Rosie Runs From "View"

OK-- let's just go over this Rosie thing one time and be done with it. It started with the May 17th show, when the following exchange took place between Rosie and Elisabeth Hasselbeck:

O’DONNELL: …… I just want to say something. 655,000 Iraqi civilians are dead. Who are the terrorists?

HASSELBECK: Who are the terrorists?

O’DONNELL: 655,000 Iraqis — I’m saying you have to look, we invaded –

HASSELBECK: Wait, who are you calling terrorists now? Americans?

O’DONNELL: I’m saying if you were in Iraq, and the other country, the United States, the richest in the world, invaded your country and killed 655,000 of your citizens, what would you call us?

HASSELBECK: Are we killing their citizens or are their people also killing their citizens?

O’DONNELL: We’re invading a sovereign nation, occupying a country against the U.N.

On his show the next day, Chris Matthews and a panel of journalists, including Howard Feinman, Jill Zuckman, and Jonathan Capehart, unanimously agreed that O'Donnell did, in essence, call U.S. troops terrorists. Most journalists who have reported on this comment have taken the same point of view.

Then, on the May 23rd show, a political discussion over the war in Iraq became heated when an angry O'Donnell decried Hasselbeck for not standing up for her when media outlets suggested that she'd called U.S. troops "terrorists" on the May 17th show.

O'DONNELL: "What you did was not defend me. ... I asked you if you believed what the Republican pundits were saying -- you said nothing, and that's cowardly."

HASSELBECK (sternly): "Do not call me a coward, because No. 1, I sit here every single day, open my heart and tell people what I believe."

O'DONNELL: "Do you believe that I think our troops are terrorists? And you would not even look me in the face, Elisabeth, and say, 'No, Rosie.' ".

HASSELBECK: "Because you are an adult, and I am certainly not going to be the person for you to explain your thoughts. They're your thoughts! Defend your own insinuations!"

O'Donnell (who had initially planned on leaving the ABC talk show in June) said she wasn't going to fight anymore, claiming that the media spins it as "Big, fat, lesbian, loud Rosie attacks innocent pure Christian Elisabeth." . . . "So for three weeks, you can say all the Republican crap you want."

Later that day, according to sources from the show, Rosie’s chief writer, Janette Barber, was escorted from the building after she was caught drawing moustaches on photographs of Hasselbeck that hang in the “View” studios.

ABC confirmed in a statement only that “photographs at ‘The View’s’ offices were defaced. Rosie O’Donnell was not in the building. ABC Legal and Human Resources are investigating the matter.” Barber is an old friend of O’Donnell who worked with her years ago on “The Rosie O’Donnell Show.”

There were also rumors O’Donnell was so angry after her argument with Hasselbeck that she trashed her dressing room, although ABC denied the tantrum. But Rosie's blog entries (in addition to her on-air demeanor) clearly show that the incident struck a deep nerve.

So-- in much the same way Rosie left her signature magazine, she has now left "The View"-- in a tirade. As for Hasselbeck-- guess you can still call her a "survivor".