Barbara is a media whore.
Hoa binh

When I think of Barbara Walters, which isn’t very often, I think of two things.

The first real “female” power player in the industry. And someone who, in spite of an obvious speech impairment, had the determination to become successful in a career that requires a lot of speaking.

Like her or not, those are the facts and for that she should be recognised.

Plus I marvel that someone her age can still walk in heels! I had to give that up years ago!

Barbara Walters proves that banality, when properly packaged can make you a multi-millionaire. The View has been so thoroughly marketed that the shows’ “cat fights” wind up on The Huffington Post. What a marvelous spectacle it is! Well paid women sitting on a stage complaining about the increased price of sporting events, or whether or not to wear stockings. There is plenty of talk about sex, boobs, bootie, and let’s not forget the fist bump.
I guess it is entertaining, in a mindless sort of way. How Ms. Walters is able to maintain her veneer as “television journalist” is the crown jewel of the whole magic act. I can think of few things just as useless, but none is more important than The View. That is why Mr. and Mrs McCain have appeared on the show, along with Mr. and Mrs. Obama, and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.
Inquiring minds WANT to know…

Brittnay and Paris and Linda and all the Jennifers and Jesicas, these women are products of an “arrested childhood” that produced stunted, mixed up adults. They also have a chance to grow out of it, grow up. My problem with Ms walters is, she too had a chance to grow, become more than the “token female at the Today Show desk,” but she didn’t.  And that’s what sad and at the same time irritating, now that she’s pushing 80, that she’s still doing the same thing over and over and over again , alive but not living.

Barbara Walters came of age in a world that many have no real memory of, and, based on the reviews of her book, a world she has trouble describing to readers.  Walters was never supposed to be a journalist, really.  She was meant to open refrigerator doors and sell dishwashing liguid.  But just as the world was changing to admit women as professionals and blacks as people, there sat Babwa available for the great transition.  She doesn’t have the perspective yet, but she kept putting one foot ahead of the other, worked constantly, and survived into the 21st century. 

Why expect so much from her?  In the words of Harvey Dent, either you’re a hero until you live long enough to be the villain…or something.

Barbara Walters,  Paris Hilton…the current crop of “tools” used to mind manage us are today, the living examples of how eroded our ability to think critically has become. Things, images, of no substance that make no real contributions to the benefit of anything or anybody, are now singled out as successful examples of what our civilization can produce. Why? Because it’s cheap and easy and profitable.

Manipulation of public taste, now manifested in the form of “empty celebrity and hollow promises of “it can happen to you” have been long standing techniques of those who rule,lead and benefit from the ability to do so.  Subliminalism was used as a tool early on by the masters of Television advertising. The hidden message that was flashed when watching Jackie Gleason was “eat more popcorn.” From the President on down we were all outraged by the crass commercialism behind the use of this new technology. We demanded and got we thought, sanctions that would put a stop to it forever and always.

Well, we know now that politicians everywhere, in democracies, theocracies, kingdoms,totalitarian countries, everywhere, would never, could never abandon a tool that proved so effective in managing and directing what we do and think. So what is the big surprise here?  Despite this massive assault on our minds from womb to tomb, like in the song,  “we do survive.”  And that’s all. In the Age of Global Warming and knowledge of its terrible consequences if we do nothing, do we really believe that the current crop of the Powers that Be, can lead us to make sacrifices needed to set aside the way we do things now to get to where we want to go, for the betterment of future generations? That those who profess to lead and make decisions in our best interests,  who control the factors of production, the sources of what we deem are the basic necessities for getting and keeping the comforts of a quality of life beyond food, shelter and other basics of the nature of mankind, are going to make the personal sacrifices needed to safe our world that will set a standard for
us all to follow?  I don’t see it happening until maybe 40 years from now when we won’t be here to see it, feel it,smell it, taste it or ...believe it.

Barbara Walters is to journalism is what Paris Hilton is to music…

Pioneering? Connie Chung, yes. Barbara Walters? Nay nah!

Barbara Walters comes across as “sincere” as I remember, ever since she came on board with the Today Show with Dave Garroway?

From the gitgo its been a masquerade?  She’s a gossip protected from overt criticism by her official designation, “journalist.”  But This is a woman who in an interview with Lady Bird Johnson a few months after Lyndon’s death, asked his widow how she dealt with the President’s many affairs over the years of their marriage with other women. Did she ask Jackie Kennedy the same question?  Mrs. Johnson said afterwards that “if I live to be 100, I’ll never give that woman an interview again.”  Mrs. Johnson lived to be 100.  And she didn’t.

Walters also reported, in a sincere manner, that Uri Gellar, the man who said he bent spoons solely with the power of his mind, was the real thing, that she couldn’t detect any fakery. Insightful,right? She did her homework but missed the part where the Israeli government kicked Uri out of the country for fraud.  And then there’s the Barbara who accepted an invitation by the Shah of Iran to come to Iran’s celebration of the 4000 anniversary of the reign of The Peacock Throne. She went and came back with a glowing report about what a wonderful time she had, and how much the people of Iran loved their Shah and his family.  This was about a year before the Shah left Iran under cover of darkness to go into exile when Iran became the Islamic Republic.

Harry Reasoner didn’t think much of her as a journalist or a pioneer when she joined ABC news and didn’t hide his feelings. He knew something that we didn’t at the time, and didn’t tell us.  Hugh Downs walked away from Prime Time or 20-20 when Barbara did an interview on a subject or subject matter he thought unethical and had turned down when he was offered the same opportunity. Barbara’s in her element with The View: gossip again masquerading as “the women’s perspective on current events.” Star Jones, a woman who is right up there with Barbara when it comes to self-promotion did get it right when she questioned Barbara’s integrity/honesty/questionable ethics when Ms Walters told all in her latest memoir about her affair with Senator Brooks. Why do we need to know this? Senator Brooks is an elderly man, living in retirement with his family, children and grandchildren. Why inflict this kind of hurt on his family?  Ms Walter"s still seems, at her advanced age, insecure and afraid that she wouldn’t sell any of her books if there weren’t any references to her sexual adventures with married men of celebrity.

I’m probably all wrong about this observation of Ms. Walters. I mean, all the local, state, regional and national talk show comedian/hosts have been allowing her to promote her book on their programs for the past several weeks, and these guys, Rose,  Letterman,Leno… these guys wouldn’t do it if they believed Barbara wasn’t the journalist she said she was. Would they?

Where’s Gilda Ratner when you need her?