A view of The View

Elizabeth Hasslebeck of The View is a Republican Talking Points Action Figure (Batteries not included). She claims to have been an early supporter of Obama, but the other day said she was interested in him early on- in other words, who's this guy running and what reason can I have not to support him. Now she claims that due to the words of Rev Wright, she cannot support Obama.

After McCain's last visit to the show, the ladies got into a heated discussion about Joy's comment that McCain was too much like Bush. Elizabeth got hot and defended him, but could no more than parrot McCain's comments that he and Bush have many differences. The idea came up that McCain was very much like Bush because he associated himself with Bush. Elizabeth then proceeded to say that if that's the case, then Obama is very much like Rev Wright because he associated himself with Jeremiah Wright. Elizabeth refused to admit there might be a difference in the two associations.

When the subject of Cindy McCain's plagiarism of recipes from the Food Network came up, Elizabeth donned her cape and flew to poor Cindy's rescue. Elizabeth reminded everyone that Obama "plagiarized " parts of his stump speech from Duval Patrick, and since it was just words, it was no big deal that Cindy McCain was stealing recipes and calling them her own. Again, no admission of differences.

Lastly, Joy brought up Cindy McCain's addiction and theft of medications from her charity. Elizabeth immediately defended Cindy by saying that she had done so much good in her life that they should overlook that incident. She even went so far as to mention the McCains' adoption of a little girl from Indonesia. Yep, that same little girl who was the subject of a Karl Rove whispering campaign during the 2000 Republican Primary.

The problem I have is Elizabeth has consistently overlooked facts that would support her overlooking the incidents of Democrats, while trying to protect Republicans. She certainly forgot that both Obama and Patrick share ideas and themes. Patrick and Obama also don't mind sharing lines from speeches, so this is not what Joe Biden did in 1988 by any means. These are friends and yes Obama should have on every occasion given Patrick credit for his words. Now, Obama borrowing stump lines from a close colleague surely cannot be viewed in the same light as someone taking recipes from the Food Network and calling them their own. If it was a matter of calling them "Recipes our family enjoys" then that would not be as bad without citing the source of the recipes.

Elizabeth is quick to try to bludgeon Obama with Jeremiah Wright's words. She, like the majority of the media, is quick to reduce 36 years of Pastoring into 20 seconds of negative sound. Rev Wright has probably said some other things that could be taken the wrong way, but if the media was really interested in finding out, they would get recordings of Wright's sermons and listen. Elizabeth is willing to overlook the good he has done with and through TUCC and toss him under the bus because it suits the Republican cause.