THE VIEW VIDEO: Barbara Walters Attacks Sarah Palin To Deflect Attention From Obama's "Special Olympics" Gaffe

I should have had this here on my blog over a month ago, but I had not yet converted the layout from the old Blogger template to the new(er) edition. I've already had stuff vanish off my Blogger setup (my old counter is gone as is my "Payola Free" button in response to Armstrong Williams) and was reluctant to mess with it any further.  Turns out I had nothing to fear once I bit the bullet, and now I got new features like my updated Tweets.

 

The Blogger upgrade also made it easier to upload and embed video.  Here's my second YouTube video.

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On the March 23, 2009 edition of ABC's The View, Barbara Walters (filling in for the sick Whoopi Goldberg) introduced the topic of President Obama's omnipresence on TV lately.

Elisabeth Hasselbeck said she watched Obama being interviewed on 60 Minutes the previous evening and that it was "good," but she said he shouldn't have compared his poor bowling skills to those of Special Olympians on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

 

In response, apropos of nothing, Barbara Walters glanced down at her notes and dutifully criticized Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, a mother of an 11-month-old Down's Syndrome baby, for her statement criticizing Obama. To draw moral equivalency with a mother of a Down's child, Walters spoke of the discrimination her late "developmentally disabled" sister had to endure, claiming to have sufficient sensitivity to say that Governor Palin should be faulted for not letting the gaffe go upon his apology.

Hasselbeck responded that regardless of the apology, the statement itself was offensive enough to be hurtful. To illustrate her point, she spilled her cup of water on the table at which the cast sits, and the water quickly streamed across to Walters and Joy Behar. She apologized for spilling the water on the other panelists (it appears she didn't intend to get them wet), but her point was made well to anyone who was listening: If she had unintentionally spilled the water, the water was still spilled. Even if she apologized immediately afterward, THE WATER WAS STILL SPILLED.

If the other ladies "got it," it wasn't immediately evident. In response, all three shouted that Obama had apologized. Sherri Shepherd asked, "Where's the forgiveness?" Behar quoted the Lord's Prayer's reference to forgiveness of others. Hasselbeck said, "I forgive him, I'm just saying, why are we on Sarah Palin for responding to his comment?"

Illustrating her total cluelessness to the logic of Hasselbeck's three-dimensional analogy, Barbara Walters, who got wet from the water dripping over the edge of the table, said "I forgive Sarah Palin," but then (half-jokingly) said to Elisabeth as she announced a commercial break to clean up, "I am not sure I forgive YOU because I'm getting soaking wet!"

Really, Barbara? So Elisabeth did some damage and immediately apologized to you, but you didn't immediately forgive her. 

Now you know how Sarah Palin felt.

P.S. - As Joy Behar came to Obama's defense, she made reference to Republican pundit Tony Blankley's summation that taking into account Obama's known record, the gaffe was not indicative of any untoward feelings he has about "the retarded, or however you want to call them now" (Behar's words, not Blankley's). In doing so, she said that Obama had not "cut funding for Special Olympics." I cannot read Joy's mind (and wouldn't want to if I could), but just in case she was making a wink-and-nod reference to false stories spread by Keith Olbermann, ThinkProgress.com and other leftist outlets that Governor Palin had cut funding for Special Olympics in Alaska, I inserted a link to evidence disproving that charge.