THE DISHMASTER

What a bummer. I just can’t imagine that Babs will be happy sipping margaritas by the beach, but who knows. Watch her retrospective on The View, as she announced her official retirement. I’m sure gonna miss her.

This news hit me hard. Barbara Walters is my favorite interviewer in history, and getting an extra dose of her on The View has made for a consistent daily treat. In fact, when she’s not there, I quickly change the channel. I should have predicted the announcement, even though I was holding out hope that she’d pull a Mike Wallace and work for infinity. Her interview-style is um-matched asking short, poignant questions sans judgment, and getting more information than anyone else while doing it. She’s the queen. But this time around, there will be no one else to take her throne. Watch some of her most memorable interviews below.

It is an interviewer’s job to get the information, not to re-try a case. And Chris Cuomo learned that lesson the hard way with his recent Amanda Knox interview on CNN. He acted as a cross-examiner, excitingly pushing the prosecution’s theories about Knox’s “deviant sexual activities” with an undertone of judgment. Not even Barbara Walters passed judgment during her interviews with some of the worst tyrants in history. Cuomo should take a note from her book. He got in the way of the interview, and as a result, the subsequent press is more about him than Knox. I’ve been a Cuomo fan for some time, so I’ll give him a pass — but let’s hope he learned a lesson.

Not a day goes by where I don’t count my blessings for getting a daily dose of Barbara Walters on ‘The View.’ Yesterday was particularly special, because Walters took a moment to make a hilarious point about the Queen’s inability to smile. “There were these adorable children [at the Olympics] who were singing, ‘God Save the Queen,’” she said. “Would it have killed her [to smile]?” she said. Watch below.

I’d rather not report on this story because I’m so in love with Barbara Walters, and anything that infringes on that love is heart-breaking. But since I’m a real “online journalist,” I will roll up my sleeves and do the dirty work. In short, Walters got herself in hot water for befriending the press aide of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, presumably to land an interview. Assad fired his aide shortly after the Walters interview, allegedly because he was unhappy with her hard-ball questions about his acts of violence. In a series of email exchanges that have now been exposed, Walters tried to land her a job at a news station and she also used her connections to pull some weight with the Columbia admissions board to ensure her entrance. Neither attempt worked, but it doesn’t look good for Walters, who has subsequently apologized for the “conflict of interest.” Unfortunately or fortunately in today’s world of journalism, you can’t cajole/bribe your way into an interview without getting caught. And that’s exactly what happened. Should I give her the benefit of the doubt and assume the aide was exceptionally qualified?

There are no words to describe the clip below, other than to say that my love for Barbara Walters has no boundaries. Watch and enjoy.

There isn’t much to say about the Samantha Brick story other than she is a very annoying woman who wrote a very annoying article for The Daily Mail about all the attention she gets for being beautiful. Backlash ensued, and then the ladies of The View chimed in. Now comes the good part. After telling the producer to put Brick’s picture back up on the monitor, Walters cut Brick with just one simple sentence, saying, “She’s not that beautiful.” And my other favorite part of this story came from a random commenter on another blog who said, “This is just proof that an American 10 is a British 5.” Click here to watch Walters in action.

If you own your truth, no one can touch you. And Star Jones still hasn’t owned her truth. She returned to The View to squash the bad blood, yet she objected to Barbara Walters’ rehashing of her departure. I’m not sure how Star Jones thought she’d get away with dodging Queen Walters, but she certainly tried. “Are you seriously going to go there?” She asked. “Does anyone care?” Walters wouldn’t relent. “You may not care,” she said. “But you’re used to hot topics.” Jones gave a bunch of canned answers that fooled me into thinking she was running for office. Walters then asked Jones about her decision to hide her gastric bypass surgery. Jones still dodged the answer.

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again. If you can’t discuss a topic on a topic-driven show without your head exploding, then it’s time for you to get another job. To put it simply, Elisabeth Hasselbeck is unprofessional. Perhaps she should look across the table to Barbara Walters who managed to interview some of the most heinous individuals in history without so much as blinking strangely. Grow up, Hasselbeck.

Today is a new day, and it’s therefore time to mention again how much I love Barbara Walters. During her “Ten Most Fascinating People” special, Walters was fearless, telling the Kardashians they have no talent. She even played clips of Kim Kardashian’s sex tape. I have to hand it to the Kardashians, though. Not everyone can extend their fifteen minutes into hundreds of millions of dollars. Watch below.