First of all, wasn't "Ask Ashley" a segment on the Nickelodeon sketch show All That? Well now, it's 24-year-old Ashley Dupre's sage advice to New York's lovelorn. And apparently, this was enough to get her admittance to the lion's den that is The View.

I've gotta say, Dupre kind of handled the situation masterfully: she disarmed the crew immediately by admitting that she was scared to come on the show because women "hate what she represented" and adds that she would "hate me, too." After that, the ladies had nothing to do but sit there tight-lipped, snidely debate the euphemistic nature of the term "escort," and kind of imply that maybe she shouldn't have her own sex advice column based on having slept with the Governor. It was pretty clear that no one knew how to handle either Dupre's defiant self-confidence or her weirdly old-fashioned moralizing. Let alone her Rules-worthy assertion that "men are primal and they're proud," and need to be made to feel special (taken verbatim, by the way, from yesterday's inaugural column.) There was fear in the eyes of The View: this woman could do your job, we were all thinking.

Ask Ashley [NY Post]

"Men and women — women want all the rights of men, but they're not asking to be called men… do you think… is it the word [marriage] is more important than the rights?" Portia, who is married to Ellen DeGeneres, was measured, confident, calm and clear in her answer: "Of course it's not the word." (I would have added, "Dumbass.") Portia went on to say, "Without the word, we don't have equal rights." Then she explained that a "lesser" term would imply that gay couples are lesser. Applause.

Oh, those View ladies had their work cut out for them this post-Thanksgiving day of Hot Topics. On the one hand, if there's anything they claim to love it's celebrity privacy, and if there's anything they claim to hate, it's domestic violence. But on the other hand, there are some very sticky rumors out there that female-on-male violence is part of the developing Tiger Woods story. So how did the ladies deal with it? By avoiding the issue as long as they could (until Whoopi mentioned it in the context of "a bizarre question" — ha!) while making wince-y faces and speaking veeerrrry slowwwly. Here's the breakdown of where each View member stands. They're just exactly like a family in crisis:

Sherri: Total, Pathological Denial: He shouldn't have to explain anything because married people get into arguments and "when did TMZ become the Bible of all news?" This situation is different for Tiger than it is for anyone else because he "has never shown himself to be any person that's of violence."

Barbara: Cautious Disbelief: "It's his business. I know that if you're in the public eye supposedly you have to reveal things about yourself but in this case it was between him and his wife."

Elisabeth: Avoidance, Ignorance: First she made a joke about how Tiger could have crashed into a tree when his entire job as a golfer is not hitting things into trees, then she insinuated that she didn't know anything about the story. Off the hook!

Joy: Ignored Source of Comic Relief: Made jokes, but nobody listens to her.

Whoopi: Lone Voice of Reason: "I have to ask a really bizarre question..if it had been reversed, and the rumors were flying that he had done something to her, would we be as saying look it's his business?"

Good question, Whoopi! Sadly, the ladies never really answered it — even trying to pretend at first that by "if the situation were reversed" meant "if Tiger Woods wasn't famous or was an elected official" instead of "If Tiger Woods was strongly rumored to have caused lacerations on the face of his wife with a golf club." Obviously, we all hope those rumors aren't true, but it's a little soon for The View to be declaring the case closed — especially since they would never do so if the situation were, you know, reversed.

And yesterday, while in a heated discussion over the Attorney General's decision to hold 9/11 terrorism trials in downtown Manhattan, Joy mentioned that Elisabeth told her in the makeup room that she was planning on moving out of New York. Elisabeth got pissed about the "personal" information disclosure.

While I think that Perez Hilton—who has repeatedly called Prejean a bitch, among other nasty things—has been out of line, I don't believe the same is true for Whoopi. Whoopi referred to Prejean's hostile and defensive demeanor and attitude as "bitchy" during an interpersonal exchange. There's a big difference between calling someone a name, and describing someone's behavior. The former is an insult and the latter is an inference.

Elisabeth didn't seem to grasp that, and accused "the liberals" of "hating" Prejean "for no reason." You can be sure that Joy checked her on that.

Whoopi and Sherri bring up a good point when asking Carrie if she was a Christian when she made her sex tape, and trying to explain to her how people could see hypocrisy in preaching about how others should live according to her Christian values, and then not complying with them herself. This point, however, was lost on her: she simply focused on how mean Perez Hilton was to her.


Later in the interview, Carrie became flustered and even more defensive when Barbara asked her about a portion of her book that claims that describes Donald Trump's behavior—which she intimates was inappropriate—around the women in the pageant.

Feeling an inevitable attack from Joy Behar's progressive lips coming on, Elisabeth backpedaled a bit, saying the decision is "never an easy one, mark my words."

Joy did have something to say - it just wasn't what Elisabeth was expecting.

For some people, believe it or not, Elisabeth, it is a very easy decision. I know that's hard to understand, but there are people who do not think anything of it.

Speaking from personal experience, that's true. At the same time, just because someone doesn't get all precious about terminating a pregnancy doesn't mean that she did it for "superficial reasons". Or that she should be forced to look at pictures of, well, anything.

In fact, Rachel believes that anyone who is pro-choice should not be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, saying, "We wouldn't have world peace until we ended abortion." But this is really nothing new. On the third season of The Real World, Rachel, a young Republican, often got in heated political debates with her left-leaning San Francisco roommates, particularly "bed-wetting liberal" Judd.

Rachel is also not new to The View. She's auditioned for a permanent position on the panel twice before, but was passed over each time, first in favor of Lisa Ling, and later in favor of Hasselbeck. This morning, Rachel—who married Real World: Boston roommate Sean—announced that she's pregnant with her sixth child.

Part of Speidi's problem is that Heidi wants children now, and Spencer doesn't. He's afraid she'll be "one of those women" who pokes a hole in the condom with a pin, to trap him.


"That's why reality is so big. It's real." - Heidi Montag, 2009


Babs hates their schtick.


Heidi's ideas on creationism and evolution test Barbara's patience.