Noted Race Expert Barbara Walters Explains Black Families To a Peeved Sherri Shepherd

This is how ingrained Barbara Walters’s reign of passive-aggression has become on The View: her tone-deaf (but well-meaning) attempt to draw a comparison between the Obamas and the Cosbys finally provokes Sherri Shepherd to snap.

“This may not be the politically correct thing to say,” Walters began, as a thousand bloggers perked up their ears. She then went on to praise the Obamas for providing the first positive image of a black family since The Cosby Show…which was not a family comprised of actually real people. Finally, after noting that Barack Obama is a high-profile corrective to the stereotype of straying black fathers (not that Babs has ever contributed to that statistic or anything), Shepherd spoke up to say that Walters needs to get out of her Park Ave. penthouse because the teevee characters are just that: on teevee. “Hmm,” said a chastened Walters. “Is that why that delightful ‘Urkel’ never listens when I insist, ‘But you did do that, Steven. You did do that!’”

• The View [ABC]