Elisabeth Hasselbeck, co-host of "The View" since 2003, rubs me the wrong way. While a welcome antidote to the in-your-face, grating obnoxiousness that is Rosie O'Donnell, she is too shrill and vapid to win me over.
In October she made headlines by accusing the writers of "Law and Order: SVU" of creating a rape victim in her image and name (the name of the victim was 'Elizabeth Hassenback'). I remember hearing about this and rolling my eyes, thinking that this woman must be cripplingly self-centered, and was shamelessly angling for free PR..
She's an expert at drumming up publicity for herself. She was the cute, bandanna-clad contestant on "Survivor 2:Australian Outback"....but of course back then, she was Elisabeth Filarski. She parlayed her final four "Survivor" fame into a successful social-climbing marriage and a stint on Style's "The Look For Less". And then, "The View". She's the "pretty, young one". Debbie Mattenopolous with a right-wing bent. She espouses hardline conservative views, but uses emotion rather than fact and substance to debate those views with her liberal co-hosts. Rosie O'Donnell seems to delight in getting prim Elisabeth worked up over abortion pills and stem cell research, and this would be a more amusing thing (for me) to watch if I didn't loathe Rosie so much. I see the two women as being two sides of the same coin. Each one is an extreme representation of her respective political party.
I am disappointed that a potential mouthpiece for women's conservatism would be so blank when it comes to debating "the issues". I keep watching, and waiting, for her to say something witty, or well-informed, or to be somewhat coherent in deflecting Rosie O's knee-jerk drivel. But the woman lets me down every time. She flails her arms, her face gets red, when that doesn't get the desired result, she tears up and lets her voice waver. Short on facts, long on drama....unfortunately Rosie and the others have been in this game longer than she has, and they've mastered the art of using statistics rather than hysterics to legitimize an argument or to at least give it the ring of legitimacy.
As time goes on, and Elisabeth gains experience in TV co-hosting, maybe she'll be able to argue principle with calm conviction, and I'll root for her. (Not that my approval sways her career one way or the other.) Right now she still seems to feel she has something to prove, and with Rosie O'Donnell on the panel as the resident bully, her defenses are undoubtedly way up.
I'll keep watching. The show is entertaining for the Rosie-Elisabeth head butts, if nothing else.
