AMERICA'S LEADING BLACK WOMEN'S MAGAZINE LIES TO ITS READERS ABOUT O'REILLY TIFF ON THE VIEW

If you care anything about the ladies of ABC's The View or watch Fox News Channel, you've heard about it, and probably seen at least a little of it: The verbal donnybrook on the October 14, 2010 edition in which View co-hostesses Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar walked off the set after cable news superstar pundit Bill O'Reilly -- there to plug his newest bestseller, Pinheads & Patriots: Where You Stand in The Age of Obama -- made the remark that "Muslims killed us on 9/11."

How much you understand about what actually occurred on the program depends largely on where you get your news.  If you watch Fox News, you got the whole story.  If you saw the video on The View's official ABC website, ditto.  If you got from someplace else, maybe you have had some details withheld from you.

For instance, this is what you got if you read about it on the website for Essence magazine, America's leading lifestyle magazine aimed at black women, published by a company owned by Time, Inc.

It's official: "The View" co-hosts Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar are not to be messed with. Goldberg and Behar let their feet do the talking during a heated discussion with FOX News host Bill O'Reilly on Thursday's show.


While promoting his book, "Pinheads And Patriots: Where You Stand in the Age of Obama," O'Reilly declared that "Muslims killed us on 9/11." In her best "Oh-no-you-didn't" voice, Goldberg snapped back, "Oh my God, that is such b******t! When Behar tried to get a word in, O'Reilly shut her down with this gentlemanly phrase: "Listen to me because you'll learn something," both women walked off the set, clearly outraged. O'Reilly later apologized, and Behar and Goldberg returned.


Funny, resident conservative Elizabeth Hasselback (sic) had nothing to say.

This is the video clip embedded on Essence.com accompanying their version of the events.  It was posted by "StopBeck," the YouTube arm of StopBeck.com, an astroturf website dedicated to harassing/threatening sponsors of Glenn Beck's Fox News program. It is 2 minutes and 45 seconds of the conversation, which clocks in at over five minutes.  Watch closely:

Essence asked its readers: "What do you think? Did Whoopi and Joy overreact or was their walk-off justified?" You know I couldn't pass that up. But before you read my response, look at the unedited clip from the official View website at http://TheView.ABC.go.com:

My comment, posted via my Facebook account:

Essence.com's account of the incident is not only inaccurate, it's deliberately and maliciously dishonest.

The synopsis written underneath the YouTube clip you've embedded (an edited version from an anti-Glenn Beck website [connected to] Democrat strategists, not the official http://TheView.ABC.go.com clip of the ENTIRE incident) has no resemblance to what actually happened.  You did NOT make reference to the fact that Barbara Walters - the show's co-creator and Executive Producer - criticized Behar and Goldberg's actions as they were still headed backstage, and you flat out lied about and smeared Elisabeth Hasselbeck, who made her own statement after the walkout.  

Here's why my conclusion is indisputable:

1. You wrote: "When Behar tried to get a word in, O'Reilly shut her down with this gentlemanly phrase: 'Listen to me because you'll learn something,' both women walked off the set, clearly outraged." Absolute nonsense! The truth is this: O'Reilly made his snide "gentlemanly" remark at 0:42 of the clip, before he explained his opinion that there was a wide gulf between Obama and "the folks," and thus BHO's plummeting approval numbers.  It was not until the 2:30 mark -- one minute and forty-eight seconds later -- that Behar stood up and said "I don't want to sit here any more!" and walked away, followed by Whoopi.

2. As the edited YouTube clip above ends, Behar and Goldberg are walking off the set, but Barbara Walters can be clearly be heard saying "I want to say something!" As can be seen on the official http://TheView.ABC.go.com excerpt, as the applause for those supporting Joy & Whoopi subsided, Walters said the following: "I want to say something to all of you!  You have just seen what should NOT happen!  We should be able to have discussions without washing our hands, and screaming, and walking offstage!  I love my colleagues, that should not have happened!"

3. To the remark "Funny, resident conservative Elizabeth (sic) Hasselback (sic) had nothing to say," here's the truth, which can be seen in the http://TheView.ABC.go.com video: After Barbara Walters expressed to O'Reilly "in a calmer voice" that it was "extremists" that carried out the terrorist attacks and that he had "demeaned an entire religion" with his statement "Muslims killed us on 9/11,"  this is what Hasselbeck said: "Do you think the problem though, Bill, is that if we go back in time, early in this administration, the President himself said we weren't allowed to use the word 'terrorist' early on ... he started saying "radical Islamists,' 'radical Muslims' so then there was then a closer association with what happened, and the religion?  I think if he would have just let us say 'terrorists' because there are terrorists across all religions and all faiths, then this wouldn't even be a problem!" She got a fair amount of applause for saying that, although it is factually inaccurate. My comment is long enough without explaining why, so I won't go into it.

The Huffington Post and Gawker -- among other popular websites run by left-leaning people -- regularly delete comments without explicit or profane content for the "crime" of disagreeing with the editors' agenda. Hopefully, Essence.com will let my comment stand, showing that it has the courage to allow dissent, and also admit when it is dead wrong.

 As of this moment, this comment is still on the Essence.com page, to its credit.

It occurred to me that Elisabeth Hasselbeck was prejudged the same way that Shirley Sherrod was -- based on an edited videotape that doesn't tell the entire story of what was said. More on that in an upcoming post.  Stay tuned.