If this were any other show, I’d assume that the interviewer knew the answer and was just playing dumb as an excuse to fling this accusation. But this is “The View” so … right, Whoopi probably really didn’t know and didn’t care enough to check. It took me roughly 80 seconds of googling to find a recent news story listing the number of Mormon service members — 18,141 as of 2009 — but apparently that’s too much effort for a Barbara Walters production when interviewing the would-be First Lady in the middle of a tight election race. I’m actually pleasantly surprised that Whoopi didn’t follow up by asking how many wives Mitt has. Maybe Barbara pulled her aside before the show and set her straight on that, knowing that she might very well walk into that rhetorical doorknob too if not steered away from it.

For the record: Although Romney obtained religious and academic deferments for Vietnam in the 1960s, he did enter the draft lottery in 1970. He drew a high number. But consider this an early warning signal that the “chickenhawk” crapola from the Bush years will be back in force if/when he’s sworn in, even though The One ordered an escalation in Afghanistan, an intervention in Libya, and drone strikes aplenty all over the globe without ever having served himself. If Whoopi and her lefty friends want military service as a prerequisite for the presidency, step up and start pushing for a constitutional amendment. Otherwise this is pure partisan politics, nothing more. Click the image to watch.