A surprisingly sane take from a venue not exactly known for its cool assessments and long-range perspective, shall we say. If Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had thrown the race card on Dan Crenshaw, Meghan McCain would likely have been the only critical voice on The View. Instead, AOC gets an earful from the entire panel for tossing it at Nancy Pelosi, with Whoopi Goldberg whipped up to the point of declaring that The Squad had better start working with Pelosi, or else “you’re not allowed to bitch about this!”

Joy Behar started off wondering why Ocasio-Cortez and her three Squad members aren’t focusing on the real “enemy,” as in The Tweeter in Chief. But even Behar was nonplussed about Ocasio-Cortez’ insinuation that Pelosi is a racist:

“Ladies, ladies. It’s like — it’s disheartening. It’s like the enemy is the guy tweeting in his toilet,” Behar said. Like Goldberg, she pushed back on the idea that Pelosi harbored racist sentiments. “I don’t know about going to race right away — it’s like really? that’s where you go right away? I thought that that was a bit much, frankly.” Goldberg also knocked freshmen for their apparent lack of compromise. “Women of color, watch me now. Let’s keep this in mind, do you think Nancy Pelosi wanted to pass a half-assed bill? No, the moderates were the problem and I would say to these women.” … She added that if Ocasio-Cortez and others did not try to reach out and persuade moderates, they shouldn’t complain about legislation. “If you’re not going to do that, you’re not allowed to b—h about this.”

Meghan McCain at first channeled the delight of nearly everyone on the right by saying she wanted Democrats to “fight it out,” but circled around to defending Pelosi as a civil servant worthy of respect. Missing from this entire conversation, though, was a recognition or even a mention of the Democratic habit of tossing race cards at their critics and why AOC’s attempt to play it on Pelosi is hardly surprising. That was an opportunity that unfortunately passed, but at least this is good for another few minutes of popcorn-passing.

Update: Worth noting as more flavoring for the popcorn, anyway:

Rep. Lacy Clay just unloaded on @AOC , her chief of staff and Justice Democrats in the Speaker's Lobby, calls them "juvenile," says "their ignorance is beyond belief": "You’re getting push back so you resort to using the race card? Unbelievable." — Jonathan Easley (@JonEasley) July 11, 2019

Can’t wait for the inevitable “ageist” comeback from AOC & The Squad.