Free Republic

Barbara Walters: Syrian Dictator 'Charming,' 'Intelligent' By Justin McCarthy | July 7, 2008 - 15:31 Surprise! Barbara Walters visits an anti-American dictator and returns with very nice remarks about him. Returning from the week long break on "The View" July 7, Barbara Walters described how she spent America’s birthday, and the celebration of a document denouncing tyranny, with an anti-American tyrant.While most Americans celebrated Independence Day with fireworks and barbeques, Barbara Walters spent the occasion dining with Syrian leader Bashir al-Assad, whom Walters described as "intelligent" and "charming" who wants "very much to have good relations with us." Perhaps...

Star Jones is speaking out against Barbara Walters for including her in her new memoir, Audition. In the book, Walters claims Jones forced her to lie about her gastric bypass surgery on The View. Walters also reveals that she had an affair with then-married Senator Edward Brooke during the 1970s. Usmagazine.com caught up with Jones (who recently split from husband Al Reynolds) as she left a tennis workout in NYC Wednesday. “It is a sad day when an icon like Barbara Walters, in the sunset of her life, is reduced to publicly branding herself as an adulterer, humiliating an innocent...

Barbara Walters used an appearance on "Oprah" today to reveal her three-decades-ago affair with a married member of the U.S. Senate: Ed Brooke, the liberal Republican who represented Massachusetts from 1967 to 1979 and the first African-American ever elected to the chamber.

NEW YORK (AP) - entertainmentminute After three decades of keeping mum, Barbara Walters is disclosing a past affair with married U.S. Senator Edward Brooke, whom she remembers as "exciting" and "brilliant." Appearing on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" scheduled to air Tuesday, Walters shares details of her relationship with Brooke that lasted several years in the 1970s, according to a transcript of the show provided to The Associated Press. A moderate Republican from Massachusetts who took office in 1967, Brooke was the first African-American to be popularly elected to the Senate. Both he and Walters knew that public knowledge of their...

NEW YORK (AP) -- After three decades of keeping mum, Barbara Walters is disclosing a past affair with married U.S. Senator Edward Brooke, whom she remembers as "exciting" and "brilliant." Appearing on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" scheduled to air Tuesday, Walters shares details of her relationship with Brooke that lasted several years in the 1970s, according to a transcript of the show provided to The Associated Press. A moderate Republican from Massachusetts who took office in 1967, Brooke was the first African-American to be popularly elected to the Senate. Both he and Walters knew that public knowledge of their affair...

NEW YORK (AP) -- After three decades of keeping mum, Barbara Walters is disclosing a past affair with married U.S. Senator Edward Brooke, whom she remembers as "exciting" and "brilliant." Appearing on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" scheduled to air Tuesday, Walters shares details of her relationship with Brooke that lasted several years in the 1970s, according to a transcript of the show provided to The Associated Press. A moderate Republican from Massachusetts who took office in 1967, Brooke was the first African-American to be popularly elected to the Senate. Both he and Walters knew that public knowledge of their affair...

We continue on reviewing Fox's "The Next Great American Band". It's down to four and we've got an entire original song by one of the contenders that, to quote one of the judges, is better than anything heard currently on the radio. Plus a remix of the final four's rendition of Queen. Also, the lowdown on Barbara Walters' Most Fascinating People of 2007. Plus, as expected by the two to three people a day who read my Blog, a list of mine own most fascinating people of this past year. Guest writer Michelle intrigues us with what writers must do...

Barbara Walters, famed for celebrity television interviews that often draw on-screen tears, says she's tired of Britney, Paris and the tabloid trend she helped create. Walters, a pioneering journalist who became the first female U.S. network news anchor 30 years ago, has interviewed every U.S. president since Richard Nixon and other heads of state. More recently, she has been credited and criticized for soft interviews that elevated celebrity news above all else. Now, before her annual show, "The 10 Most Fascinating People," airing on ABC on Thursday, the 78-year-old television journalist said she wants to focus on other topics. "I...

Barbara Walters wanted "The View" audience to understand that she normally disagrees with Bill O'Reilly. But when it came to his views on child-rearing, Walters had to admit that she largely agreed with the Factor host. And that depressed her. O'Reilly, the father of two young children, appeared on today's View to promote his new book on child-rearing and related issues, Kids Are Americans Too. View video here.

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orrgV_piHPA Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZ4PTiL1RDs

In jail serving out the remainder of her sentence for violating parole on reckless driving charges, Paris Hilton phoned ABC News' Barbara Walters Sunday to discuss her state of mind, her experience in prison and how she feels she has changed. Barbara Walters will discuss more of her conversation with Paris Hilton on "The View" at 11 a.m. ET. Hilton said jail and the chaos surrounding her sentence have made her realize she must clean up her act. "I used to act dumb," she told Walters in the exclusive phone conversation. "That act is no longer cute. Now, I would...

Recently, the hosts of ABC’s daytime gabfest, The View, scurrilously insulted the American military. Resident termagant, host Rosie O’Donnell asked, “…Why do people enlist in the Army?” Co-host Ricki Lake replied, “To get an education, and they're poor - and that’s the only way to get one.” This specious allegation has been refuted several times during the past twenty years. Studies conducted by the Rand Corporation, the Department of Defense and the Heritage Foundation - documented by me in two articles, Rangel was Wrong (2003, Front Page Magazine) and Eugene Debs Syndrome (2004, Accuracy in Academia and 2005, Human Events)...

Call her Rosie Inc. If Rosie O'Donnell was a business pitch right now, she'd be a win-win. The opinionated diva who quit her job as co-host of "The View" last week is a TV maestro who could mean big bucks for the next studio that signs her up, TV industry experts say. "She's the only talent I've ever worked with who thinks like a producer," said a former co-worker. As early as last winter, O'Donnell began holding talks with at least one major studio about producing a new talk show, according to industry sources. On her personal Web site Rosie...

There's been a lot of talk about how badly CBS is doing with its high priced ($15 million a year) Katie Couric as anchor of the "CBS Evening News." Back in 1976, ABC News made a big splash into the ratings tank by hiring (at the then unheard of $1 million a year) Barbara Walters to co-anchor its evening news with Harry Reasoner. Like Couric, Walters was then co-anchor of NBC's "Today" show where she had built up a reputation as an aggressive, go-getter and in the minds of some, a prima donna b***h. As a teenager, I remembered Walters...

A summer cruise for gay and lesbian families organized by Rosie O'Donnell has cut Bermuda from its planned itinerary because of possible protests by church groups in the British island territory. O'Donnell's charter company said it wanted to avoid the type of protests that greeted passengers when one of its cruises stopped in Nassau, Bahamas, in 2004. The tour is scheduled to leave New York in July on a ship owned by Miami-based Norwegian Cruise Line. But the charter company, R Family Vacations, said on its Web site that it would replace the Bermuda stop with two other ports of...

Excellent YouTube video of a segment of Scarborough hotly critical of Rosie O'Donnell, Barbara Walters, and ABC on , "The View". LINK: 7 Minutes 7 Seconds Long

Last Friday, Barbara Walters embarrassed herself conducting a fawning interview with Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's Marxist budding dictator. This is a more serious mortification than Rosie O'Donnell spouting nonsense on ABC's The View, which Walters hosts and partly owns. Not since Herbert Matthews of the New York Times wrote about the Fidel Castro the humanitarian, just as his fortunes were flagging in the late 1950s, have we seen a major American journalist go so gaga over a would-be Latin dictator. Walters' offering on Hugo Chavez on ABC's 20/20 went far beyond the garden-variety media bias seen so abundantly in print news...

ABC News' Barbara Walters said Friday that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is an intelligent and passionate man -- to say nothing of heavily caffeinated. Walters interviewed Chavez this week in Caracas, discussing topics ranging from his family life to his disdain for President Bush in clips aired Friday on "Good Morning America." At one point, she urged Chavez to drink his coffee, saying "I understand you drink too much coffee?" "Yes, but you didn't drink yours," Chavez replied through an interpreter. "You want mine?" Walters asked. "Give it to me, I will drink it," Chavez said. "I drink a lot...

In an effort to stanch the eroding value of Venezuelan currency, President Hugo Chávez has issued a new currency with a new name, the "Bárbara." Chávez hopes to stem the steep tide of inflation by lopping off approximately two zeros and turning the 1000 bolivar coin into a coin valued at 12-1/2 "fuerte" or "strong" bolivars. Chávez has nicknamed the new coin Bárbara because its copper color closely matches Barbara Walters's henna hair. In addition, Walters's recent interview broadcast on ABC's Good Morning America has "restored my currency as the most important leader of the Western Hemisphere." In her March...

It looks as though Fox may be miffed at Rosie O'Donnell for calling their treatment of booted "American Idol" contestant "racist." "We're no longer given access to 'American Idol' (video) clips. They're apparently mad at us ... When I say 'us,' I really mean me," O'Donnell said on Wednesday's broadcast, calling the situation "sad." "It started with the two special-ed boys and then my concern about Paula (Abdul's) possible non-attentiveness and then saying that I thought it was sexist or racist and weight-ist that they put Frenchie (Davis) off and not Antonella (Barba)," O'Donnell said. Fox responded to O'Donnell's charges...

Barbara Walters must just hate being in the middle of the current junkyard dogfight going on between a snapping Rosie O’Donnell and a snarling Donald Trump. She comes from the Old School, the very Old School, and for decade after decade she has vigilantly guarded her sterling public image, strong-arming anyone who might even attempt to tarnish it.Snip Frankly, it is poignant to see Walters at the end of an extraordinary career being so beaten down not only by Rosie and Trump but by the changing times. For years Walters used her classy style, her handwritten notes, and her gifts...

January 9, 2007 -- THE tension between "The View" creator Barbara Walters and co-host Rosie O'Donnell, sparked by O'Donnell's feud with Donald Trump, boiled over yesterday morning when the portly comic called Walters "a [bleeping] liar." The fight started around 8:30 a.m. when Walters, back from a two-week vacation, walked into the hair and makeup room at ABC studios and tried to hug O'Donnell, whom she hired onto the popular show. According to spies, O'Donnell recoiled from Walters' touch and yelled, "You kept me in the newspapers this whole time!" Both "View" producer Bill Geddie and Walters tried to calm...

http://hotair.com/archives/2006/12/13/video-rosie-fights-with-barbara-walters-over-whos-the-least-richest/

Danny DeVito's disgraceful performance on "The View." the clip shows him referring to the President in terms vulgar enough that they were bleeped out by ABC; what it doesn't show ...were his remarks about having sex with his wife on every surface in the Lincoln Bedroom. Discussing the episode on today's Hugh Hewitt show, the incredibly talented James Lileks made a very perceptive remark about DeVito's comments about the Lincoln Bedroom -- to the effect that DeVito was the type of person who couldn't bear to leave anything undebased. Absolutely true... people like Danny DeVito have always been with us....

Reminder--Airing tonight 10PM ET/9PM Central on ABC

FOOTAGE of Steve Irwin's death will never be shown on television, Terri Irwin has told American journalist Barbara Walters. Clutching a handkerchief and her eyes red from crying, Terri spoke emotionally to Walters about her fairytale marriage with crocodile hunter, Steve Irwin. Walters, one of America's best known TV journalists, flew to Queensland last week for the interview. Asked whether the footage of Irwin's September 4 death would ever be aired on television, Terri was blunt and emphatic. "It won't be. No. No. What purpose would that serve,' she said, adding that she had not looked at the footage of...

A ONE-HOUR interview with US news "queen" Barbara Walters will be a cleansing experience for Steve Irwin's widow Terri, a close friend of her husband has said. Mrs Irwin and her eight-year-old daughter Bindi are due to talk to Barbara Walters in Brisbane for a one-hour special to be aired on America's ABC television network next Wednesday. Ms Walters is reported to have arrived in Brisbane this morning. Channel 9 will also broadcast "an exclusive Australian interview" by Ray Martin with Mrs Irwin and Bindi next Wednesday. Mr Irwin's long-time friend and manager John Stainton today said the interviews would...

First, there are Barbara's strange outbursts and sudden sexual confessions. Who suspected that Mama Walters would ever start talking on TV about her sex life! That's like spotting your science teacher coming out of a peep show or something. The guest host was Katharine McPhee, who had nothing much to contribute although the poor thing must have been first shocked into silence by Elizabeth Hasselbeck's horrifying outfit - a head scarf and bright blue shiny strapless gown - which made her look like a stripper for the Taliban. But even that fashion shocker paled in comparison to Barbara's announcement that...

by Mark Finkelstein June 28, 2006 As a veteran Couric watcher, I've recently come to follow [without actually watching] doings at The View, since Katie's replacement Meredith Vieira was for years a member of the show's cast. For those unfamiliar with it, The View is an all-female televised coffee klatsch and gabfest of which Barbara Walters is the creator, partial owner and a co-host. The View has a distinct liberal tint to its patter. And as we know, one of the tenets of feminist theology is that women have a right to whatever kind of body size they want, free...

Emperor Nero fiddled while Rome burned, according to tales of ancient history. So did Katie Couric, sort of. She played badminton in New York while other news anchors were in Baghdad to cover the opening day of Saddam Hussein's trial. Couric was recently plucked from NBC's Today show to read the evening news on competing CBS. I wish her good luck; she's certainly going to need it. Couric's new job probably saves NBC the possibility of letting her go when her contract expires next month; 15 years is a longtime for a TV personality to stay in one place. CBS...

by Mark Finkelstein February 17, 2006 - 08:51 Openness is for other people. In the wake of the Cheney flap in which the MSM vented its fury over the Veep's failure to disclose facts rapidly enough to suit their taste, and in where even dark cover-up theories were floated, it seems more than a little ironic that an MSM icon has refused to reveal her age, even though that fact was very relevant for the story she was covering. Barbara Walters has been guest-hosting on Good Morning America this week, and this morning conducted a segment on an index that...

For Barbara Walters, heaven is kissing the Dalai Lama. And rubbing noses with him is practically a shortcut to Nirvana. Walters had both experiences while on a global quest earlier this year to learn about how the world's religions view the prospect of an afterlife. The result of her journey is Tuesday night's two-hour, prime-time ABC News special, "Heaven: Where Is It? How Do We Get There?" (9 p.m. on Ch. 7). < SNIP > The Dalai Lama's gentle manner and infectious giggle apparently worked their charms on Walters because, by the time the interview was over, she was asking...

September 28, 2005 OPEN LETTER TO BARBARA WALTERS The following is Bill Donohue’s letter to ABC personality Barbara Walters: It seems you have a problem with the Catholic Church.  On the September 22 episode of “The View,” you read a selection from the Catholic Catechism on homosexuality that you found disagreeable.  To be precise, you wondered aloud what the Church meant by saying homosexuality was an “objective disorder.”  To the approval of your co-hosts, you further added that celibacy was “unnatural” or “supposedly” so.  Moreover, co-hosts Meredith Vieira, Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Joy Behar piled on by speaking in the most disparaging way...

EXCLUSIVE: Barbara Walters talks with former Secretary of State Colin Powell about being the president's point man, making the case for invading Iraq. Now, out of office, he talks freely about being wrong, being loyal --and his next move. Beware of Political Generals who promote themselves. Colin Powell is living proof that Affirmative Action is not the solution but the problem.

HAVE PITY on Barbara Walters. Barbara Walters is, after all, Barbara Walters. And Barbara Walters should not be made to suffer the gross indignity of flying while a common woman breast-feeds her baby. Barbara, for those few of you left on the remote islands of Fiji who don't know who she is, is a world-famous Very Important Person. She has, according to her official bio, "arguably interviewed more statesmen and stars than any other journalist in history. She is so well known that her name and a brief biography is [sic] listed in the American Heritage Dictionary." Barbara Walters is...

Barbara Walters Responds to Michelle Malkin Posted Jun 16, 2005 [Editor's Note: Human Events received the following letter today from ABC. It is Barbara Walters' response to Michelle Malkin's latest column. Michelle also deals with the issues contained in this letter on her blog.] ***** June 16, 2005 I was sad to read Michelle Malkin’s article. Of course, she has every right to express her views. And, if she has not liked my work, that is also her right. However, as a respected journalist, I am sure she wants to have her facts corrected, so may I correct them now?...

Have pity on Barbara Walters. Barbara Walters is, after all, Barbara Walters. And Barbara Walters should not be made to suffer the gross indignity of flying in first class while a common woman breast-feeds her baby. Barbara Walters for those few of you left on the remote islands of Fiji who don't know who she is is a world-famous, Very Important Person. She has, according to her official bio, "arguably interviewed more statesmen and stars than any other journalist in history. She is so well known that her name and a brief biography is (sic) listed in the American Heritage...

With the publication of Jane Fonda’s autobiography, the public in general and veterans in particular have once again been insulted by her contentless “apology” for a single episode in her multi-faceted junket to Hanoi in July 1972. Fonda’s charade on “60 Minutes” the other night was simply a robotic reprise of what she has been repeating as a mantra for years in words carefully crafted by her spin doctors. In our 2002“Aid and Comfort”: Jane Fonda in North Vietnam, Erika Holzer and I wrote the following: "[After the Vietnam War ended], Fonda went on with her life – garnering more...

<p>By CHRISTENE BARBERICH -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jessica, 16, will choose new parents for her son on Friday's "20/20" with Barbara Walters.</p> <p>April 28, 2004 -- A giant-sized controversy is brewing over a baby adoption special on "20/20" - and sending ABC execs into a tailspin. Millions of viewers across the country watched in surprise over the weekend as the network aired a sensational promo for Friday's segment, which pits five desperate couples against each other for the privilege of adopting a 16-year-old's baby. A very personal, intimate process was made to look like a reality-show contest, with prospective parents dubbed "winners" and "losers."</p>

I saw a commercial for next Friday's edition of 20/20 last night. The ad consisted of something that just left me stunned and unable to form any words, save one. The ad is plugging a story helmed by Barbara Walters. This is the gist of it: Five couples are vying to adopt a single baby. Of course, only one will be able to, and four others will be heartbroken. Who will the mother choose? This was followed by a shot of the four couples standing behind Walters and the mother, holding her baby, and Walters saying something along the lines...

<p>Barbara Walters announcing she will step down in September 2004 as anchor of ABC News 20/20 . Plans more specials for ABC News as part of new, long term contract being negotiated. Will continue to co-host The View.</p>

ABC’s Barbara Walters has come out against executing Saddam Hussein, arguing on the ABC daytime show The View on Tuesday that "we condemn the suicide bombers, we condemn those who have no regard for life, and Lord knows this man deserves, you know, the greatest punishment, but I just sort of feel this would be a chance for us to show the regard for life that this man didn't have." Another host, former ABC and CBS reporter Meredith Vieira, agreed with Walters.      The MRC’s Jessica Anderson transcribed the discussion which took place during the “Hot Topics” segment on the...

The only way to analyze Hillary's dysfunctional relationship with her husband is to recognize the obvious: she married politics, not Bill. Hillary goes on and on relating how her Christian theology explains Bill's infidelities. In her interview with Barbara Walters, Hillary stated that a friend, "a theologian," helped her to understand her husband's promiscuous habits as being a "sin of weakness rather than sin of malice." "Sins of weakness" evidently are not as heinous as "sins of malice." Bill committed repeatedly sins of sexual license whereas Hussein committed repeatedly sins of malice by having innocents thrown into cage prisons. In...

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's bob-and-weave with Barbara Walters Sunday night scored less than a third as many viewers as had Walters's '99 chitchat with Monica Lewinsky, giving ABC a third-place finish in last week's ratings race. Here's a look at the week's Lewinskys and Clintons LOSERSSen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. Yes, the former first lady's tight-lipped interview touting her new book copped 13.5 million viewers for ABC on Sunday -- the net's biggest summer audience in the time slot since 1995. But that number, for an interview in which Clinton was supposed to finally talk about her husband's affair with White...

Hilarious Hillary... How much of a PR nightmare must one endure before someone pulls the plug? Check out the latest reaction from Americans polled by ABC NEWS. Hillary loses ground if pitted against Bush in every region of the country. But this didn't stop her from going on TV last night and giving more non-answers with 20/20's Barbara Walters. Former Clinton insider who mysteriously had her article critical of Hillary spiked a couple of weeks ago is out today with kind of a revamped version of it. Susan Estrich firmly believes that the Clinton machine is sucking up all of...

The REAL Living History. . . CONGENITAL PERVERTER OF CONSTITUTION PERVERTS CONSTITUTION AS SHE CHARGES "CONSTITUTIONAL PERVERSION" by Mia T, 6.9.03   In an interview with Barbara Walters to be broadcast tonight, Sen. Hillary Clinton insists that a right wing conspiracy "perverted" the Constitution in a bid to destroy her husband's presidency. Speaking in the present tense, Mrs. Clinton complained, "I would say that there is a very well financed right wing network of people that was after his presidency from the very beginning. [They] really stopped at nothing, to the point of perverting the Constitution, in order to undermine...

Walters to Hillary: What About the Next Monica? YOO-HOO Ms. Walters. . . What about the PREVIOUS Monicas? In her interview with Hillary Clinton, ABC News star Barbara Walters poses a question that could land her husband in a pile of trouble, asking the world's most famous cheated-on spouse: What will you do if there's another Monica Lewinsky? Though comments by Walters herself suggest that she avoided some of the most politically perilous questions, ABC's top interviewer said Friday she found one question more difficult to ask than any other. "The toughest question I had to ask her was, what...

Interview to air on Sunday..

Don't count on seeing Barbara Walters raising with Senator Hillary Clinton any subject which the former First Lady would like to avoid. Though an ABC promo spot for ABC's June 8 special dedicated to publicizing Clinton's new book promises that "nothing's off limits" and on Thursday's The View Walters reported that when she sits down with Mrs. Clinton next week she'll "ask the really tough questions," the instant The View's Joy Behar mentioned Monica Lewinsky, an annoyed Walter raised her hands and made a pained facial expression as she demanded: "Oh, let's drop, let's move on!" As quoted in the...