Barbara Walters kissed-off Rosie O’Donnell in a lady-like way on The View, claiming again how much she adored her and how she would be glad to have her back anytime. She wasn’t fired, Walters insisted, and besides, everyone does better after being on The View. A sentiment which Star Jones (remember her?), who is now so slender she has almost disappeared from sight, might not agree with.
I wonder, though, if Barbara ever regrets bouncing Star, whose major flaw, it has often been reported, was that she was greedy and thought being a celebrity meant never having to say “Here’s my credit card.” Rosie dissed Star for not being honest because she didn’t want to admit that a stomach-stapling operation had led to her weight loss. Rosie, in contrast, as we all have learned, is unable to hold anything back.
On Tuesday, Barbara, Joy, Elisabeth, and guest host Whoopi Goldberg tried to liven things up in The View’s time-honored way by talking about sex. No such luck. The show just wasn’t the same without ranting Rosie. No doubt the producers on The O’Reilly Factor and Hannity and Colmes can stop watching now. Joy Behar insulting the president or calling for his impeachment isn’t really worth a primetime mention.
Rosie, who seems as addicted to making headlines as her foe Donald Trump, may have more to say, especially about Barbara Walters, who is twisting and turning and trying hard to wriggle away from this episode with her “great lady” reputation still intact. During the weekend, Rosie began to give part of her side of the story on her blog. Most bullies, when they go too far and are caught out, tend to snivel. Rosie is no different. In a video, dressed in a baggy t-shirt with a doo-rag on her head and looking tired and wan, Rosie had her own little pity party. “I was really just like the foster kid for a year,” she said about her stint on The View. “I came and was considered for adoption, but I really didn’t fit into the family, and then it was time for the foster kid to go back home.” Poor, poor victimized Rosie. No mention, of course, of her rudeness, her shouting down any opposition daily on the show, or that obscenity-laced turn at an elegant celebrity luncheon that made headlines and had her boss, Barbara Walters, covering her face in embarrassment.
She also said she tried to be a good girlfriend to Elisabeth Hasselbeck. “I never tried harder to be friends with someone than I did with her from the get go, but I don’t think we ended up there, anywhere close,” she complained. Maybe that’s because mild-mannered Elisabeth doesn’t like being called “stupid” by someone who is supposed to be trying to make friends.
I was away on the day of the final blow-up and have only watched the video. But it seems to me that in many ways Rosie’s rage wasn’t very different from some of her previous outbursts. What was different was that for once Hasselbeck stood up to her and held her ground. She finally called Rosie on her bullying tactics. At last it was almost a fair fight, and that was what Rosie couldn’t seem to handle.
What’s next for Rosie? No doubt, she will get another show, where she can start out by being funny, then get ruder and angrier and more controversial, and finally self-destruct yet again, all while claiming that she is really the victim.
But, hey, another woman whom Rosie no doubt admires, Cindy Sheehan, also said good-by this weekend. In a letter posted on a liberal website, she writes she is going to go home because she is mad at everyone — the Right, the Left, the military, and even the peace movement. Sheehan also says that Camp Casey in Crawford is for sale and that she will accept any reasonable offer.
Here’s the plan: If Rosie really wants to keep it going — and I think she does — then Camp Casey just might be the perfect place for Kelli and Ro, the kids, the nannies, the bodyguards, and the crew from Entertainment Tonight to spend the summer.