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PEOPLE HAVE MANY ISSUES WITH JOY BEHAR, BUT here is one that has gotten scandalously slight attention. Joy Behar is a bad driver. A person sitting in the back of her SUV to, say, drive a short distance on flat roads, will get nauseated, which will significantly impede that person’s ability to carry out such journalistic duties as noticing whether Behar stops and starts so much because in two months she’ll be 80 and her reaction time has slowed, or because she doesn’t care how she makes people feel.

The View co-host has agreed to go yard-sale shopping near her home in the wealth-soaked Hamptons area of Long Island. Behar, the publicist says, loves yard-sale shopping. But she doesn’t seem that thrilled. We are among the first to arrive at a modest spread in Sag Harbor, and the homeowners appear a little confused that the pile of castoffs in their garage has somehow attracted a celebrity. Behar keeps her sunglasses on and does not linger. “Do I know you?” someone asks. “I don’t know,” says Behar in that voice. “Was it that night in Paris?” It’s a perfect answer; everyone laughs, and yet it’s abundantly clear the conversation is over.

Thus loosened up, Behar leans over a stroller. “Is this doll for sale?” she asks, before doing a pretend double take. “Oh. It’s a baby.” There is an appreciative titter from the parents, and one gets the sense that this is a line that will be repeated at birthday parties for years to come. Unless of course the parents are fans of former President Donald Trump, in which case there will be headlines on Fox News: JOY BEHAR DISSES INFANT!

Finding a compelling and amusing thing to say on demand and without offending anybody is a high-wire act, and that U.S. gun laws would change “once Black people get guns.”

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