Whoopi: 'Radar' Cover Will Hurt the Children

Whoopi Goldberg prefers offending to being offended.

On The View this morning, Goldberg chastised Radar magazine for its spoof cover featuring Rudy Giuliani, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama re-creating the Tom Ford Vanity Fair cover.

"I know people are going to keel over when I say this, but whether it's the Republicans or the Democrats, sometimes you go over the line," she lectured. "I thought this was a little over the line especially if it's out where kids can see it, and it makes us look like we're disrespectful.... Just because we have freedom of the press doesn't mean we have to misuse it." (You can watch her remarks here.)

Can this be the same woman who lost her contract as Slim-Fast's spokeswoman after comparing President Bush to that other kind of bush in a dirty monologue at a John Kerry fundraiser? (Kids under 18: I'm talking about shrubbery.)

Goldberg was not particularly concerned about sounding "disrespectful" or "over the line" at that time. Her response to the brouhaha: "While I can appreciate what the Slim-Fast people need to do in order to protect their business, I must also do what I need to do as an artist, as a writer and as an American -- not to mention as a comic."

Logrolling disclosure: I worked at Radar up until August, and contributed a piece to the November issue. Unfortunately, I had nothing whatsoever to do with thinking up the current cover, which is getting them way more press than anything we published in my time there.