Even Elisabeth Hasselbeck, the shows resident right-winger, had little to add to the conversation aside from a very practiced and impassioned plea for the working poor whose jobs haven't been saved, a keyword the Obama administration has latched on to. The president looked her directly in the eye, which is what you're supposed to do when being attacked, and rattled off his talking points about the growth of the economy and the jobs being created. Hasselbeck nodded her head in agreement (as did I, but still).

"I don't spend a lot of time worrying about me; I spend a lot of time worrying about them," Obama said, sounding a lot like a stay-at-home mom fretting over the fate of her children. Many of those same moms were probably at home watching.

Now, The View obviously isn't This Week, which premieres this Sunday with new host Christiane Amanpour, who is replacing Good Morning America's newest host, George Stephanopoulos, who replaced Diane Sawyer, who herself replaced Charles Gibson as anchor of World News. The face and gender of morning shows, hard-news magazines and Sunday talk shows is clearly shifting, so it's no big stretch to assume that women can ask tough questions when they want to -- and get them answered.

I definitely didn't want Thursday's red, white and View hour to devolve into the blowhard four-square that dominates cable news punditry, but I still can't help thinking the co-hosts of The View missed an opportunity not to talk at the president but at least to truly talk to him. Maybe that's impossible now. He did admit that only 10 people have his BlackBerry information, and they never send him anything juicy. The president lives in a bubble.

The women rarely interrupted, allowing Obama to put a period on each one of his thoughts, out of respect for his office -- or his gender -- I don't know. They grilled Nadya Suleman like a fish, and I assume they'd do the same to Mel Gibson. "If you're not sick of us yet, then stick around," joked Walters before a commercial break. With a couch as comfortable as theirs ("Who are we?" asked Whoopi), why would he ever leave?

Helena Andrews is a regular contributor to The Root and author of Bitch Is the New Black, a memoir in essays. Follow her on Twitter.

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