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Friday, May 25, 2007
No More Rosie-Colored Glasses for The View
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
If you missed Rosie O’Donnell’s off-the-charts performance on Wednesday’s episode of “The View,” too bad. That was her swan song.
ABC has just announced that O’Donnell is ending her run on the addictive daytime women’s chat show a little under a month early. And if you believe ABC and Rosie, it’s all her decision (ABC we’re not afraid to doubt a little bit in print….Rosie, well, that’s an entirely different story).
“We had hoped that Rosie would be with us until the end of her contract three weeks from now, but Rosie has informed us that she would like an early leave,” Brian Frons, president of Disney-ABC Daytime Television Group said in a just-released statement. “Therefore, we part ways, thank her for her tremendous contribution to ‘The View’ and wish her well.”
Translation: “Please don’t yell at us, Rosie.”
In her own statement, O’Donnell said, “I’m extremely grateful. It’s been an amazing year and I love all three women.”
Translation: “Please don’t make me share oxygen in the same studio with Elisabeth anymore.”
In case you’ve spent these past two days under a rock — or IN Iraq, completely cut off from modern communication — here’s what happened on Wednesday’s show in a nutshell. O’Donnell was doing some of her usual heartfelt “The war is a mistake and the president’s a bigger mistake” schtick, while co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck was doing some of HER usual heartfelt “America is always right and evildoers are right now trying to paddle to our shores” schtick, when it got … how best to put it? Heated. Personal. Out of control. So out of control that co-host Joy Behar actually whimpered, “Didn’t this show used to have commercials?”
The particular bone of contention was over O’Donnell’s contention that right wing critics have been twisting one of her earlier statements — “650,000 Iraqi civilians have died. Who are the terrorists?” — to say that she was calliing U.S. troops terrorists. Hasselbeck said Rosie should clarify her statement. Rosie said Elisabeth should speak up in her (Rosie’s) defense. On and on it went with screaming and finger-pointing and all those other things that on the one hand make women look kinda bad, but on the other hand was a refreshingly honest and open discussion on the airwaves of an issue — Iraq — that has split Americans into two increasingly angry opposing camps.
We were all dying to see what happened next, but on Thursday, President Bush’s press conference preempted “The View” (when O’Donnell had already been schedueld to be off) and Friday’s episode had been pre-taped pre-blowout earlier in the week. So the Serf’s calendar was already marked for next Tuesday’s fresh, live episode. But now Rosie’s gone for good, ahead of her original June 20th quitting date.
And now we’re worried we’ll never hear from her or Elisabeth ever again.
Translation: Don’t make me laugh.
