After a remarkably sedate, breast cancer-themed episode of The View yesterday, the political fur flew once again this morning as Elisabeth Hasselbeck continued to press the last line of Republican defense: Barack Obama's tenuous tie to William Ayers. This time, Joy Behar (over the protests of a sneezing Whoopi Goldberg) tried to raise the issue of Sarah Palin's ties to an Alaska secessionist group, but Elisabeth would not be deterred — and she had a glossy trump card yet to play.

The View's Joy Behar turns 66 today. Maybe she and her fellow co-hosts will take a break from bickering for long enough to eat some cake. Others celebrating: American Idol's Simon Cowell is 49. Taylor Hicks is 32. Toni Braxton is turning 40. John Mellencamp is 57. Rachel McAdams is turning 32. Cellist Yo-Yo Ma is 53. Vladimir Putin is 56. South African icon Desmond Tutu is 77. And Nation editor Katrina Vanden Heuvel is 49.

For all too long, Sherri Shepherd has stayed relatively quiet on The View, keeping a low profile (except for the occasional blow-up at Bill Maher) and generally avoiding the sort of "flat earth" gaffes that would draw the pity spotlight away from her cohost Elisabeth Hasselbeck. Today, though, in the midst of another Hasselbeck political rant about Barack Obama's association with William Ayers, a surprisingly prepared Shepherd jumped in to rebut the show's token conservative with a "Wait, wait, wait — no you don't!"Following her interruption with a laundry list of facts, dates, and counterpoints, Shepherd was eventually cut off by Barbara Walters, who was not ready for the cohost to do anything but smile beatifically and occasionally chirp, "Ludacris!" Is our little Sherri all grown up and ready for war? Watch out, Elisabeth: Sherri Shepherd's got a whole fleet of angel-babies at her command — and they're hungry!

Back when Rosie O'Donnell left The View, many industry watchers predicted the program would quickly return to its safe, easygoing roots (and that ratings would dive as a result). Oh, how they underestimated the Hasselbeck! The election year has provoked The View's resident Republican into a lather almost daily, whether she's obfuscating about Barack Obama or calling an unlikely moratorium on Sarah Palin discussion. In fact, things have gotten so heated lately that rampant speculation had Hasselbeck headed for Fox News, forcing her agent to issue a statement today:

After Elisabeth Hasselbeck nearly brained Barbara Walters yesterday using a coffee mug filled with steaming-hot Republican rage, producers for The View wisely kept Walters away from today's show, though things were just as politically heated. Today — as it often is — the topic was Sarah Palin, and Hasselbeck's had quite enough of that issue, thank you very much!After Joy Behar ran clips of Palin's two biggest gaffes during her recent Katie Couric interview — Palin's inability to name a Supreme Court case she disagreed with or a single newspaper she read — Hasselbeck attempted to defend the vice presidential candidate, then complained that her cohosts spend too much time talking about Sarah Palin and not enough time talking about Barack Obama. Meanwhile, Joe Biden silently weeped at his exclusion, muttering, "What about meeee? I was on SNL once, too!"

Looks like that cooling-off period didn't take! On today's episode of The View, outnumbered McCain booster Elisabeth Hasselbeck finally let out the pent-up rage she'd so coolly kept under wraps during yesterday's Bill Maher appearance, lashing out at Whoopi Goldberg for voicing skepticism about vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.Sensing an opportunity to restore order in the most patronizing way possible, Barbara Walters immediately leapt into the fray (though not with hugs), lavishing backhanded compliments on Hasselbeck while muttering that she's "trying so hard" to understand her point of view. Sadly, Hasselbeck immediately blew whatever sympathy she'd gained from Walters's condescension by dodging a question about Sarah Palin with an answer that inspires booing from the audience. Defection to Fox News coming in 5, 4, 3...

After Bill Maher sat down with TV Guide last month to rip into Sherri Shepherd's religious beliefs, we figured his days of guesting on The View had been put firmly behind him. Imagine our surprise, then, when some crafty producer booked Maher for a slot on today's View to promote his new (to the world outside Claremont) film, the controversial, religion-debunking Religulous. Would sparks fly?Lord, yes. Things came to a head at the end of Maher's segment, when Shepherd asked the skeptical Maher whether he had ever spoken with God. Needless to say, he had not, and when Shepherd replied that she had, Maher recommended a stint in Bellevue. As Whoopi Goldberg hurriedly threw the show to commercial, a grinning Elisabeth Hasselbeck clearly exulted in the fact that for once, she wasn't the controversial one. Who needs a "cooling off" now, eh, Babs?

With the rumor mill buzzing that a discontent Elisabeth Hasselbeck may vacate her cushiony seat on The View for the cool, hard Eames chair of Fox News, it's up to den mother Barbara Walters to restore order on the set of her chat show. True to form, Walters has eschewed hugging it out in favor of a more clinical approach; according to the Chicago Sun-Times, she's had to schedule a staff meeting to deal with the increasingly hot-under-the-collar Hasselbeck:

Though John McCain suspended his presidential campaign yesterday, third party candidate Paris Hilton is still busy courting voters. The heiress dropped in on The View today to replay her famous video rebuking McCain, and the clip prompted an inquisitive Joy Behar to ask, "You're not really going to be able to vote, are you?" After citing a friend who lost his right to vote after spending time in the "slammer," Behar was informed that Hilton did, indeed, still retain the ability. We're sad, too, Joy — the idea that Paris Hilton has any sort of political influence is almost as tragic to us as Whoopi Goldberg's hideous Ed Hardy t-shirt. [The View]

This week on The View, Whoopi Goldberg has been cajoled into throwing caution to the wind and "dressing like a girl" (as Joy Behar so delicately put it). Yes, you read that correctly. Whoopi, whose style has been fondly described by our own Molls as "lesbian train conductor" chic, is trading in her Crocs and oversized collared shirts for Eileen Fisher dresses and patent red leather heels. Sure, she looks good. But her patronizing co-hosts are acting like a proud mother whose little Sally shed all that "baby fat" after being force-fed Nutrisystem for five months. "Look at you, girl, you're wearing a skirt!" cries Babs. "You're so sexy and hot, girl," chimes in Sherri. Gee, you can see Whoopi thinking, did I look that bad? [The View]

John McCain went on The View this morning to talk oversimply about all the typical emotional hot-button issues you'd rather hear Sarah Palin mispronounce stuff while talking about. But shit, Whoopi made it kind of awesome! After getting John McCain to babble off the classic "strict constructionist" platitudes about how the Founding Fathers who wrote the Constitution would have definitely wanted all those hypothetical future states it would annex over the next hundred fifty years to be allowed to decide for themselves whether to outlaw a type of surgery that would gain popularity some time after the invention of reliable anesthesia they could have easily forseen would occur sixty years into the future at the time of the signing…Whoopi asked if she should be worried about returning to slavery!And stupid strict constructionist Republicans: how do they not have a comeback for this one? Has John McCain never spoken to a black person? Because that will actually have to change! Anyway, Barbara Walters saves it by imagining herself as some sort of latter-day Harriet Tubman.

1) On Saturday night, Gwyneth Paltrow co-hosted "The Mane Event" to benefit Amaryllis Farm Equine Rescue with photographer Steven Klein at his West Kill Farm in Bridgehampton. Arden Wohl, Kiera Chaplin, Kelly Klein, Patrick McMullan, Sale Johnson, and Rory Tahari all made appearances, but hotly anticipated guest Madonna was a no show. [NYO/PMc]

Jessica Simpson has officially perfected the art of turning every opportunity to promote whatever is currently going on in her “career” into a public display of desperation. Ever since that gruesome Chicken Or Fish fiasco, we cannot think of a single time the game day curse has appeared on television without making a complete ass of herself. And Jessica managed to continue the pity parade on The View today. Dodging all questions related to her shockingly successful new country single, Simpson instead spun the interview into an embarrassingly blatant attempt to announce to the world how totally in love she and long-suffering QB Tony Romo still are. See Simpson hard at work, and tell us if we’re the only ones noticing a very eerie resemblance between the new Jessica and the bleached, gum-chewing, tear-drenched Britney Spears circa her “We’re just country, y’all!” era.

A visit from Uncle Regis is always a happy occasion for the ladies of The View, but things turned uncharacteristically ugly when, in a discussion about their slim Daytime Emmy chances, Barbara Walters suggested that since "we're just so happy, and since we have"—gesturing to Whoopi Goldberg—"this one," their outlook was sunnier, presumably from the days when the presence of Star Jones and Rosie O'Donnell turned off voters. Veteran panelist Joy Behar didn't quite read between those lines, responding, "I'll turn on you Barbara! I'll turn on you. She has to be kidding. I'll trip you. What—Whoopi's here so now we're gonna win?!" After some frantic earpiece pleading from the Viewmaster, things eventually returned to normal; but staying true to her word, Behar later extended one stiffened leg as Walters wandered into the studio kitchen for her post-taping cup of tea, sending the 78-year-old broadcast legend flying face first into a countertop and Splenda packets flying, and punctuating this premeditated act of brutality with the abrupt, five-word kiss-off, "There's your Emmy chances, bitch." [The View]

• Lily Donaldson, the 21-year-old Vogue cover girl, plunked down $2.2 million on an apartment on Avenue B. Perhaps not coincidentally, she now has about six bars in a three-block radius. [Observer]

[The View cast member Joy Behar outside a comedy show in New York last night; image via WENN]

Joy Behar is a stand-up comic, co-host of The View, and the host of the recently-cancelled The Joy Behar Show on HLN.

· Are things getting a little testy between Joy and Whoopi? Maybe we're reading too much into some rude interruptions and a couple of possible stink-eyes, but we could be looking at the beginning of a Hasselbeck/Rosie kind of dynamic developing on The View. It's been way too long since blood has been spilled on that set.
· It took much longer than we anticipated for Bobby Brown's heart to break after losing Whitney.
· Esquire names its Sexiest Woman Alive (Until Next Year), prompting Maxim to retaliate in a rather uncharitable fashion.
· Nora Ephon has made us rethink everything we thought we knew about egg-white omelets.
· NBC's perfect storm never mises a chance to work a party.

The inexplicable mystery of Elisabeth Hasselbeck's continuing employment at "The View" has finally been solved: She serves as personal deboogenator for the rest of the staff. [WARNING: Contains footage of a grown woman picking another grown woman's nose.]

Rosie. Barbara. Joy. That crazy religious broad with the menstrual cycle. While these pioneering feminist icons are justly praised in story and song, we feel that one member of The View has received far too little attention. We speak, of course, of the interchangeable black chick, the rotating cast member whose dusky presence provides the extra soup on of multiculturalism that makes the show just right. Here's to you, ever-changing black lady: You're living proof that as long as you're pleasant, photogenic, and, you know, black, you'll always have a seat at the table.