There's a large studio audience for this show which taped yesterday and is airing today. An interesting fashion statement: all the women of The View are dressed in black and white. Whoopi Goldberg begins by saying that it's a historic moment in television as it's the first time a sitting president has been on daytime TV. Then the four co-hosts welcome back Barbara Walters after her long absence. After a brief chat about Barbara's experiences, the subject turns to the upcoming interview.

The following is a rough transcript that either quotes the participants or paraphrases their comments:

Whoopi Goldberg: I am happy to be the first daytime TV talk show host to say these words, 'After we come back, President Barack Obama will be here.'

BREAK

(Video of Obama being sworn in and stumbling over his words.)

Barbara Walters: We're honored to welcome the 44th president of the United States, Barack Obama.

The president comes on and hugs/kisses each of the women. They're all seated on the yellow couch set: Whoopi Goldberg (WG), Barbara Walters (BW), President Barack Obama (BO), Joy Behar (JB), Sherri Shepherd (SS), Elisabeth Hasselbeck (EH).

BW:You've gotten a beating in the last month. Do you think it's wise to come on The View?

BO: I wanted to come on a show that Michelle actually watches.

BW: Do you really watch The View?

BW: Of course, and I've been on before....These couches are made for little people. and if you're taller, you have to snuggle in a little.

BW: I understand you sit down at night and do the rose and the thorn with your daughters [good and bad of the day]. In the last month, what's been the rose and what's been the thorn?

BO: Trip to Maine was the rose. We went on bike rides and hikes. They're not yet teenagers so they still like me. Malia just turned 12 and Sasha turned 9, so it was a great time.

The country's been going through a tough time. When I was inaugurated, we lost 750,000 jobs a month. We've been stabilizing the economy. We've also had two wars, the oil spill, the pandemic - H1N1. Economy is stabilizing and it's great to see the American people so resilient despite losing jobs, seeing their 401Ks go down. They were made optimistic and hopeful.

BW: Biggest thorn this past week?

BO: The reason this is hard to answer is because what the media focuses on is not what I have to focus on. I have to sign letters to families who've lost soldiers in the war. That puts things in perspective.

JB: You've signed more than 200 laws -- you've done a great deal but Fox News is hijacking the narrative. What's your narrative? Where's your attack dog to come out and tell the narrative?

BO: When times are tough, there's going to be a political argument. I volunteered for this job, politics is a contact sport. What frustrates me is the sense that we shouldn't be campaiging all the time. For the past 20 months we've been trying to govern. We're trying t o help small businesses because they generate jobs. There are legitimate differences between the parties. I try to listen to the crtiticism and take it into account.

EH: It's truly an honor to have you have here. We're a very divided nation and we hoped there'd be a uniting factor after you took office. Are you frustrated that there isn't a feeling of uniting?

BO: Yes I am. The politics of the economic recovery, the saving of the auto industry, all that is controversial. We live in a time when we're thinking about the next election. I try to set a tone that we can agree to disagree, but the media loves conflict. They won't cover stories in which we come together.

SS: We have Shirley Sherrod and a lot of people thought we'd get beyond race. Is America still racist?

BO: We've made a lot of progress. I had a phone conversation with Shirley Sherrod -- she recognizes how much progress we've made. It's a testament to how far we've come. But the problem is that a 24/7 media cycle always looking for news didn't get to the facts first. A lot of peole didn't check.

When it comes to race, there's still discrimination but we need to treat people with fairness and stand in their shoes. When you look at the next generation -- I talk to Malia and Sasha's friends -- they have healthier attitudes than Michelle and I do, and we have healthier attitudes than our parents.

WG: Remember the movie Look Who's Coming to Dinner? The character says to his father, "You think of yourself asa Negro man, and I think of myself as a man." Who are we?

BO: We're Americans going through common dreams and sturggles. Everyobody here is connected and our successes are tied up. Most Americans feel this way but there's a repitilan side of our brains that says if smoebody looks and sounds different, we're cautious. That's what Shirley Sherrod whas trying to say: I have my own biases, but if I look inward and reflect I can get beyond my biases. No one in America can get beyond their biases.

BW: You don't describe yourself as a black President. Your mother was white. Why don't you describe yourself as biracial?

BO: WHen I was young and going through a teenage identity crisis, I realized  if the world saw me as African American, that was something I didn't need to run away from. We're a multiracial poplulation. That's thrue of white Americans but we (African Americans) know more about it. I'm more interested in how we treat each other. What matters is am I showing other people respect?

BW: We'll be right back with President Barack Obama.

BREAK

(Clip of Obama's acceptance speech on Election Night.)

BO: I didn't have as much grey hair.

JB: The presidency ages everyone.

EH: You said the stimulus bill would cap unemployment at 8%. In my home state of Rhode Island unemployment is hurting people. You claim that there are saved jobs. It's frustrating to here you boasting about saved jobs when theyr'e losing jobs and there aren't saved jobs. How can you claim this?

BO: We gained private sectors jobs and have done so for 5 consecutive months. You're right --  it's not enough. The frustration is entirely justified. But the gains are measured not just by my standards,  ELisabeth. Economists came forward including John McCain's. They said if we hadn't saved those jobs, we'd be in a great depression right now.

EH: But saved, I don't think....

IBO: (interrupting) If your job was saved I wouldn't think you'd be unhappy. The states got saved. If the states weren't saved, we would have had to lay off firefighters, police officers,  teachers. We went through the worst crisis since the Depression. We're not bouncing back fast enough, but we've made small steps. We've met with folks in Edison NJ who want to grow and expand. We've got a bill that's tangled up in Congress. We're going to o keep pushing and the economy will grow when businesses are profitable again. We are still stagnating. When people get more confident, we'll grow.

The auto industry is a good example. When we went in to restructure, we bailed out an industry we'd been bailing out for years but never before had we asked for anything in return. Now Chrysler and GM are turning a profit and rehiring 50,000 workers. We're going to get that money back and we're developing clean car technology that will make us a world leader. We've got a long way to go. Don't bet against American workers and American ingenuity. We've bot better techonoogy, workers, and universities. We'll get our mojo back and do terrific.

BW: We need to discuss Afghanistan. Congress voted to spend another $59 bilion but a lot of Democrats refusedd to vote for it. Secret documents surfaced. We say we're there because of Al Qaeda. Why don't we get out?

BO: We need to bring an end to the war in iraq. All the leaks that came out in the wikileaks confirmed what I said during the campaign. Afghanistan is under-resourced. We're ending our combat oerations in Iraq because of the heroism of troops and the Iraqi people. We've got a lot of work to do in Afghanistan and in the areas between it and Pakistan. That's stil the epicenter of terrorism.

We need a stable Afghanistan and Pakistan. We'll give the opportunity to the Afghan government to stabilize and then we'll start thinning out troop next June. We have real chaos in this region with no functioning goverment, and terrorist affiliates are able to operate. Our military has been sacrificing. At a certain point we meed to focus on nation-builidng here, but we need to finish what whe started over there.

EH: We'll return with President Barack Obama after this break.

BREAK

JB: Back with President Obama. You thought that was tough? I want your fast responses in this lightning round. Did you know Lindsay Lohan is in jail?

BO: Knew that.

JB: Does Mel Gibson need anger management?

BO: I, I...(stumbles) I haven't seen a Mel Gibson movie in a while.

JB: Should Snookie run as mayor of Wasilla?

BO: I've gotta say I don't know who Snookie is.

JB: You don't know any pop culture and that's good news.

SS: Do you tweet?

BO: I don't tweet on a regular basis. I think some twentysomething is doing that for me. I have a blackberry but only 10 people have it. Since it's subject to the presidential records act nobody sends me anything fun.

EH: Thinkin g about switching to the iPhone?

BO: I have an iPod. (Asked about his top ten songs) I have Jay-Z. Frank Sinatra. Maria Callas. I do not have Justin Bieber but I've met him. He came to sing at the White House. He's a nice young man.

SS: Going to Chelsea Clinton's wedding?

BO: I am not going. Tough enough to have one president there.

BW: Were you invited?

BO: I was not and Bill and Hillary wanted to keep this Chelsea's thing. I"m telling you now that you all won't be invited to Malia's and Sasha's weddings. We want to maintain their privacy.

BW: Have boyse entered the picture for the girls?

BO: Thankfully not.

SS: We'll return with President Obama.

WG: You've been in office 18 months. You've not begun to walk on water though people expected you too. You're accused of being too slow on BP and too fast on Shirley Sherrod. Can you win as President? Are you on Zoloft?

BO: Last 20 months have been as challenging as they were satifying. But every American will be able to get health insurance even with pre-existing conditions. Kids can't buy cigarettes. We've got tough credit card laws. We've saved the economy from a great depression and created reforms in education so more kids will go to college.

EH: Will they have jobs when they get out?

BO: They'll create these jobs through innovating in small businesses. I feel very optimistic. The reason I seem calm at all times is because I try to take the long view. If I do a good job today, someday down the road it'll pay off.

BW: Your poll ratings are so low. Dos that bother you?

BO: Washington is obsessed with polls. I can compare and say I'm higher than Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton. I'm focused on whether or not I'm making  the best decision for the American public. Good policy is good politics.

BW: What do you want your legacy to be?

BO: This is a time when we've tackled a bunch of issues that we put off:  Health care. Education. Energy policy. I'm optimistic becasue of the American peole. They're full of drive and pluck. No reason why we shouldn't be the greatest country on earth for decades to come. We need to remind ourselves why we're great. We need to continue this extraordinary journey.

BW: Thank you for coming on.

BO: I had a wonderful time.

Related article: Michelle Obama on The View - Notes & Quotes

ABC is crowing that it's a first -- the first time a sitting president has been on a daytime show. When No. 44 -- Barack Obama -- appears on ABC's The View later today, he'll not only set a precedent. He'll pull the show's five female co-hosts out of their pop culture comfort zone and into the annals of American political history.

Barbara Walters, Joy Behar, and Whoopi Goldberg are up to the challenge. But what about Sherri Shepherd in general and Elisabeth Hasselbeck in particular? Appearing on Survivor as a contestant isn't the usual route taken by a broadcast journalist in order to earn the kind of credentials and develop the skills that qualify her for the biggest interview on the planet -- a sit-down with the Leader of the Free World.

I've been uneasy about Obama going on The View ever since the story first broke. My concern has little to do with gender and everything to do with the growing trend of news as entertainment.

The View is not a news show and has never claimed to be one. The only journalist on the show is Barbara Walters. Granted, some of the women are politically active; Joy Behar has her own show on another network and is no cream-puff interviewer. (Remember John McCain's View appearance?)

But it's notoriously difficult to do a multiple host interview. I've co-hosted a daytime talk show and know the rhythms of conversation between two people change when you add a third, or a fourth, or more. It's tougher to be substantive and make your key points; group interviews on-air tend to be more casual, less insightful, and thinner in content. This is not what we need from the president at this time.

Obama won the election in part because his team mastered the art of creating an effective online presence that mobilized people to contribute, volunteer, and vote. He hasn't quite mastered the art of appearing on TV, and any previous successes on the campaign trail have been obliterated by several poor performances as president. In a sense, stepping into the White House has set that counter back to zero.   He's already been on Leno and Letterman in recent months, but those were one-on-one interviews and different from the potential free-for-all that his appearance on The View could descend into.

The best thing that could happen would be for Barbara Walters to take the lead and guide the conversation. The others could ask a question here or there, but joking around with comments that he's a sexy president or trying to get him to confess to a superficial detail (like Michelle Obama did during her time on The View when she said she didn't wear pantyhose) would not serve the show or the president.

I want The View to rise to the occasion and prove to the nation that smart women can have substantive conversations.

I don't want President Obama to dumb down to the level of most daytime TV talk shows and make small talk about inconsequential matters. We're in the midst of an ongoing recession with no clear end in sight, a war in Afghanistan that few believe we can win, and an open-ended environmental disaster due to the Gulf oil spill and a botched response by this administration. We need answers and we need leadership. We don't need a feel-good appearance designed to reverse falling poll numbers and dispel the bad taste in our mouths following last week's public humiliation of civil servant Shirley Sherrod.

If Obama goes light, the fallout will be twofold: 1) he will cheapen the image of the presidency and give Limbaugh, Beck and Fox News an excuse to scream "media whore!" and 2) the women of The View will blow their chance to prove that daytime TV can be as issues-oriented as the Sunday morning political talk shows...and that women deserve more than a token seat at that particular table.

I hope my uneasiness is unfounded and that The View is a win-win situation for everyone concerned. I hope Obama's appearance is more newsworthy than entertaining, and that he can maintain his dignity while revealing his compassion and humanity. In short, I hope The View reacquaints us with a view of Barack Obama that has dimmed in our collective mind's eye -- Obama as the embodiment of change and hope, and a man worthy of our votes and our trust.

Here on this blog I constantly rail against and complain about the rampant sexism women endure, both globally and at home. And as many female readers know, every time I do -- especially when it concerns female genital mutilation, fat acceptance and pressure to be thin, pornography, gender bias in advertising -- men drop in to post comments along the lines of "If you're so opposed to sexism how come you don't bring up sexism against men? We put up with a lot of crap but you ignore that."

For women who've experienced gender bias on a regular basis, it can be hard to have much sympathy for that argument. Leena -- an occasional commenter on this site -- once noted, "Why is it that whenever someone writes a piece about women and girls there are so many comments arguing that boys and men have it just as bad or worse?"

Maybe they do, but hey, they're men, right? They're supposed to just suck it up and deal with it, not whine like a bunch of babies. (Long pause.) That was a joke -- a sexist joke -- riddled with stereotypes and as derogatory as any comment made about women. Individuals -- regardless of their gender -- are harmed by sweeping generalizations, behavioral expectations, and assumptions based solely on sex.

That's the issue Greta Christina addressed in a recent piece at Alternet.org, "5 Stupid, Unfair and Sexist Things Expected of Men." Here's her rationale:

...[W]e don't talk as much about how sexism hurts men. Understandably. When you look at the grotesque ways women are damaged by sexism -- from economic inequality to political disenfranchisement to literal, physical abuse -- it makes perfect sense that we'd care more about how sexism and patriarchy and rigid gender roles affect women, than we do about how they affect men.

But men undoubtedly get screwed up by this stuff, too. Not screwed up as badly as women, to be sure... but not trivially, either. I care about it. And I think other feminists -- and other women and men who may not see themselves as feminists -- ought to care about it, too.

To put together her list, she says she asked "friends, colleagues, family members, community members, guys I know on the Internet -- what kinds of expectations they get about Being A Man and how those expectations affect them."

The list is what you'd expect, but what's surprising is the intensity of the reactions of men who are candid about hating many of the cultural 'norms' they're supposed to live up to. The man code, it turns out, is less a brotherhood than a fraternity that harshly hazes every individual born with a Y chromosome. Many men don't like it, but to talk about it is to risk being labeled "less than a man."

One might make the argument that if males were liberated from these cultural expectations, we would see fewer men and boys engaged in fighting over their turf, showing aggression, dominating and controlling those around them. The fallout would be that women would benefit. If power became a non-issue for men, then perhaps we'd see a reduction in rape, assault, sexual abuse, prostitution, and pornography.

I'll still write about the injustices women and girls endure, and I'll still bristle when a guy posts that he has it just as bad. But I'll better understand what he's trying to say: that the oppression men face may not be as visible as the oppression women encounter, but it's just as insidious and damaging to one's sense of self. Although the saying, "a rising tide lifts all boats" is most often applied to economic events, the same principle can be applied to women's rights. If we battle sexism on all fronts, everybody wins.

Coffee may fuel a good portion of the American public, but female friendships fuel national chains like Starbucks, Panera, Au Bon Pain, Barnes and Noble Cafe, Borders Cafe, and others.

Funny how liquids play a role in women bonding.

Our ancestors gathered at the village fountain ostensibly to scrub clothes and haul water, but really to spend quality time with girlfriends. Today, front-loading washers and indoor plumbing force us to turn elsewhere. Coffeehouses and cafes are the new village fountain -- a place to meet and catch up with each other -- without the rough knuckles and backbreaking labor.

The atmosphere attracts high school and college students, young mothers, business professionals, empty nesters, retirees and seniors. I'm frequently there, hunched over my computer, overhearing the usual conversations: mothers cajoling kids to eat, teens talking about guys and school, random complaints about work and relationships.

The latter often includes a familiar gripe: how men continually disappoint women because what women want from men is rarely what they get.

Typically these confessional chats don't sink in. This afternoon, however, I found myself paying attention to the table next to me. Three women in their fifties shared stories the way old friends do when they're familiar with each other's personal dramas. Each talked about what was bothering her but also stated exactly what she wanted from her husband...and wasn't getting.

They weren't merely complaining. They were trying to problem-solve and connect with the men in their lives.

Writing for a women's issues website, I find a lot of people assume that "women's issues" means "feminazi propaganda." Women are regarded as castrating man-haters whenever we speak from the heart about the very real gender divide in our society.

As the conversation at the next table proved, that couldn't be farther from the truth.

From what I gathered, all three women just wanted the same thing from the men in their lives:

• to be closer to each other
• to spend quality time together
• to have their needs understood and met
• to pursue mutual interests
• to enjoy the same freedom as their husbands
• to feel genuinely cared for

I was captivated by what they were saying. But eavesdropping on -- and then writing down and publishing on the internet -- the thoughts of total strangers is not how my mother raised me to behave. So I screwed up my nerve, approached the group, told them what I did for a living, and asked if they'd be willing to answer the question, "What do women want from men?"

They obliged.

Here's what three anonymous women -- who could be any of our neighbors, co-workers, relatives or friends -- wanted from the men in their lives:

Do things with me, spend time with me. Things that I'd like to do, not just what you want to do.

If you have a lack of confidence in yourself, then it's your issue to deal with. Don't try to control me to prove something.

Don't take me for granted and assume I'll always be there. If you take our relationship for granted you might be surprised at how things eventually turn out.

Grow along with me and enjoy life with me. Don't be afraid if I try new things, start to climb the ladder of success, or advance in some way that makes you feel insecure. Don't act like a jerk if I do well.

Don't expect me to do everything; please help around the house. Just like you, I work a full-time job. So why am I always the one to cook and clean? If I ask you to cook dinner now and then and you make an excuse like "I can't...I don't know what time I'll be home,"  since we're home the same time every night, that just tells me that you don't care and aren't willing to help.

We're a team, so let's share the load. Yes, you saw your mother cook and clean and take care of the kids, but it's a different world now and I'm not your cook, your cleaner, your servant. I'm your wife and we're in this together.

Realize our relationship is a partnership. You may feel the need to dominate, but this isn't about who wins because it doesn't matter. This isn't about you, or me, it's about us. It's about making our relationship better -- a true partnership.

Although the authors of the above manifesto agreed on anonymity, I asked if they wanted to choose names for themselves. "Just call us the Panera Girls," quipped the most vocal one of the three, taking their name from the ubiquitous chain.

The Panera Girls represent just one slice of American society...and my overhearing their conversation was a completely chance occurrence. You could have been one of the Panera Girls, or Starbucks Sisters, or Barnes & Noble Broads if we'd sat next to each other and your conversation caught my attention. Yet I think these three women are onto something, and I hope to revisit this and other topics with them in the future...if I can find them again. (Even I don't know who they are.)

Do you agree with the Panera Girls? Did they get it right about what women want from men? Or do women of different ages in different stages of their lives want different things from men?

If you were sitting at the next table (or hauling water at the village fountain) talking about this topic, what might I overhear?

Revised July 28, 2010.