Elisabeth Hasselbeck: 'I'm not leaving 'The View' '

Elisabeth Hasselbeck this morning addressed rumors that she was leaving "The View" for Fox News.

"I am not going anywhere," she told her co-hosts when asked directly if she was staying.

Rumors to the contrary began circulating last month as the morning show's "Hot Topics" segment brought about increasingly heated arguments between the right-leaning Hasselbeck and the other women over this year's presidential election. (Two weeks ago, however, both Hasselbeck's agent Babette Perry and ABC refuted talk of her leaving.)

Hasselbeck herself addressed the gossip in the first 15 minutes of Friday's show -- and slammed Fox News' Ann Coulter at the same time.

During a discussion about a study saying blonds in fact do have more fun, Joy Behar interjected the idea that all Republicans are blonds and predicted that if Sen. John McCain won the election, his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, would also go blond.

"If they win, she'll be blond, believe me. And if she loses, she'll be blond and have a job on Fox TV because they're all blond over there ... Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, Elisabeth Hasselbeck."

At which point Hasselbeck cut in: "Whoa, whoa, whoa, please don't put me in the same sentence as Ann Coulter, thank you very much."

Whoopi Goldberg then asked Hasselbeck directly to clear things up: "Are you going anywhere?"

"I'm not going anywhere -- except to get my highlights fixed. I mean look, I love Fox, I'm staying here," she said while being hugged by co-host Sherri Shepherd. "I am not leaving 'The View.' I certainly love my ladies here. I am not going anywhere."

As if to prove the point that the co-hosts can spar and still get along, Behar said she had gone to see the soon-to-be-released Oliver Stone film, "W.," calling it "an indictment against George W. Bush."

"It's fabulous," Behar said. "And it's incredible how close George Bush and Sarah Palin are. Just sayin'.'"

"Oh, God. Can we please talk about this before I puke?" Hasselbeck started.

Goldberg instead threw to commercial.

-- Denise Martin

(Photo courtesy ABC)

'The View': Does Elisabeth Hasselbeck need a lifeline?

Just two days after the Chicago Sun-Times reported that Elisabeth Hasselbeck “was really upset” with her liberal co-hosts, who’ve deliberately been on the political attack during this election year, Hasselbeck this morning received another verbal beat down from her co-hosts after she tried to defend Gov. Sarah Palin.

(During Tuesday's episode of "The View," Hasselbeck sat through Bill Maher's take on the Alaska governor: "I’ve seen her twice try to speak. The sentence to nowhere is what comes out of her mouth," Maher said. "If Joe Biden had made some of the comments she made to Katie Couric, we would think he had brain damage.")

Today's battle started when co-host Joy Behar called Palin out for her crack about opponent Sen. Joe Biden's age. "I’d been hearing about his Senate speeches since I was in like second grade," Palin said during a campaign stop. Palin later said in an interview with Couric that the comment was a joke.

"To be so disingenuous as to say you didn’t want to get a laugh and that you didn’t mean it ... it’s just baloney," Behar said.

Hasselbeck initially tried to keep her cool. "I love how shook up in your boots you get over Sarah Palin," she told Behar. Barbara Walters said she didn't like reading about all the study and prep-work Palin is having to do as a vice presidential candidate, in place of having actual experience, equating it to cramming for a test in school.

"It bothers me that one has to be prepped so much for a debate and crammed full of material. I’m not sure -- and I’m talking about everybody -- that prepping so that you just pass a debate and don’t make a huge mistake is necessarily what makes a great president," Walters said.

"To say that, to reduce [Palin] to that level of mind, I think is unfair," Hasselbeck replied.

But it was only when Walters asked Hasselbeck to defend Palin and point to her presidential qualifications in specific terms that Hasselbeck turned testy:

Walters: Every day, let me say this, I’m so glad you’re on the program. We love you on the program.
Hasselbeck: Thanks, Barbara.
Walters: You are the counterpoint. But every single day, you never ever say, maybe there’s another point. So this is your chance. ...Tell us now, why you think Sarah Palin would make a very good president.
Hasselbeck: Well, since I’ve been studying for this pop quiz forever, tell me why Barack Obama is qualified to be president. ... Give me three tangible things he has done to prove that he can be president of the United States.
Walters: We’re not talking about Obama. We’re talking about Sarah Palin.
Hasselbeck: She has been running the state of Alaska.
Walters: OK.
Hasselbeck: She is an expert in terms of energy. She has been in charge of a National Guard in time of war.
(Walters makes a "so-so" hand gesture.)
Hasselbeck: She has been. She’s actually governed.

Before things got too heated, they cut to commercial and the issue was dropped. Hasselbeck even got a hug from Walters after the break.

But perhaps the damage is already done? Hasselbeck is rumored to be thisclose to taking her political perspective elsewhere -- her own show on FoxNews, perhaps?

-- Denise Martin and Maria Elena Fernandez

'The View': Bill Clinton says Hillary Clinton would have accepted vice presidential nomination

Sen. Hillary Clinton would have accepted the offer to be Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama’s running mate had she been asked, husband and former President Bill Clinton told the hosts of “The View” on Monday.

But –- no surprises here -- she didn’t actually want the job. “Not really, no,” Clinton said. “She said if [Obama] asked, she would have said, ‘I’ll do it because it's my duty.’ But look, she loves being a senator for New York.”

When asked about controversial Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Clinton didn’t weigh in either way, saying only that he didn’t begrudge her her fans.

“You can’t tell someone else that the ground that they make their voting decisions on is irrational. Even if it’s against their economic interests. None of us define our lives primarily or exclusively in economic terms,” he said.

“We can’t tell anybody that they don’t know what they’re doing because they voted for X candidate instead of Y.”

Clinton didn’t make the full-court press for Obama on the show either, saying, “I genuinely like both [candidates]. I genuinely admire both of them.” He added, “We make a terrible mistake believing we have to find something wrong with the people we can’t vote for.”

However, Clinton did say that he expects Obama to step into the Oval Office come January, boiling it down to a matter of voting logistics:

“Two-thirds of the American people are having trouble paying their bills. These are difficult times that make them more likely to change,” he said. “No. 2, America is growing more diverse. . . . Demographically, the country is moving toward Democratic voters in general. And No. 3, registration is up for Democrats and flat for Republicans in 20 of the most important states.”

-- Denise Martin

'The View': Michelle Obama on Hillary Clinton, sexism and the vice presidency

Michelle Obama made her debut appearance as a guest co-host on ABC's "The View" this morning, as her husband, presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, works to shore up his appeal to female voters.

Although Michelle Obama may have sought a new introduction to the public -- having been dogged especially by the comment she made four months ago that "for the first time in my adult lifetime, I'm really proud of my country" -- she played up traditional first lady attributes such as graciousness, comportment, good grooming and style.

Among Michelle Obama's most magnanimous moments were her public thanks to other women in the political spotlight. She thanked First Lady Laura Bush for her kind words after her "proud" comments were misconstrued.

Asked by co-host Joy Behar if Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign was overcome by sexism, Michelle Obama said yes, and that Clinton created "18 million cracks on a ceiling, and we need to keep pushing it and pushing it." In Obama's view, Hillary Clinton has taken those "painful hits" so that "my girls, when they come along, they won't have to feel it as badly."

Barbara Walters tried to corner Michelle Obama on the "Hillary Clinton as Barack Obama's running mate" question, but Obama deftly dodged it, saying she was glad she would have nothing to do with it.

Here is an excerpt from the episode:

-- Sheigh Crabtree

Photo: Michelle Obama, wife of presumptive 2008 Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama (D-Illinois) co-hosted "The View," on June 18. Courtesy: ABC/Steve Fenn