Take a deep breath: Elisabeth Hasselbeck, the comely conservative voice on The View, is not headed to Fox News.

Although she's clashed repeatedly with her fellow Viewers over the presidential campaign and various social issues and was said to be "really unhappy" according to a report in the Chicago Sun-Times, the wife, mother and McCain supporter wants to let the public know she's not headed over to the fair and balanced confines of Fox.

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BOB D'AMICO/ABC

Usually a hotbed of friendly hostility onscreen, The View was reportedly a hotbed of good vibrations backstage this week. That's because musician and erotic boutique owner Dave Stewart, of Eurhythmics fame, brought samples of his sex-shop wares for each of the show's divas.

Specifically, according to the gossips at Page Six, Stewart brought $325 gold vibrators for Barbara Walters, Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Sherri Shepherd and Elizabeth Hasselbeck, which had the women "atwitter over their present."

Needless to say, we expect the show to be really humming next week.

BOB D'AMICO/ABC

The ladies of the View have officially been photographed together for the first time, with Sherri Shepherd finally earning her place as the fifth horsewoman at the roundtable of the apocalypse.

Sherri's arrival last year signified an end to several tumultuous seasons marked by on-air feuding, off-air feuding, babies being born, tears and much grammatically incorrect blogging.

Also relegated to the ages was the stressful yet ultimately successful search for a person who was, all at once, a believer in the 15th-century solar system, a supporter of this country's one-year election cycle and good on television.

And now, with their struggles but a memory, the cast places Sherri in its center, symbolically holding the daytime-TV family together and placing an even more comfortable distance between Whoopi and Elisabeth.

Michael Watts/WireImage.com

The blogosphere got a little peppier today when Elisabeth Hasselbeck launched a "baby blog" on the Dreft detergent Website.

Perhaps driven to compete with former View cohost Rosie O'Donnell (long famed for her haiku-riffic stream-of-consciousness bloggery), Elisabeth promises "12 personal stories recounting her experiences and emotions both before and after the birth of her second child, due later this month, along with photos of the new baby."

The first entry on the sponsored blog includes a (surprise!) reference to the thrill of providing clean sheets for her two-year-old daughter:

Then came the irrational pregnant woman impulses of ordering twin sheets online for her new bed like mad! Everyday a package of bedding supplies would come. This past week, her new bed arrived bit-by-bit… first the mattress—then the bed! We washed it all and got it ready like a big present for her when she came home after a class. When she walked into the room she said: "OH MY GOODNESS!!!" and ran into it.

Mmmm...What do you think of this latest entry in the international celebrity blog sweepstakes? Does Elisabeth stand a chance? Post your thoughts in the Comments below.

George Pimentel/WireImage.com, Bryan Smith/ZUMAPress.com

To our ears, Barry Manilow's still making sweet music. Only, this ditty he's singing isn't scheduled for regular airplay. The pop icon has canceled an appearance on The View tomorrow 'cause he dislikes conservative yakker Elisabeth Hasselbeck. Too funny!

"I wanted to let you know that I will no longer be on The View tomorrow as scheduled. I had made a request that I be interviewed by Joy, Barbara or Whoopi but not Elisabeth Hasselback. Unfortunately, the show was not willing to accommodate this simple request, so I bowed out," Barry said in a statement released to E! News today.

"It's really too bad, because I've always been a big supporter of the show, but I cannot compromise my beliefs. The good news is that I will be on a whole slew of other shows promoting the new album, so I hope you can catch me on those."

Rosie must be peeing her pants right now. 

Talk about your spoiler alerts.

Capping weeks of intense speculation, actress-comedian Sherri Shepherd is set to fill the fifth and final seat on The View.

Barbara Walters will make the announcement official during Monday's show.

The 40-year-old entertainer had been expected to be part of the View crew when the new season debuted this week, joining new moderator Whoopi Goldberg in Walters' revolving team of coffee klatschers.

But Shepherd, who has served as guest host on many occasions, including an extended run in the hot seat this summer, reportedly balked at her initial contract offer, and negotiations dragged on.

Shepherd, who achieved moderate fame with a long-running stint on ABC's Less Than Perfect, as well as roles on The Jamie Foxx Show and the recent big-screen bomb Who's Your Caddy?, will fill the spot vacated by Star  Jones Reynolds more than a year ago, marking the first time since spring 2006 that the chatfest will be able to boast a full fivesome at the table.

For the time being, anyway. Elisabeth Hasselbeck is temporarily jumping ship this fall for maternity leave—she's expecting her second child with football-tossing husband Tim Hasselbeck in November.

Walters announced on Wednesday that she would be naming the newest member of the daytime show next week.

"It's been empty for a year, but this Monday, Sept. 10, if you tune in, you will find that we have somebody else joining the panel permanently," she said.

"I was only here a day, you replacing me already?" Goldberg said in reply. "Oh, my God, oh, my God!"

Goldberg needn't worry about job security just yet.

While her View debut on Tuesday drew 3.4 million viewers—a full million less than Rosie O'Donnell's 4.4 million-strong debut at this time last year—it still marks the second-best season-premiere figures of the show's 11-year history.

But while critics have already begun to deride Goldberg's reign as the safe, and some may say bland, antidote to O'Donnell's tenure in the seat, she has already won over one viewer.

"It was all right. It was good. Whoopi was good," O'Donnell said of her successor's debut in a videoblog posted to rosie.com. Though her praise for the new season seemed to begin and end with Goldberg.

"It was okay...It was interesting."

Oddly enough, O'Donnell seemed to take the most issue not with The View's choice of host but with the revamped set.

"I was sad that the set was beige," she said. "Truthfully, it was just wrong. Maybe people like beige, and I'm the only one who doesn't...Why did they change the set back to beige? That was an error in judgment."

DONNA SVENNEVIK/ABC

Whoopi Goldberg is spunky and smart. We're thrilled she'll be bringing her talents to The View. Yet why does her inaugural class photo look like a '40s girl-group shot?

We realize that Elisabeth Hasselbeck is now the only whippersnapper on the panel, but it doesn't mean Whoopi is the ghost of ghosts' past.

And we're not trying to start trouble, but we can't help comparing this to the glossy job Rosie got...

ABC/Yolanda Perez

Another season, plenty of reasons: The View is making Whoopi.

Barbara Walters announced on Wednesday morning's chatfest that Whoopi Goldberg has been chosen to succeed the long departed Rosie O'Donnell as moderator of the femme-fueled talk show when it officially kicks off its 11th season Sept. 4.

"She's brilliant, she's funny, please join us in welcoming Whoopi Goldberg," Walters said, as Goldberg walked onstage.

"Can I handle it?" Goldberg asked. "I hope so. I love this show. I love watching it, I love coming on it, I love you guys.

"It's wonderful."

In accepting the job, Goldberg said she would not temper her edge, which has gotten her into trouble in years past, but that she will do her best to abide by the rules of television.

"I know there are words you cannot say—I won't say them," she said.

"We are very excited," Walters said prior to the announcement, which didn't come until the end of the show. "This is a very big day for us."

In a statement released after the show, Walters laid on the superlatives for Goldberg, calling her "brilliant, funny and irrepressible" and "an enormously popular and talented star."

"This is going to be a great new chapter for The View," she said.

The feeling was echoed by Walter's sole remaining original cohost.

"We can't tell you how happy we are," Joy Behar told Goldberg, who tested and proved her chemistry with Walters & Co. in a series of guest-hosting stints in the wake of O'Donnell's sudden departure last May.

Last week, as sources confirmed Goldberg was in final talks to join the show, she even received a positive endorsement from Elisabeth Hasselbeck, who will remain the lone View host on the right.

"I loved working with Whoopi Goldberg," Hasselbeck told People.

"She is soulful, has a world of experience to bring to the table and I don't sense any sort of political agenda," she added, making a not so thinly veiled reference to O'Donnell. "She is so funny, but at the same time, she is one of the most thoughtful people that I've met."

Even O'Donnell had nothing but good things to say about her replacement.

"Whoopi is fantastic in every way and is perfect for the job," O'Donnell said in a statement, adding that Goldberg "is one of my favorites and absolutely amazing."

With news of Goldberg's hiring leaking last week, Wednesday's announcement was hardly a surprise. The 51-year-old Oscar winner, who currently hosts the syndicated morning radio show Wake Up with Whoopi, emerged as the frontrunner in a group that included outspoken fellow funny ladies Roseanne Barr and Kathy Griffin.

Goldberg's addition might not be the last. Sources said last week that another stand-up comic, Sherri Shepherd, was also in negotiations to join the show.

Shepherd was also being considered as a regular, ostensibly commandeering the slot that's remained opened since Star Jones Reynolds' 2005 exit and restoring the cohost count to five—at least until Hasselbeck goes on maternity leave in November.

"I love being on The View," Shepherd told E! News Wednesday. "As far as we are concerned, talks are ongoing."

Shepherd also disputed an In Touch report claiming she wanted a $2 million deal. "The financial information that has been reported is inaccurate," she said.

Meanwhile, a rep for The View confirmed that producers are looking to fill the fifth seat, but that it won't necessarily go to Shepherd: "They are having ongoing discussions with several people."

Chris Delmas/ZumaPress.com

Announcing the newest loudmouth to join The View's morning coffee-klatsch: Whoopi Goldberg.

"Can I handle it?" wondered Whoopi aloud.

We bet you can, sweetie.