Rosie

Is there anything more riveting, right now, on television than Rosie O'Donnell on The View? "Lost" lost me months ago (though I hear the season finale was stellar); American Idol had its appeal--Paula's drunken cheerleading kept us laughing--but by the end I was disillusioned: I live in a country that put Melinda Doolittle in third place. "The Office" makes me laugh, but does it make me cringe, yell at the screen, bite my pillow? Nope. Only two shows do that: "The Sopranos" and, believe it or not, "The View"--especially Wednesday's episode when Rosie and Elizabeth went at it.

We are living in war times and in war times passions run high. In the 60 and 70ss, Americans vented those passions into rock n'roll, "Hair" and Woodstock. Today, what do we have? We have "The Daily Show" which uses humor to help us cope with the anger. Often, that's a great release--to highlight the absurdity of our government, this administration, the way the world feels about us now. Irony, sarcasm: it's how unpopular kids survive high school--they sit at the back of the class and mock. But sometimes you want those kids to stand up and put it all on the line, to give an emotional speech about how much it hurts every time someone trips them in P.E. class: that's why we have Rosie.

It's fascinating that Rosie got into the business as a comedian. It's like, as her career developed, she shed all those layers of emotional insulation that made her funny and amusing and revealed the vulnerable little girl within. She's a raw nerve now--a pulsing, desperate-to-be-heard raw nerve of emotion, anger, fire and brimstone. Does she make clear, concise, rational arguments? Not at all. On her blog, which I confess I've been reading a bit too regularly lately, someone wrote her a note: "I’m a Democrat and a patriot. You are making us who oppose the war look bad - please be more articulate. You do not sound educated, I hate to say that but please-enough with the political talk."

I both agree and disagree with that note. Rosie isn't so much a thinker as an expounder of liberal sound bites and statistics that she has memorized but doesn't really understand. "655,000 Iraqi civilians are dead," she says. "Who are the terrorists?" Well, wait a second Rosie. Isn't there a civil war going on in Iraq? If America leaves, won't those numbers continue to rise? Those aren't American-killed Iraqi civilians, those are just dead civilians. That's an important distinction.

Even more infuriating is when Rosie repeats a platitude that has no real intellectual basis: "War is not a solution," she'll say. "War is always bad." Well. Wait a second. Sure, war is unpleasant, no one likes war, but this country was founded because of a war. We fought a war with England. Then, to end slavery, we fought The Civil War. World Wars I and II were so profound that we still feel their ramifications today: and as a Jew, I can say I'm pretty glad we won that second one. War sucks, of course, no one likes it: but some wars are worth fighting. Unfortunately, we're in one now that most of the country agrees is a mistake. But we can't confuse that mistake with the sad truth that sometimes, to preserve and protect democracy both here and abroad, we have to fight a war.

Yet, despite Rosie's intellectual sloppiness, she has something almost all pundits lack: and that's heart. She is so purely emotional about these topics, so clearly invested to the depths of her soul, that it's actually kind of tragic: here is a person with all the power of a great performer (she's a compelling presence, whether you love her or hate her) and the rhetorical might of a very bright 12th grader. She wants to be taken seriously, but mostly we're just watching to see what she does or says next. And Elizabeth Hasselback is her perfect foil: perky, effervescent--she uses her high school sweetheart persona to bring out the bully in Rosie. And Wednesday's show was the show to end all shows.

I'm sure you can find it on YouTube. The two were primed for battle: for Rosie, it was all personal. She just wanted Elizabeth to let her off the hook, to stand up for her and say she doesn't think Rosie thinks the troops are terrorists. Elizabeth, towing the party line, wanted Rosie to be accountable for her words. The two, despite all their faults, made politics feel vibrant and vital. It's as if their entire relationship--a friendship that felt genuine, at least for the middle part of the show's run--hinged on this squabble over the Iraq war. And it's riveting.

What will happen next? Will Rosie not come back at all to finish her contract, as has been reported in The New York Post? Will Elizabeth and Rosie kiss and make-up on Tuesday, when they're all scheduled to return? I'm not sure. But I know one thing for sure: I'll be there watching. (Well, I'll watch it later in the day on Tivo.) Who needs an action thriller to kick off the summer when you have Rosie's last few weeks on "The View"?

Comments

[flutter]

well according to all sources, Rosie is out for good, on The View. I agree with all of the points that you made about her.
She is a feeler, not a thinker.

[Kellyt]

You said it: Rosie has heart. And I think that is something that has been lost in this world as of late. With so many ppl with som many different agendas....heart gets lost.

[Michelle]

I like that Rosie is emotional because sometimes we need that to wake up the dead. War sucks. Politics these days is nothing but a joke. I look at it as a war we don't belong in and we need to pay more attention to what is going on in our own backyard. Take care of our own people. Bring our people home. Stop spending the billions of dollars overseas and spend it on curing disease, stem cell research, homeless people, wildfires, hurricane victims - our own people. Just my $.03 (inflation!)

[Dennis]

The days when the US can go to war have passed. If the country has a nuclear bomb we cant invade (they drop it on our army or just leave it in a hut - you dont have to be too close for damage). If they dont have a bomb we invade, win and then cant do anything against the very small group of people willing to blow up things (which we help along by selling weapons before we invade). Our army is big enough to win but not big enough to change a country (had a million troops in germany after WWII).

The middle east is important because of oil and Israel. If we want to win we call in the auto companies, tell them the only way we defeat the middle east is by ending oil dependency. Create a NASA for new energy resources (and old ones - nuclear). This combats global warming, creates new industries we can market and leaves the middle east to the rest of the world.

War can no longer be by conventional means. Use the net to loot their banks, shut down their power grids, erase their credit system, shut down the cell phones, satellites - set them back fifty years.

We can leave Iraq. The rest of the world needs the middle east. We say that we are withdrawing but give time for NATO, the arab states et al to get to together to decide how important the middle east is to them. Think we should apologize for Bush, our actions and remind them of WWII. We helped them and its time to help us (and themselves).

[Sarah]

Being against war doesn't mean you believe that everything that has been produced by previous wars should be reverted. I am against keeping the possibility of war open: keeping that possibility means that you abandon all hope of peace, it means that you consider peace as conditional. If everybody considers peace as conditional, there will always be someone (or a country) who will engage in this possibility of war. Maybe you should read Immanuel Kant's Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch. Enlightening.

As for Rosie, she may not be academically educated, but she talks about her country and its situation with passion and love. As a Canadian, I wish they were people like her here, people who give everything they have to better the place they live in.