She's the moderator, and she can't get a word in edgewise?

WaPo weeps for Whoopi, who kept getting "shouted down" by Barbara Walters, Joy Behar, and Elisabeth Hasselbeck on "The View." Ridiculous. It's obvious that the reviewer, Lisa de Moraes, just doesn't like the style of the show, which involves a lot of fast chatter and talking over. If Whoopi Goldberg doesn't want to put in the effort to keep up with the banter, why did she get the big job? Quit bitching the regulars and ask why Goldberg is coasting!

[Bad link fixed.]

"I was severely depressed and felt as if I was in a cage."

Said Paris Hilton, talking about jail and claiming that it's time for her to stop playing dumb. She might start by realizing that jail is a cage. And that everyone feels terrible about going there.

But I look forward to the new Paris Hilton, the one who says, "Now, I would like to make a difference. ... God has given me this new chance." I just hope this making a difference business doesn't involve adopting children or letting us know what's wrong with the government or... Actually, I might prefer the old Paris Hilton -- minus the drunk driving.

UPDATE: Okay, I allowed myself to be suckered into TiVo'ing "The View." Barbara Walters reports that Hilton said she's 26 and too old to act dumb anymore, that's it been "an act," and that she'd like to offer something better to the "young girls who've looked up to" her. (Did anyone actually look up to her?) "I have become much more spiritual." God has helped her. Elisabeth Hasselbeck approves: "God is there!"

Ah, the cause is not children or political: It's breast cancer or multiple sclerosis. Good choice. Hilton wants to build "a Paris Hilton Playhouse" for sick children. (Sorry, that sounds so wrong.)

She's got a spiritual advisor who apparently told her that "her spirit or soul did not like the way I was being seen and that is why I was sent to jail." (Sounds similar to a psychologist opining that she felt guilty and was seeking punishment.) "God has released me." Joy Behar: "But the judge hasn't."

She's reading books and newspapers. What book? Guess? Of course: "The Secret."

When Barbara Walters met Louie C.K.

I loved this AV Club interview with Louis C.K., which has a lot about why his HBO comedy "Lucky Louie" failed. The part about Barbara Walters is rich:

AVC: How did The View initially approach you to come discuss Lucky Louie? Did they say "Barbara Walters has seen your show, she thinks you're the antichrist, you're vulgar, and we'd like to have you on so you can defend yourself"?

LCK: Oh no. Wouldn't that have been nice, if that's what they did? I actually reached out to them, because I had been on the show before. Joy Behar used to do a thing called "Comedy Corner," where you'd sit with her and she would set you up and you'd do your jokes. They asked me to do that a bunch of years ago and I said no, because The View is not my crowd. But the producer of the show called me at home and said, "What are you doing Tuesday that you can't take a town-car and just go be on a ladies' TV show?" So I said sure, and I did it, and I had a great time. The thing about the audience there is, they're very enthusiastic, positive people. And I like ladies. I like all ladies of all different ages. Ladies 40-plus, they're a great target for Lucky Louie. They come up to me in droves on the streets. That's a big demographic of who comes up to me to say they love my show, these older ladies.

So I said, "Let's get on The View," and we called them, and they said sure. The producer told me, "Oh we got the tapes, and the shows are great. It's a great show, it's going to be so much fun, we're excited about it." And then I get there, and I meet Fonzie. He loves the show, and everybody keeps coming—people with headsets and in suits and clipboards keep coming by my dressing room to say that they just love the show. And then the segment producer comes in my dressing room and says, "Okay. I have to talk to you. It turns out Barbara and the ladies didn't really watch it 'til last night, and they were horrified, and Barbara's going to say something about it in her 'Hot Topics' moment." Then she turns on the f*cking monitor and I'm watching her, live, saying that it's a terrible show. So it was a bit of a sandbagging. I didn't expect it.

AVC: It wasn't just her saying, "I watched your show, it's not really my cup of tea," it was her saying it's vulgar, it's disgusting what your character does with his wife, the whole idea was sexist and racist…

LCK: Yeah, that made me really mad. She said that, and they told me this before, too, that her objection to the show was that we're having sex and my wife looks bored. This is what's f*cking wrong with c*nts like her, is that she thinks women should be depicted, you know, the way my wife on the show makes fun of. Like, with her hand on her head, "Oh, it should be romantic." And the idea of letting a woman—and, by the way, it's her story, it's the wife's story—letting her show what it's like to be bored in bed with your husband and trying to find something in bed without cheating on him, like f*cking Desperate Housewives and all these whorish shows that people like Barbara love… They love shows about cheating, they love soap operas, and on the segment before me, they're telling women how to eat malnourishing food while keeping their figure. I mean, it's just all so obscene to me. They do nothing for women, and then she goes and calls [my show] sexist. And yeah, we do an episode where we confront race, and we talk about the awkwardness of race relations, and she calls it racist. So inside, I was shaking. I was like, "I f*cking hate her right now."

(Asterisks added.)

They love my show, these older ladies. Yeah, Louie, I loved your show. Though I kind of hated it at first because it replaced "The Comeback," which was another great HBO comedy that not enough people got, and HBO didn't keep around long enough to let more people figure it out or just to support edgier sitcoms that some people love.

By the way, it's her story, it's the wife's story... Yes, isn't it interesting that people don't want to see the gritty reality of a married woman struggling with an inadequate sex life and not demanding more romance?

It's just all so obscene to me.... He's talking about "The View"!

ADDED: Video of the "View" appearance: Part 1 and Part 2.

Alec Baldwin has no idea how to get out of a jam.

Alessandra Stanley watched Alec Baldwin on "The View." He was trying to patch things up after that terrible publicity over his enraged phone message to his 11-year-old daughter:

Alec Baldwin said on “The View” yesterday that he wanted to quit that NBC sitcom to write a book about “parental alienation.”...

Mr. Baldwin told Barbara Walters and Rosie O’Donnell that he wanted to devote his life to exposing the injustices perpetrated on divorced dads, and that he hoped to publish a book this fall on divorce litigation. Mr. Baldwin’s long-winded, self-obsessed soliloquy on his usurped rights as a father and the fiendish acts of his ex-wife, Kim Basinger, was so impassioned that Ms. Walters had to remind him that his first concern should be his relationship with Ireland. (When he mentioned his daughter, it was to make a point about her mother’s perfidy.)

He was looking to persuade but was mostly painful to watch — a little like Captain Queeg melting down on the witness stand in “The Caine Mutiny.”

Oh, how painful. I wonder what ridiculous father's rights characters have taken him in, are writing the book for him, and think he'll be a good figurehead for their cause. And what's more "alienating" to the child than having a father blustering about how bad her mother is? The best way for Alec Baldwin to make us -- and, I'm guessing, the child -- love him is to do the thing he does so well: act. Put that wild passion into playing characters. Or is that too sad? No one loves him for the man he actually is. The book's not going to help though.

"I'm worth billions of dollars, and I have to listen to this fat slob?"

Donald Trump expresses himself... about Rosie O'Donnell.

IN THE COMMENTS: Johnny Nucleo says:

This smackdown is the funniest thing since Borat, which I have not seen, but I understand it is very funny.

Rosie's shots are more polished than Donald's, but I think his are funnier because they are more like a kid's insults. It's stream of consciousness, everything but the kitchen sink stuff: "You're fat and ugly, and I'm going to steal your girlfriend, which will be easy, and Barbara Walters hates you, and I'm going to sue, and you're fat, and ugly too, and you are a loser, and nobody likes you, fatso." I was laughing all day at work and everyone thought I was high, which I was, but that was not why I was laughing. Watch the videos - hell, just read the transcripts - of Trump going off and try not to laugh.

Donald Trump is a treasure. I mean that. He is one of the most unintentionally funny human beings ever to walk the Earth.

Lactivism.

Nursing mothers protest Barbara Walters. Walters dared to say she felt uncomfortable sitting next to a nursing mother on an airplane.

Lactivism has been rather successful:

[S]ix states have recently passed laws giving a woman the right to breast-feed wherever she "is otherwise authorized to be."

Got a problem with that? I don't.

I know what it's like to need to breastfeed and be in a situation where there's nowhere private to go. One time, back in the early 80s, I breastfed my baby at the Baseball Hall of Fame. I remember feeling I was doing something really wrong and that I was about to be discovered at any point and treated harshly. So I like these laws. What are you supposed to do on a plane? You can't occupy the bathroom that long, and anyway, that would be a disgusting environment for a baby.

Breastfeeding mothers, like anyone else who has a right to be in a public place, should attend to their and their babies' physical needs discreetly and try not to trouble people. That means minimizing how much you expose yourself and not going out of your way to sit right next to a stranger. It's not shameful to be breastfeeding, but that doesn't mean it's in good taste to flaunt it.

As a rough comparison, imagine if you needed to blow your nose and you were in the middle of a store or a restaurant. We'd think it was outrageous if the owner kicked you out for doing it and rude if the other customers gave you dirty looks -- assuming you did it discreetly. But it would be rude of you and you'd deserve those dirty looks if you blew your nose loudly and sloppily right next to someone.

UPDATE: If anyone had ever told me that one day they'll be talking on TV about about my breasts and the Baseball Hall of Fame, I would have been amazed. Amazed and perplexed. (Does he make it sound like I was looking for a place to breastfeed, so I went to the Baseball Hall of Fame? I was that desperate.)