Just before Elisabeth left The View to go on maternity leave (and give birth to a healthy baby boy), it seems she and Barbara Walters had a huge fight. The fight wasn’t what I expected – it was nothing about politics or the strained atmosphere of The View. No, Barbara and Elisabeth fought about Elisabeth having a messy dressing room. Barbara demanded that Elisabeth clean up the mess before she left on maternity leave. The whole thing doesn’t really reek of professionalism, actually. It sounds like Barbara was really condescending to a very pregnant woman who probably had a hard time bending down and picking anything up. That being said, whatever happened to the nesting instinct? Shouldn’t pregnancy make Elisabeth want to clean up her nest?

Talk about tough love! “View” Big Momma Barbara Walters ripped into expectant momma Elisabeth Hasselbeck just before [she] took off on maternity leave to drop her bouncing baby boy – bitching that her filthy dressing room looks like a Dumpster with a door!

Barbara flipped, says my ABC insider, when she stopped by Elisabeth’s between-scenes lair, found it littered with discarded mags, newspapers, junk mail, clothes, etc and screamed at staffers: “There have been rat problems in this building, but you wouldn’t even be able to find them in this mess!”

Walters called Elisabeth in for a big-girl talk and stormed: “Clean your messy dressing room!” Worse, she insisted Little Lizzie had to tidy up her room BEFORE splitting on maternity leave.

Luckily, Big Momma’s scolding didn’t induce premature birth.

[From the National Enquirer, print edition, Mike Walker's column, August 31 2009]

My biggest “messy” peeve is people who don’t probably dispose of food. That’s the height of grossness for me, people who just leave food laying out, or leave it to rot. But it doesn’t seem like Elisabeth is that person – most of her mess seems paper-oriented, which I can relate to. I’m not a messy person, but I have real problems throwing away magazines. I need to get a better system for my old Vogues and Vanity Fairs, because right now I just have piles of magazines laying around. But they are organized! I have my own system. Don’t yell at me, Babs!

Two of the temporary “replacements” for Elisabeth (while she’s on maternity leave) were just announced today. For much of September, we’re going to be graced by either Meghan McCain, or E.D. Hill. Meghan is the daughter of Sen. John McCain, and she’s been a guest and a guest hostess of The View before, famously telling a weight-critizing Laura Ingraham to “kiss my fat ass!” E.D. Hill is the former Fox News anchor who famously called the Obamas’ fist-bump a “terrorist fist-jab”. So, yeah… these are the women who they get to replace Elisabeth. Should be interesting.

Barbara Walters is shown on 2/4/09. Elisabeth Hasselbeck is shown on 5/5/09. Credit: WENN.com

Meghan McCain, socialite/blogger daughter of Sen. John McCain, has been working on her first novel for what seems like forever. As yet, I don’t think the book is even half-way written, nor does it have a firm release date. But that hasn’t stopped Meghan from mentally signing away the movie rights, adapting the novel into a screenplay, finding financing for the film as well as attaching a director, and casting what will most likely be a turd of a film. Meghan explained her dream casting to Gatecrasher. The character “loosely based” on Meghan (perhaps called “the young, beautiful Meg McCabe”) would be played by Hillary Duff, or in Meghan’s words “anyone who’s blond.” As for the love interest, Meghan wants none other than serial first-dater Bradley Cooper.

Meghan McCain hasn’t even released her first book, but she’s already planning the movie version.

“I want Hillary Duff to play me. I think she’s really hot – hotter than me – but I’d still want her to play me,” Sen. John McCain’s daughter confided to us at the Trevor Project’s’s summer gala on Monday night at Capitale.

But the young Republican isn’t dead set on Duff. “Really, I’d take anyone who’s blond,” she joked, adding that one actor in particular would certainly be welcome to join the cast.

“Bradley Cooper is so hot,” McCain swooned. “If he can be in it, he will. I’m obsessed with [his film] ‘The Hangover!’”

The Daily Beast blogger also revealed that Sarah Palin will be coming to life on the big screen. “I just wrote a chapter about her, so she’ll definitely be in it, too,” McCain said.

“But I don’t know who would play her.” Guess she’s not a fan of “Saturday Night Live“ – or she’d know that Tina Fey is practically synonymous with the Alaskan governor.

The book, due next spring from Hyperion, will examine “what it means to be a progressive Republican in the party today,” according to McCain.

“It’s half political, and it’s half a memoir,” said the 24-year-old. “It’s like ‘Primary Colors’ meets Tori Spelling’s ‘sTori Telling.’ I want young women to actually be able to read it.”

While the release of the book may bring her family back into the spotlight, McCain believes any attention would be nothing compared to living in the White House – something she says the Obamas are handling with aplomb.

“The Obamas are doing very well – their popularity is very high – but I’m just happy it’s nothing my family has to figure out,” she insisted. “I’m so relieved. I did not get along with the Secret Service, so it’s good that I’m not living there. You know those Disney movies [where princesses are always well guarded]? Life in the White House is just like that, except there were no cute guards. Seriously, none of them were cute at all!”

We think we’ve found Bradley Cooper his next role.

[From Gatecrasher]

I actually spent a few minutes trying to think up which blonde would be better than Hillary Duff for Meghan’s casting, and I came up blank. Katherine Heigl? Uh, no. I don’t like Heigl, but even I don’t want to see her playing a version of Meghan. Lindsay Lohan as a blonde? Nope. Blake Lively’s a half-decent possibility… yeah, I’ll go with Blake. Blake and Bradley Cooper. That wouldn’t be so bad, actually.

Meghan McCain is shown on 6/28/09. Credit: WENN.com

Saturday night was one of the biggest nights in Washington, the annual White House Correspondents dinner. Politicos, journalists, celebrities and everything in between put on conservative black-tie dress and listen as people make uncomfortable jokes about the president, the cabinet, the press, and pretty much everybody else. Some weird stuff has gone down at Correspondents’ dinners in the past, but this year’s seemed pretty tame. No rapping Karl “MC” Rove, no Stephen Colbert mocking President Bush to his face.

Meghan McCain took note of some of the jokes aimed at her family, though, and complained about Wanda Sykes routine. Wanda made fun of nearly everyone, and a few of her jokes were in poor taste. But what Wanda said about the McCain family wasn’t even that bad: “Sen. McCain gave you grief about the new helicopters you didn’t order… I think Mr. McCain was a little bitter because he wanted to be in the new helicopters. Mr. McCain, I’m sure if you ask nicely, your wife will buy you a new helicopter.” Haha, a rich joke. It wasn’t even very original, but it still upset Meghan. Of course, the New York Daily News is reporting that Meghan was acting like a spoiled little princess the whole night, so perhaps it wasn’t just the joking:

[Meghan McCain] lost it after getting stopped by security when she arrived at the White House Correspondents dinner Saturday. The problem? She had only two tickets, but brought two friends.

“The security guard sent her to talk to someone to sort out the situation, but Meghan got bratty and nastily told him, ‘We’ll just stand here then,’ like an insolent child,” our source said, adding that after dealing with the guard, “She muttered to her friends, ‘Does he even know who the f— I am?’ ”

An insider told us, “Those tickets were harder to get than gold dust and Meghan blatantly only had two and thought she didn’t have to follow the same rules as everyone else.”

The vocal McCain “was complaining about everything from the air-conditioning to the wait,” says our leak.

Once inside, the bubbly blond’s mood didn’t improve; she was annoyed at Wanda Sykes roast.

“Sen. McCain gave you grief about the new helicopters you didn’t order,” said Sykes, adding, “I think Mr. McCain was a little bitter because he wanted to be in the new helicopters. Mr. McCain, I’m sure if you ask nicely, your wife will buy you a new helicopter.”

While the assembled crowd of politicos, journalists and celebrities roared with laughter, Meghan was not among them.

“I didn’t like the joke about my mom [Cindy],” the young McCain told us after the dinner. “Why talk about her at all? I (didn’t mind the jokes) about my dad, but leave my mom out of it. It really wasn’t in good taste.”

[From New York Daily News]

Here are some examples of Wanda Sykes’ jokes that I thought actually crossed the line: “Sarah Palin’s not here. She pulled out at the last minute. Someone oughta tell her that’s not how you practice abstinence.” Ugh, not only mildly offensive, it’s not even funny. Wanda also poked fun at Rush Limbaugh, saying: “You know, you might want to look into this, [President Obama], because I think maybe Rush Limbaugh was the 20th hijacker, but he was just so strung out on OxyContin he missed his flight. … Rush Limbaugh hopes the country fails? I hope his kidneys fail, how ’bout that?” Way to ricochet away from a “Rush Limbaugh is a drug addict” joke into a joke about September 11th. Not cool, Wanda.

Here are photos of some of the attendees, thanks to WENN.com

The more I hear from Meghan McCain, former Presidential candidate John McCain’s daughter, the more I like her. Meghan has been trying to help the Republican party move forward and become focused on solutions instead of clinging to absolute positions on abortion, sex, gay rights, and other issues that polarize our nation. In a new editorial on the Daily Beast, Meghan says that the GOP is completely out of touch when it comes to sex education.

In contrast, teen mother Bristol Palin, the daughter of VP candidate Sarah Palin, is a new advocate for abstinence-only sex education. We all know how well that worked out for Bristol, who had her first baby at 18. Meghan writes that by presenting abstinence as the only alternative, The GOP is doing a disservice to young people and to the party, which is increasingly becoming marginalized by its extreme positions:

Here’s what I’ve never understood about the party: its resistance to discussing better access to birth control. As a Republican, I am pro-life. But using birth control and having an abortion are not the same at all. Actually, the best way to prevent abortions is to educate people about birth control and make it widely and easily accessible. True, abstinence is the only way to fully prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Still, the problem with abstinence-only education is that it does not make teenagers and young adults more knowledgeable about all the issues they face if or when they have sex—physically and emotionally.

The key, honestly, is communication between parents and children. At the end of the day, the worst thing parents can do is raise children who are not prepared for the situations they may encounter, especially when they’re not planned. (For anyone who remembers their teen years, you know what I mean.) Unfortunately, Republicans typically don’t like to discuss or deal with things they think are wrong or immoral. And that’s a huge mistake. If we can’t discuss birth control in addition to abstinence, and in a nonjudgmental way, kids will continue to make bad choices for lack of having access to informed, safe options. Not everyone shares the same beliefs, and more importantly, people don’t always react the same way to their circumstances.

Which is why it is so important to encourage honest, open communication about the realities of sex within the party at large, and more specifically, between parents and their children.

I have a 17-year-old sister who is not much older than I was when that reporter asked my father the hypothetical abortion question. I am the role model I want her to have: If or when she chooses to have sex is entirely up to her, but I want to be sure she knows being curious about sex is natural, and what is important is to be educated about safety. Perhaps the worst sexual double standard in politics right now is that too many subconsciously believe Republican women are void of sexual desire altogether, never mind its consequences. A friend of mine, whose father is also a conservative politician, used to joke it would be easier for her be a lesbian because then there would be no risk of getting pregnant and having a resulting scandal.

I have always found this joke incredibly sad—for both of us. Because the GOP continues to struggle with open communication about serious issues most people deal with rationally, and on a regular basis. Unless we learn how to integrate that kind of discussion, our party will continue its descent into irrelevance.

[From The Daily Beast via OK Magazine]

Meghan is right – we need open discussions in families and in politics in order to ensure that we understand all sides of an issue. The future for teenagers, and for the Republican party, is much brighter when all options are discussed calmly and rationally. It looks like we’re moving in that direction with this new administration. Hopefully more smart young people like Meghan will step up to represent the other side. Forget one note conservatives like Carrie Prejean who only grasp a single position on an issue. We don’t have to all agree, but Democracy works when both sides are willing to talk and compromise without shutting out the alternatives. We also have to consider the evidence – why continue to insist on abstinence only education when there’s absolutely no evidence that it’s effective?

Meghan McCain is shown on 3/28/09. Credit: WENN.com

I can imagine few things scarier than being followed by Karl Rove. Pack of rabid dogs? Nothing. Militant cannibalistic survivalists who haven’t eating in weeks? That’s fine. A herd of angry elephants on skateboards (you know, so they’re really fast)? Still better. So I can’t help but feel for Meghan McCain, who says she’s being followed by Karl Rove. Crazy stalker. Okay she’s being followed on her Twitter, but still… it’s unsettling at best.

Karl Rove is giving Meghan McCain the creeps. Ewww. “Karl Rove follows me on Twitter. That’s creepy,” wrote McCain, 24, on the DailyBeast website… McCain wrote she joined Twitter a few months ago because it allowed her to share the “less serious” and “humorously uncensored moments” of her life. Twitter, the wildly popular microblogging platform, constrains messaging to 140 characters or less.

“But there’s also been a downside: I am now being followed by Karl Rove, and my local sheriff, and God knows how many other political pundits,” McCain wrote. “We need to take Twitter back from the creepy people.” McCain said she’s intrigued by Rove’s Twitter feeds because at the White House Rove was viewed as this “inaccessible man-behind-the-curtain figure,” and, now, he’s sending out these public messages numerous times a day.

But “to be honest, I find Rove’s Tweets boring,” McCain wrote. “Sometimes he takes questions; other times he talks about his appearances on cable news and other shows. But he doesn’t say anything substantive.” McCain wrote she suspected Rove has a “ghost Twitterer,” meaning she believes an assistant is updating his feeds instead of Rove doing it himself personally. While McCain acknowledged that Rove’s Tweets seem to reveal a “softer side” to him, she believes he’s being “disingenuous” about his real self… M cCain praised Twitter as a means of communication. Still, she wrote, “I can’t shake the fact that Karl Rove is following me-it can be creepy. So watch out.”

[From the NY Daily News]

I love that even Republicans find Karl Rove to be creepy. Meghan’s being sort of immature in her response, but at least she’s candid and honest, and that’s nice. In related news, on Saturday she delivered a speech to the Log Cabin Republicans (an organization for gay Republicans) on the ways she thinks the GOP needs to change.

Speaking to an affectionate crowd of Log Cabin Republicans on Saturday evening, Meghan McCain ridiculed the party her father headed this past election, declaring that “old school Republicans” were “scared shitless” of the changing landscape. The Senator’s daughter, who has quickly become something of an iconic figure in the gay conservative community since the end of the election, took repeated shots at the GOP for its antiquated mores.

“I feel too many Republicans want to cling to past successes,” said McCain. “There are those who think we can win the White House and Congress back by being ‘more’ conservative. Worse, there are those who think we can win by changing nothing at all about what our party has become. They just want to wait for the other side to be perceived as worse than us. I think we’re seeing a war brewing in the Republican Party. But it is not between us and Democrats. It is not between us and liberals. It is between the future and the past.”

Later, she called out those officials in the Republican tent who insist that tactical improvements, technology and brass-knuckle politicking are the path back to relevance.

“Simply embracing technology isn’t going to fix our problem,” she said. “Republicans using Twitter and Facebook isn’t going to miraculously make people think we’re cool again. Breaking free from obsolete positions and providing real solutions that don’t divide our nation further will. That’s why some in our party are scared. They sense the world around them is changing and they are unable to take the risk to jump free of what’s keeping our party down.”

[From the Huffington Post]

Meghan also called out Ann Coulter for being “overly partisan and divisive.” She’s obviously a more moderate Republican – and she did declare herself a proud member of the GOP. You can read more of McCain’s comments on the Huffington Post link above. It seems that – when taken in total – she’s asking for some dramatically sweeping changes within the party. It’ll be interesting to see if that comes over time or all at once. Or at all.

Here’s Meghan in July. Images thanks to Pacific Coast News.

Meghan McCain, daughter of presidential candidate John McCain, is making quite a name for herself as an outspoken, middle-of-the-road young Republican. In her blog at The Daily Beast, she’s taken on members of her own party for being too sectarian, and even ripped pundit Ann Coulter a new one. This made her the target of another conservative female pundit, the loathsome Laura Ingraham, who slammed Meghan for gaining weight on the campaign trail. Well, Meghan decided to fight back via her blog, and defended other women in the media who are constantly under attack for their figures- including Hillary Clinton.

Recently my not-size-0 body has come under fire again by the conservative pundit Laura Ingraham. On her radio show recently, she sarcastically commented that I was “too plus-sized to be a cast member on the television show The Real World” and needled me about my weight with a comment about Barbie’s 50th anniversary. Instead of intellectually debating our ideological differences about the future of the Republican Party, Ingraham resorted to making fun of my age and weight, in the fashion of the mean girls in high school.

I have been teased about my weight and body figure since I was in middle school, and I decided a very long time ago to embrace what God gave me and live my life positively, attempting to set an example for other girls who may suffer from body image issues. I have nothing to hide: I am a size 8 and fluctuated up to a size 10 during the campaign. It’s ridiculous even to have this conversation because I am not overweight in the least and have a natural body weight.

In today’s society this is, unfortunately, predictable. Everyone from Jessica Simpson to Tyra Banks, Oprah Winfrey, and Hillary Clinton has fallen victim to this type of image-oriented bullying. Recent pictures of Pierce Brosnan’s wife, Keely Shaye Smith, on the beach in her bikini raised criticism about her weight and choice of bathing suit—as if the woman should be wearing a giant muumuu to swim in the ocean. After Kelly Clarkson’s recent appearance on American Idol, the first commentary I read on the Internet was about her weight gain instead of her singing.

My weight was consistently criticized throughout the campaign. Once someone even suggested I go to a plastic surgeon for liposuction. Afterward, I blogged about loving my body and suggested critics focus their insecurities about women’s bodies elsewhere. On the other side, my mother was constantly slammed for being too skinny, so the weight obsession of the media and our culture goes both ways. It also goes to both parties. Hillary Clinton has consistently received criticism for her pantsuits and figure. Whatever someone’s party, these criticisms are quite obviously both wrong and distracting from the larger issues at play.

The question remains: Why, after all this time and all the progress feminists have made, is weight still such an issue? And in Laura’s case, why in the world would a woman raise it? Today, taking shots at a woman’s weight has become one of the last frontiers in socially accepted prejudice.

[From The Daily Beast]

Bravo, Meghan. This is probably the most eloquent celebrity response to this topic I’ve ever read. Notice how she doesn’t even try to make us believe she’s a size two, like a couple other celebs I could name. Instead, she just asks, why is this an issue? And she’s absolutely right. As I said yesterday, I don’t care if Jessica Simpson can’t fit into her short shorts. If I’m going to go to her concert, I only care that she can sing well. And I really don’t need to see a week-long special report on CNN about Oprah’s weight gain. I am not a fan of Meghan’s dad, but I’m with her on this topic. Enough, already!

The thought of Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt spending time in a war zone is pretty appealing to most people. But the possibility of them somehow getting a little bit of good publicity is utterly sickening. The disgusting duo are pimping out their new friendship with (presumed) republican presidential candidate John McCain’s daughter Meghan, and are trying to use their new connections to finagle a trip to Iraq.

… Senator John McCain — or at least his daughter — has certainly struck up a friendship with a Hollywood celebrity — who’s none other than Heidi Montag. The Hills star, who has voiced her support for the Republican presidential hopeful, has been in close contact with Sen. McCain’s daughter, Meghan.

“She’s very sweet,” Heidi tells Extra. “We have a lot in common.” That includes their support of the troops. Meghan is trying to engineer a trip to Iraq for Heidi and fiancé Spencer Pratt. “Her dad definitely has some pull with the military,” Spencer says. “I think she’s going to put that together for us.”

Heidi is determined to entertain the troops overseas as her late stepbrother Eric O’Hara served in the 82nd Airborne Division. He wasn’t killed during duty, but passed in a freak accident back home in Colorado. “My brother was an airborne ranger in Afghanistan and Iraq,” she says. “It’s very important to me and important to Spencer to support the troops and go over there.”

[From OK! Magazine]

Oh please. Don’t make this sound like anything more than what it really is: more fodder for your pathetic “celebrity.” I’ve never seen any couple set up more obvious, cheesy, and trite photo ops in my life. Heidi and Spencer on a horse-drawn carriage in Central Park! Heidi and Spencer catching a fly ball at the baseball game! Heidi and Spencer running through a field of daisies!

Look I appreciate supporting the troops, but that’s clearly not what this is. And it’s just crass for Heidi to use her deceased stepbrother to make it sound like something deeper than what it is. You want your pictures on the pages of OK! And you’re desperate to be taken seriously; but the harder the two of you try, the worse you look. Just give up, make your sex tape, get into some minor-league legal trouble and fade into oblivion with the rest of the Q-list celebs.

Here’s Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt having lunch on Robertson Boulevard in L.A. on Friday. Don’t you pose like that when you eat? It looks ever so natural. Images thanks to PR Photos.

A few months ago Heidi Montag loudly proclaimed that she was a proud republican and voting for John McCain. Oh, and a really, really big Christian. Now this all came as a surprise for a few reasons. First, the thought that Heidi Montag even understood that there are two political parties in this country – and could name them – was nothing short of heart-stopping. Then she actually remembered the name of the presumptive nominee. It made you really question just how stupid she was. Instead of being bumble bee dumb, it turns out she’s only like… Jessica Simpson dumb. Which is definitely at least two notches against being as dumb as a bug. I have no idea where I’m going with this.

Anyway, John McCain thanked Heidi for her support, and publicly professed his love of The Hills. I can totally see McCain lounging around on a Sunday night watching reruns on MTV3 while drinking some kind of fruity beverage that comes in a can. Now it seems that Heidi, 22, (or more likely Spencer) is trying to work the political angle in some way. She was spotted having lunch with McCain’s 24-year-old blogger daughter Meghan yesterday.

Heidi Montag had a lunch date with John McCain’s daughter Meghan.

The two were photographed outside the Ivy on the Shore restaurant in Santa Monica, Calif., on Tuesday. Montag, 21, and Meghan, 23, even shared a hug before departing.

They definitely had stuff to talk about.

In April, Usmagazine.com broke the news of Montag (who just registered to vote) endorsing John McCain as president.

“I’m a Republican, and McCain has a lot of experience,” she told Us.

John McCain returned the favor, telling Time: “I’m honored to have Heidi’s support, and I want to assure her that I never miss an episode of The Hills.”

[From Us Weekly]

Does anybody else find this as absolutely horrifying as I do? What could possibly be the reason for this? I bet you anything Heidi is angling for some sort of cabinet position. I mean really, what in the world could possibly be going on here? Is Meghan McCain really so hard up for friends that she’ll take any tramp off the street to lunch? I’m really horrified at the thought that the McCain campaign might try to use Heidi to lock in some sort of idiot youth vote. Not that young people who vote are idiots, or that young republicans are necessarily idiots… but anyone who’d place any value on one of the twelve thoughts in Heidi Montag’s head is definitely an idiot.

I am so scared at what kind of political commercials I’m going to be seeing in the next few months. Something tells me it’ll involve Heidi, Spencer, some type of photogenic picnic with several types of freshly cut melons, and an elephant. Oh and John McCain just happens to saunter by. Hilarity ensues.

Here’s Heidi Montag at the re-launch of PinkIsTheNewBlog.com at S Bar in Hollywood on June 11th; Photographer: Rachel Worth. Image thanks to WENN.; and Meghan McCain at the White House Correspondents Dinner in D.C. on April 28th.