Now that Elisabeth Hasselbeck has officially departed “The View” for the conservative echo chamber of Fox News, where she can spout crazy whatever she wants without having to defend herself to Whoopi Goldberg – it makes a certain kind of sense that the leading candidate to join the show is another pretty, divisive blonde. But if ever there were a reason to write off “The View” entirely, the mere thought of Jenny McCarthy smiling out at America every morning ought to close the deal.

When reports first surfaced early this week that McCarthy was in “serious talks” to fill a host’s seat, the choice certainly seemed to make perfect sense. Like Hasselbeck, McCarthy is an attractive presence with a solid history as part of a television team cast (“Singled Out”: NEVER FORGET.) She is also, like Hasselbeck, pretty friggin’ nuts.

In recent years, McCarthy has been best known for her staunch stance against childhood immunization, her firm belief that it was vaccination that caused her son Evan’s autism, and what she has described as her son’s “recovery” from the condition. No matter that the work of Andrew Wakefield, the man who first claimed a link between the MMR vaccine and autism, was later exposed as “an elaborate fraud,” or that McCarthy insists she’s not anti-vaccination — as the head of Generation Rescue, McCarthy still perpetuates the idea of “environmental triggers” and a correlation between autism and vaccination, as well as controversial, unproven advice on “recovery” “treatments.” Yes, by all means, let us give a woman like that an hour a day on network television to perpetuate junk science, and dissuade parents who may be staying at home with their babies from vaccinating their children. Because, hey, what could go wrong with that? It’s not like we’d have outbreaks of childhood diseases or anything.