The feminist spirit was alive and well on Friday’s edition of "The View." The women were shocked by the concept of women with concealed weapons, and positively giddy over Ted Turner’s recent remarks that men should be banned from public office for a hundred years:
Barbara Walters: "We particularly like this quote, because we have this remarkable woman on with us today...Ted Turner, when he was talking about the United Nations, said, quote, ‘Men should be barred from public office for a hundred years in every part of the world. It would be a much kinder, gentler, more intelligently-run world. Men have had millions of years and we’ve screwed it up hopelessly. Let's give it to the women.’"
Rosie O’Donnell: "Yeah! I say bravo! Go, Ted."
The "remarkable" woman Walters was hyping was socialist Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, the first female in that country to be elected to that office. During their "Hot Topics" segment, the co-hosts marveled at how an agnostic woman could win the presidency in a "macho, Latin American country" while the United States had yet to elect a female president:
Walters: "But that’s why it’s so interesting, in a macho Latin American country like Chile, which has never had a woman president, has a woman who is single, has a woman who is a Catholic country where she professes not to necessarily to believe in God, and they can elect a woman...and we are so–"
Joy Behar: "How did that happen?"
Forty-five minutes into the program, Walters gave Bachlet this glowing introduction:
Walters: "She is the first female president of Chile. She was elected last January. She is a woman who survived being imprisoned by the dictator of her country. She was tortured. She was exiled. She’s a mother of three. She’s a pediatrician. She’s an agnostic in a predominately Catholic country. She’s number seventeen on Forbes magazine’s list of the world’s most powerful women. Please welcome, we’re delighted to have, Madam President, Dr. Michelle Bachelet...In our country, where we have sort of a little prejudice possibly about women politicians, as we said, you’re an agnostic. You have a child which you have said was born out of wedlock...How did you ever get elected?"
Bachelet responded by saying the Chilean people elected her because they believe women can do the same things as men, but also give that "woman touch." When Walters asked her what that "woman touch" is, Bachelet argued that, unlike men, apparently:
Bachelet: "When women get involved, a big amount of women, get involved with politics it’s politics that change. Because we are interested in doing our business in the interest of everybody, not in our own interest."
Later in the interview, O’Donnell asked Bachelet, a victim of torture under a previous Chilean regime, about her views on the Geneva Convention:
O’Donnell: "Well, knowing what you survived and lived through, what do you think about the President’s contention that he wants to reinterpret the Geneva Convention?"
Bachelet: "...I say that I really think that terrorism is something we have to fight against, but we have to do it with respect and democracy, because if you, if you try to fight something with illegal ways you are validating them–"
O’Donnell: "Yes."
Bachelet: "–because you are destroying democracy with that. So you have to find a very difficult balance. But I think one should always respect the international and national laws and democracy because that’s the only way to guarantee that there, there won't be much support for the terrorist groups."
O’Donnell: "Yes, and torture, innately, is, is wrong for humankind, would you say?"
Bachelet: "Oh, yes, indeed. For people like us that has received torture, really, we cannot explain by any reason, there’s nothing, nothing that can justify the violation of human rights or torture..."
O’Donnell: "I agree."
Neither O’Donnell nor Bachelet differentiated between the brutal tactics conducted by the Chilean government against its opponents in the 1970s and the supposed "torture" of terror suspects by the United States.
The only person to mention Bachelet’s socialist views was Bachelet herself:
Behar: "What do, what do you want to do with your term? What’s your big idea?"
Bachelet: "...We have a nation who has important political stability and social cohesion. And what we’re working now is, in order that Chile will continue being an important country in, in the sense of being a serious country, responsible, stable country, but also with economical growth, but the most important for me also is that we can grow, but with equality. We can grow, but people who are poor can have the same opportunities of, of everybody, everybody else."
Behar: "So everybody has the same, and--basically the world should follow that idea."
Another interesting moment from today’s show came early on in the program while the women discussed the differences between men and women:
Behar: "...Women are more, a little bit more snotty, though, and nasty to each other. But they talk it through, they don't hit and they don’t drop bombs and they don't shoot. They don't play with guns. So that–"
O’Donnell: "Yeah."
Hasselbeck: "That’s so stereotypical...I know plenty of women who pack a gun."
O’Donnell sounded shocked by Hasselbeck’s statement and asked in amazement:
O'Donnell: "Seriously?"
Hasselbeck: "Yeah."
O'Donnell: "You know women who carry a gun?"
Hasselbeck: "Sure."
O’Donnell: "Who are not police officers?"
Hasselbeck: "Who were not in uniform."
O’Donnell: "That they just carry it in case they get attacked? Like friends?"
Minutes later, Walters equated Hasselbeck’s knowledge of women with guns to the ineptness of her fellow View hosts:
Walters: "...I would like to say something about my colleagues."
Behar: "What?"
Walters: "One of them says, I know women who carry guns. I mean, that’s a great message. This one [pointing to Behar] doesn’t even know how to hold up a prop. This one [pointing to O’Donnell] doesn’t know how to swallow a cold drink. I mean, what is with you people?"
To female viewers of The View, one could be left with the impression that while it is "wonderful" to be an agnostic, socialist leader, it is not okay to exercise your Second Amendment right and "play with guns."
