and insight tend to survive the scrutiny with greater aplomb than their less accurate counterparts... and that is the point. Balanced means you are going to apply the same methodologies to each, analyzing each through the same filters. Some stand up to the scrutiny, others don't.

To use your own argument, you are correct that it is raining outside you cannot report that it is not raining and be said to be fair and balanced. A fair and balanced argument would exhibit fairness by stating that in the argument that it is not raining even when all evidence points to the fact it is is a much weaker position than the one stating that it is raining. Thus, by acknowledging the fact that one point of view is clearly a great deal less accurate than the other, you exhibit fairness by giving each its due, accepting the raining argument and being highly skeptical of the not-raining argument.

Balance is achieved by analyzing both in the same manner and accepting the results as to which falls out. So you go outside. You get wet. A brief search of the sky reveals no fireplanes or other aircraft capable of dumping water. A brief survey of your immediate area indicates that no lawn sprinklers are on that could be the source of the deluge. You casually note that your shorts are becoming soggy. You return indoors. A balanced analysis would look at the requirements of satisfying both the raining and not-raining arguments and declare that, indeed, the chance of the not-raining argument being correct is slim to none, while the raining argument fits the facts quite nicely.

After a few more of these empirical experiments, we would probably not need to argue the raining/not-raining conjecture any further as inductive reasoning would take over from there, replacing the need for a "fair and balanced argument" with "If water is falling from the sky, it's raining, stupid. Accept it."

[Jester_11218]

27. FOXyMoron

http://tvnewslies.org/html/foxymoron.html

[yurbud]

49. your last paragraph is difference between scholarship and public debate

after enough rigorous examination, unsubstantiated ideas are spit out of academia, and thereafter discussed only in a historical context.

In public debate, a stupd idea can buy its way back into the debate, either with dollars like Fox News, or with broad support of the poorly educated and superstitious, like Creationism. Scholars are then caught flat-footed because they are trying to figure out how to advance the ball on issues where there is real debate and don't understand why they have to explain the equivalent of why disease isn't caused by yard gnomes that crawled up your ass when you were asleep.

[ElboRuum]

51. True debate...

...involves reasonably equal (and therefore probably equally defensible) points of view.

This isn't debate because debate requires some measure of scholarship relevant to the points in question, and the positions are far from equanimous.

Debate is a time honored practice of intellectual tradition and it is demeaned by mentioning puerile acts of spin and demagoguery anywhere near it.

[Morgana LaFey]

35. Source? Source? Link, please

it is good. Thanks. Now I need attribution.

[bumblebee1]

9. The problem is.......

Elisabeth Hasselbeck isn't smart enough to be embarrassed about the idiotic comments she makes on the show. I read another post on DU that said to the effect of: "If it weren't for "Survivor," Elisabeth Hasselbeck would just be another wife of an NFL benchwarmer whose brother actually has talent."

[zbdent]

10. Many people have commented on the fact that

when Rosie destroyed the Repuke talking point, E. Hasselblotheproducer had to resort to shouting over Rosie and not answering the question ... diverting it to be about the point she wanted to make ...

[goclark]

18. But she got to go to the WH to meet the Queen

So we know how she got where she is in the first place.

Rove put here on the view, IMO.

My question is why was Robin Roberts invited to meet the Queen.

I think she is wonderful but is she a shill too?

[janetle]

30. I wondered this myself but...

then I saw her a while back interviewing and fawning all over that LeHaye guy or whatever his name is that wrote all those Left Behind books. It kind of scared me. Then lo, and behold, she gets invited to the White House dinner to meet the queen.

[Just-plain-Kathy]

44. She even filled in on Fox and Friends... n/t

[uberllama42]

12. I read on Wikipedia that Hasselbeck supports creationism

on The View. I laughed out loud. I've had enough of these Christians and their dogma.

We don't need to give them equal time becuase they don't have any evidence. In the evolution/creation debate, there is evolution, which is science, and creationism, which is false. Any talk about God does not belong in a scientific discussion. End of story. If she has facts, we should hear her out. If she spews her Christian nonsense, be all means we should ignore her.

[Wetzelbill]

41. you have to be wary of using Christian as a term of derision

It's like the Right using "Feminist" as a term of derision. It demogogues an issue and paints a whole group of people all with the same stigma. Like I'm a Christian, but I'm hardly dogmatic. I believe in evolution too. It's not that someone is a Christian that makes them like that, it's that some people become rabid fundamentalists, tune out dissent, and focus on hate rather than love. They distort what Christianity actually is all about.

[uberllama42]

43. I didn't mean to generalize

I know not all Christians are dogmatic, but I have a problem with any belief in God. I guess my objection to Hasselbeck's ideas and my objection to Christianity in general are not the same; I apologize for implying that the two are one and the same.

I'm sure we can all agree that creationists like Elizabeth Hasselbeck completely lack credibility. There is quite a divide intellectually between her and more liberal Christians. But what cofuses me about liberal theology is the criteria used to determine what in the bible is accurate. If you don't believe the creation account, do you believe any of the history in the Old Testament? How valid are the laws of the of the Old Testament? Are they all binding, all obsolete, or some valid and others obsolete? If some are worth following and some okay to ignore, what makes the distinction? Is there some guideline in the scripture or is it personal choice? How accurate are the Gospels? Are they true historical accounts, miracles and all? If the miracles aren't real, do Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John quote Jesus accurately?

As much as I abhor biblical literalism, I'll grant that it's a lot quicker and less involved than thoughtful theology. But it was the questions above that I asked myself as I made it into adolescence and which led me to abandon my belief in God. Once I realized that the bible was not infallible, I lost more and more ground to reason until I had to concede belief entirely.

[Skinner]

13. I was kind of hoping the article would give at least one specific example of her ignorance.

Seems odd to me that they didn't. I enjoy reading dumb things conservatives say.

[veracity]

46. One of hundreds of examples

Elisabeth repeats over and over that the war in Iraq is justified because we went in to the country to kill terrorists. She has no sense of reality or history. She repeats the Rush/Sean mantra over and over. She claims the 'terrorists' hate Americans and Jews.....because they HATE OUR FREEDOM. Get real.... she has no mind of her own, she simply repeats the talking point propaganda that kept this country in fear for all these years......

[EVDebs]

14. Lysistrata...maybe DC 'houses of negotiable affection' could strike !

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysistrata

Go on strike until the war ends. True 'woman power' !

[Quantess]

17. It would be nice

if the author cited specific quotes or specific blunders made by Hasselbeck. That would make it a better article. But thanks for posting this, veracity.

[krkaufman]

19. Fact check: Hasselbeck on the show long before Rosie

From the commentary...

the ABC daytime talk show called The View decided that they had to “balance” the reality and common sense provided by Joy Behar and Rosie O’Donnell with the idiocy and blind establishment parroting of Elisabeth Hasslebeck

Except Hasselbeck was on the show approximately 2 years before Rosie:

Hasselbeck: In November 2003, Elisabeth Hasselbeck was selected out of hundreds of contenders to permanently fill a vacant co-host chair on ABC's "The View." (replaced Star Jones)

O'Donnell: On September 5, 2006, she officially replaced Meredith Vieira as a co-host and moderator of the show.

It's a trivial point, but the commentary makes it appear as though EH was brought in to counter Rosie's commentary.

As for the rest of the opinion piece, it fails to mention the word "objectivity" a single time. Once you begin focusing on "balance" in journalism instead of "objectivity" (and its loss) the battle is lost. But then journalism has little to do with The View: it's designed as an entertainment show and so the combative "balance" format will be sought. Or have I missed something, and The View promotes itself as journalism?

[whopis01]

20. Check your own facts.

Hasselbeck: In November 2003, Elisabeth Hasselbeck was selected out of hundreds of contenders to permanently fill a vacant co-host chair on ABC's "The View." (replaced Star Jones)


Star Jones did not leave the view until June of 2006. She and Hasselbeck were on the show at the same time from 2003 until Jones left in 2006. Hasselbeck was the replacement for Lisa Ling.

[krkaufman]

21. My apologies for getting that wrong ...

... however irrelevant to the actual point that Hasselbeck was on the show long before Rosie. Right? The TVNewsLies commentary gives a different impression, implying that Hasselbeck was brought to the show to counter Rosie's opinions.

Returning, I am most ashamed that I made that guess having never watched more than 30 minutes of the show in my life. (I wasn't sure it was Jones who was replaced, but couldn't think of any previous host that had left. I sit corrected, as your prodding has brought Ling back to my memory.)

Cheers!

[whopis01]

24. take what ever attitude you like...

If it was irrelevant who she replaced, why did you bring up who she replaced in the first place? And quite honestly, I don't think it is all that irrelevant. Frankly it supports your point to a great extent.

Star Jones' departure from the show was announced after it was known that Rosie O'Donnell would be coming on the show. Jones had made her dislike for O'Donnell well known prior to her departure. If Hasselbeck was a replacement for Jones, then it would fit that she was being brought on as a counterpoint to O'Donnell. (Replacing Jones' opposition to O'Donnell with Hasselbeck's opposition to O'Donnell)

Thus, by pointing out that Hasselbeck was brought on the show not only before O'Donnell's first appearance, but actually years before any announcement of O'Donnell joining the show just helps emphasize the point that you were trying to make.

But if you would rather just take a snarky attitude and call any disagreement with your statements irrelevant, it is certainly your right to do so.

[ElboRuum]

26. Now this has got me extraordinarily puzzled...

I read the post and I read your response about a "snarky attitude". Now I'm not detecting a snarky attitude from what the post said. The point was that A was on the show before B therefore C. And this is true regardless of who replaced whom, so the details of who replaced whom are, in fact, irrelevant to the point that was being made. And there was no disagreement, from what I could tell.

Is this some sort of DU synesthesia?

People can detect the presence of "attitude" through the posting medium (that I can't seem to detect and is questionable as to its existence), but I can somehow detect other things like sarcasm (without the help of :sarcasm:) and most of the DU population needs this icon to tell them when it happened?

[whopis01]

28. puzzles

The reason it is relevant is because Jones had a right-wing point of view on the show. If Hasselbeck replaced her, it would make sense that she was intended to be on the show to promote the same point of view. This would make her a counterpoint to O'Donnell.

This line of discussion all came from someone claiming that the original article had incorrect facts because Hasselbeck was on the show before O'Donnell. The article actually does not claim that. It says that they decided to balance the common sense and reality provided by Joy Behar and Rosie O'Donnell with Hasselbeck's idiocy. It doesn't claim that Hasselbeck was brought on the show to balance O'Donnell, it claims that the ideology espoused by Hasselbeck was brought on to balance the ideology espoused by Behar and O'Donnell. Clearly by referring to both Behar and O'Donnell, the article was not talking merely about someone being brought on the show to counter O'Donnell. It was talking about ABC feeling the need to have multiple, opposing views on the show and them 'accomplishing' that by having idiotic right-wing talking points parrotted against common sense and reality.

[krkaufman]

39. I'm snarky? From the person who said ... "Check your own facts." ???

The fact is, the original commentary *does* give the impression -- to those less familiar with the daily goings-on of the view than yourself -- that Hasselbeck was brought on to counter both Behar and O'Donnell...

... the ABC daytime talk show called The View decided that they had to “balance” the reality and common sense provided by Joy Behar and Rosie O’Donnell with the idiocy and blind establishment parroting of Elisabeth Hasslebeck.

This commentary doesn't say "provided by those with views similar to..." or "provided by the likes of...". It explicity states "provided by Joy Behar and Rosie O'Donnell. The View cannot have intended Hasselbeck to "balance" O'Donnell if she was still 2 years from ever appearing on the show.

The article's statement is factually inaccurate in how it is phrased, and anyone not familiar with the history of The View would be led to believe that Hasselbeck was brought to the show *after* O'Donnell.

I have now spent more time discussing The View than I've ever spent watching it and am sorrowful for the precious life moments that I will never get back.

Cheers!

p.s. And for the second time, I admit my error in pulling "(replaced Star Jones)" out of my ***, as it provided no substantiation for my point; rather, distracting from it for some.

[whopis01]

45. I apologize for that comment.

Honestly, when I first read your reply I thought there was a tone of condescension in there. After re-reading, I must admit that I was wrong about that. I must just have not been in a good mood (not saying that as an excuse, just an explanation).

I differ with you over the meaning and intent of those lines in the original article. However, I agree with you that I am sorry for having wasted so many moments of life discussing a show that I have little to no interest in as well.

[AwakeAtLast]

32. Not much of a replacement, though

I really liked Lisa. :(

[krkaufman]

40. Yeah.

I've seen her in some (Discovery?) network shows, and she certainly seemed to be less brainless/careless than her replacement. Who knows what the story is. (I could imagine Walters could be a pita of a boss, and I'd certainly hate to work at a place that gladly staffs someone like this EH gal.)

[supermodel]

29. i like her on the show!

I personally like when Elisabeth spouts her Republican talking points on the show. A lot of Americans that watch the show arent really political junkies and they get to hear exactly how ignorant and uninformed the Right really is on issues in this country!!! : )

[AwakeAtLast]

34. That's a very positive way to look at it!

:hi:

Welcome to DU!

:hi:

[krkaufman]

42. I'd agree so long as her nonsense is calmly, and methodically countered.

Otherwise, without refutation, her talking points become conventional wisdom (for the less-than-fully-informed masses). It's not like the nightly news is helping to set the public straight. And, heck, DU only has just over 100,000 registered users.

[DU GrovelBot]

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[19jet54]

36. Today was different...

... the View was minus Rosie, with Barbara was back in charge. They totally avoided the subject, but the Guest host, Kathy Griffin kept bringing it up anyway. Everything was especially reserved and timid - and if you go to their ABC website or Rosie.com, Rosie can no longer be emailed. Something is up I think? It says she is taking a break, but I think the Right-Wing-Nuts are violent and it bothers Rosie - Rosie has my respect & support; she is entitled to voice her opinion, just like every other American.

[butterfly77]

38. Where can I find it ...

bush was on in my area and we didn't get the show...

[19jet54]

48. No feeds that I could find

http://abc.go.com/daytime/theview/

[Jamastiene]

47. Her comments section is often set to "comments off."

If she is answering questions, it will be on. Agreed: Rosie has my support too.

[lanlady]

52. the white male establishment

has been afraid of Rosie since the beginning. She and others like her (Jane Fonda et al.) represent the outspoken, anti-gun, anti-war liberal feminist that these bastards love to hate.