This morning, the panel was discussing CNN’s recent decision to have reporters say the full “N-word” when quoting other people. Whoopi Goldberg introduced the topic, agreeing with the logic that calling it “the N-word” sanitizes the original meaning. Though Barbara Walters agreed with Whoopi that “if you are quoting someone else, shouldn’t you be able to use the word?” she refused to actually say it herself, and admitted she would be reluctant to say it if she was put in that position.

Jenna Talackova, the transgender beauty queen who is hoping to compete in the Donald Trump-owned Miss Universe pageant, was on The View this morning to talk about her efforts to overturn a rule that mandates that contestants be “naturally born female.” She was very soft-spoken and measured about the controversy, answering a lot of awkward questions gracefully (like whether or not she has “normal sexual relations” with her boyfriend). She explained that she has known she was a woman “since [she] was conscious,” and later made it official with hormones and drastic sex reassignment surgery.

The co-hosts jumped immediately into a discussion of Bristol Palin’s decision to move in with her boyfriend, a development which Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar seemed to view as Palin reneging on her vow of born-again virginity. Elisabeth Hasselbeck was of the mind that it was definitely possible for two young people in their twenties who are dating to live together and stay celibate — in face, she referred to “born again virginity” as her “method of birth control now.” Whaaaaat.

Oh, there was lots of evocative imagery on The View today! The cohosts were discussing a recent wave of conservative endorsements for Mitt Romney, from George Pataki to former candidate Jon Huntsman. The common thread in these endorsements was that nobody seemed all that excited about making them, which Elisabeth Hasselbeck ascribed to Sore Loser Syndrome (“Once a competitor, always a competitor”).

Nikki Haley, the young Indian-American governor of South Carolina, was on The View to talk about her new book Can’t Is Not An Option, but the segment ended up going in a surprising number of directions. First, Barbara Walters asked Haley about rumors that Mitt Romney may be considering her as his running mate in the 2012 election. She deflected the rumors by saying that if asked, she would refuse, since she “made a promise to the people of [South Carolina]” to serve her term through 2015.

The View was on hiatus when the Trayvon Martin story began to slowly spiral out of control, so it was a given that some attention would be paid to the growing scandal when the show returned this morning.

Oh The View, your particular blend of news, politics and whimsy was sorely missed over the last two weeks!

In a move that’s sure to delight some people, shock others, and confuse the rest, NBC has booked none other than Sarah Palin to guest-host Tuesday’s edition of the TODAY Show. The network’s decision comes on the heels of ABC’s announcement that Katie Couric will be guest-hosting Good Morning America this week, whom Palin has an infamous media connection to.

It was ostensibly an opportunity to interview Annie Potts about her new ABC show, GCB, which stands for “Good Christian Bitches” because that’s the world we live in now.

Well, The View panel took the opportunity to get real personal this morning while discussing an interview with 7-months-pregnant Jessica Simpson, who was very candid about revealing that being with child has improved her sex life.

On the show this morning, Whoopi Goldberg brought up a recent decision by the Transportation Security Administration to give traveling seniors over 75 a break when going through security, allowing them to leave their shoes on and be subjected to fewer pat downs in line.

Earlier on today’s episode of The View, Barbara Walters noted that, while she didn’t want to get personal, “some of us [on the panel] are making more than our husbands.” (Sherri Shepherd seemed to nod at this point — interesting!) Walters wanted to know how, when women are the breadwinners, they can still make their husbands feel like they’re “on top…so to speak.”

This morning, the panel talked about a new bill introduced to regulate the sale of Viagra, as a clear symbolic response to the debate over hormonal birth control that has been raging during the primary season, and whose flames were stoked by Rush Limbaugh over a week ago.

We really have nothing important to talk about in this country, so why don’t we spend a lot of time chatting about a trashy ABC show? Yes, it’s Desperate Housewives moved into the South: GCB. It’s a show so heinous and anti-Christian, it’s become a talking point in a presidential campaign. On Fox News today, liberal radio host Alan Colmes and conservative columnist James Pinkerton debated whether or not the show presents a negative portrayal of Christians.

“We can’t seem to get away from Rush Limbaugh,” Barbara Walters said at the beginning of today’s episode of The View. Yes, the controversial radio host was the first hot topic on the show. Again. This time, the panel was discussing an open letter written by Jane Fonda, Gloria Steinem and Robin Morgan calling for Limbaugh’s show to be taken off the air, because although he may be “constitutionally entitled to his opinions,” they argued that he was not entitled to express them on the radio.

After almost a week of hearing about KONY 2012, the campaign is slowly but surely coming under a lot of warranted skepticism. Any activist video that starts by spending two minutes on the power of liking YouTube videos and Facebook statuses should raise a few eyebrows. But what other viral marketing campaign can tout “taking down a Ugandan warlord” as one of its ultimate goals? This highly controversial campaign was debated by the panelists on This Week today, with half of them sharing their skepticism of the campaign and the other half singing its praises.

Newt Gingrich is spending his day campaigning to Republican crowds in the South, and took the opportunity to defend the Christian Southern demographic from the smears of the “elite media.” The culprit this time? ABC, for airing a show entitled “GCB” (“Good Christian Bitches”), which proves, according to Gingrich, that “anti-Christian bigotry is just fine in the entertainment industry” but the same of Islam is not.

Well, today was a weird day! 50 Cent was on The View, looking pretty uncomfortable, to promote a new book he wrote on bullying, and also a line of headphones he designed that are linked to a charity that provides meals to people in third world countries with every purchase.

Bill O’Reilly was one of the featured guests on The View this morning , and they rolled out the red carpet for him (i.e. he got to sit on the couch rather than join them at the table. The hosts wasted no time asking him his opinion on the Rush Limbaugh debacle, which he characterized as “inappropriate.” He went on to say that Rush’s remarks obscured the bigger issue, which is the “entitlement state versus Ms. Fluck’s [sic] opinion” on birth control.

Barbara Walters took a brief detour from pop psychology studies and “Dance Moms” footage to run down the list of Super Tuesday primary winners for the panel, noting Mitt Romney’s ever-expanding lead (although he is still several hundred delegates short of securing the nomination).

The View tackled Kirk Cameron’s rather controversial views on homosexuality, which he was asked about in a recent Piers Morgan Tonight appearance. Cameron told Morgan that he thought that homosexuality was detrimental to society, and that if one of his six children believed he or she was gay he would do his best to talk him or her out of it. Yiiiiikes! Elisabeth Hasselbeck admitted that, although her walls used to be festooned with Kirk Cameron memorabilia when she was a teenager, she finds him to be completely in the wrong here.

The Rush Limbaugh birth control scandal of 2012 rages on, and The View panel took a moment to discuss the fallout, including the twelve advertisers who have pulled funding from the show since the backlash from his remarks about Sandra Fluke began.

A few minutes ago, we received one of our more comical newswire tips from one David Metter, with polite but clear instructions: “Dear lord Alex Trebek just did his Trebekian bullshit with pronunciations and mispronounced ‘Tobias Fünke’ on tonight’s Jeopardy. Please mock him accordingly.” Could it really be that bad?, we wondered. It is, but not how we expected: the hilarity of this clip from tonight’s Jeopardy is actually the accuracy of Trebek’s pronunciation– he takes his umlauts seriously.

The View had newly famous Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke on the show today, after Fluke was referred to as a “slut” and a “prostitute” by Rush Limbaugh on his radio show last week.

Kardashian family matriarch Kris Jenner completed The View panel this morning, and she wasted no time getting into uncomfortable subjects when she began talking about her efforts to keep things “spicy” in her 21 year marriage to Bruce Jenner. Yikes!