Whoopi Goldberg Schools Rogen: You Have Never Been to War

While ABC’s The View is no stranger to discussing topics that often polarize non-liberal audiences, Clint Eastwood’s patriotic masterpiece American Sniper found an unlikely ally: Whoopi Goldberg.

Fresh off a two-week vacation, Goldberg opened the show’s “Hot Topics” segment and immediately defended the film against attacks from both actor Seth Rogen and Sicko filmmaker Michael Moore.

Goldberg asked co-host Nicolle Wallace to read the Twitter statements made by Moore and Rogen over the weekend, to which Wallace obliged.

Then Whoopi directed a few words at the duo:

You didn’t like the movie, that’s okay. We stood behind you, Seth, with your movie, and we said you had the right to make the movie you wanted to make. Give them the same respect, because we stood behind them. Michael Moore, you know better.

Wallace then shared her opinion on the controversy, “These guys die so that people like Michael Moore and Seth Rogen can say this stuff, so I think next time they trash a movie about America’s heroes, they should just add a little ‘thank you’ at the end.”

She finished, “I think the military should boycott Seth Rogen’s crappy movie.”

“But, Nicole,” Rosie O’Donnell cut in, “Democracy demands dissent, and you know that. So I think that everybody is allowed to say what their opinion is.”

“Everyone has the right to their opinion,” Goldberg countered, reminding the show’s co-hosts of the way America’s service members were treated upon their return from Vietnam:

“A lot of people forget history — they forget what the solders went through. See, my brother came through the sixties when our friends were going off to Vietnam. If you’ve never been to war, it’s a lot that you can call people all kinds of names, but until the bombs are exploding around you, and the people are dying around you, you need to be a little more sensitive, dudes. I get that you’re creative types, but so are they.”

Rogen tweeted Sunday that the record-breaking biopic reminded him of the Nazi propaganda film shown in a scene from Inglourious Basterds. Meanwhile, Moore tweeted that he was taught, “snipers are cowards.”

While Moore’s words were likely an attempt to remain relevant in an era that leaves him with no political “whipping boy,” and virtually no audience, the rest of the “credible” leftists’ continued slights against American Sniper have failed to slow its momentum.

Sniper smashed box-office records over the weekend, grossing more than $105 million. The film has been nominated for six Academy Awards.