"Lactivists" protest The View

From the New York Daily News:

Nearly 150 angry moms - babies at their breasts - staged a peaceful "nurse-in" yesterday outside ABC's Manhattan studios in defense of mother's milk.

The women - self-named "lactivists" - took to the streets after Barbara Walters, interview queen and host of "The View," made what they consider disparaging comments about breast-feeding on the talk show.

Walters said she felt awkward sitting with her hairdresser next to a woman who was breast-feeding on an airplane.

"It made me very nervous," Walters said on the May 17 show. "She didn't cover the baby with a blanket. It made us uncomfortable."

It probably wouldn't have gotten as bad if co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck hadn't chimed in, admitting that while she was breast-feeding her baby, doing so made her uncomfortable. A woman breastfeeding in public and not covering the baby with a blanket is one thing, but disparaging breastfeeding altogether is quite another.

I've watched the View once, and that was enough for me. The episode I saw, the gaggle of hosts were ragging on Dr. Laura for complaining about how Barbara Walters was treated during a news story. Dr. Laura was offended that rather than Barbara Walters' distinguished career being focused on, the magazine article showed a photo of Walters in a bathrobe.

Never the ones to get the point, the yapping hypocrites on the View paraded out decades old photos of Dr. Laura supposededly nude, while Barbara Walters sat quietly by. Apparently, Walters approved of people treating her as fluff and not a serious journalist, and also approves of gutter tabloid tactics being used to trash someone who dares try to defend her dignity.

Now we have Walters complaining about someone breast-feeding on an airplane (Did she expect the woman to take the baby in the public toilet?!?) and then let the flock of pecking hens on the View offend millions of women who breastfeed their babies.

Why is that show still on?

Coverage: Political Animal

Posted by Danny Carlton at June 8, 2005 09:17 AM