Matt and I TiVo “The View” every day, so we saw yesterday’s big shouting match between Rosie O’Donnell and Elisabeth Hasselbeck. (Scroll down here for a transcript.) What started as a discussion about the war turned into an unusually angry argument between Rosie and Elisabeth about whether Elisabeth has sufficiently defended Rosie in the face of Fox News commentators, who have claimed that Rosie has implied that American troops are terrorists. Matt cringed and covered his eyes and made noises and finally had to walk away from the TV. (He hates watching people argue.) Me, I was riveted. Rosie and Elisabeth shouted at each other while poor Joy Behar and guest host Sherri Shepherd were caught in the middle. Joy’s desperate plea to go to a commercial (“Is there no commercial on this show?”) was priceless.
I was riveted, but the whole thing annoyed the crap out of me. I only started watching “The View” last fall, and I’ve been impressed at the substantive political discussions the hosts often have. This could have been another one of those enlightening discussions for the audience, a great opportunity to point out the provincialism of Elisabeth and other war supporters, but no, Rosie had to make it all about her and her relationship with her co-host and she solved nothing.
Elisabeth Hasselbeck seems charming, but I’ve been annoyed by her rah-rah support for Bush and this stupid war. From what I can tell, only one thing motivates her: fear. She’s a young mom with a little girl and another baby on the way, and all that matters to her is that we might be attacked again. She’s totally been sucked in by the Bush Administration’s fearmongering. Forget “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself” – according to Bush, of course, we should be scared. Fear, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11.
Hasselbeck and others actually believe that George W. Bush is the only person who can “protect” us from “the terrorists.” But fighting terrorism is like fighting crime. Any president can do it. After all, it’s not the President who fights terrorism at all. It’s the people who work in government agencies who do it – on the federal, state, and local levels. All the president has to do is turn the government’s resources in the right direction, and we don’t need Bush or even a Republican in the White House for that to happen. “Protecting us” is just a massive law enforcement matter.
Terrorists are not boogeymen. They’re people, and they have motivations. Calling them “the enemy” – god, I think I hate that term more than almost any other – lets you off the hook from having to understand what motivates them. It lets you off the hook from having to think of them as individuals, from having to think about why terrorism happens. Calling them “the enemy” glorifies them, makes all this seem macho and fun, like we’re in “Star Wars” or “The Lord of the Rings.”
Living in a black/white, good/evil paradigm keeps you from having to actually think.
Boo on Elisabeth Hasselbeck for being such a sucker.
And boo on Rosie for making it personal instead of furthering the discussion.
Of everything I’ve read about yesterday’s meltdown, this is the first that made a real point about the whole mess and the opportunities missed. Kudos.
Rosie made it personal because she cannot bring herself to say that she doesn’t believe our troops are terrorist. She’s playing moral equivalence games where there is none. I’ve watched both exchanges. In the first one she does exactly what she’s been accused of. In the second, she could have ended it immediately by saying, “I do not believe we or our troops are terrorists, but she can’t. Ask yourself why? Rosie also believes steel doesn’t melt in fire. People like this do the anti-war left a terrible disservice.
Matt cringed and covered his eyes and made noises and finally had to walk away from the TV.
Coincidentally, this was exactly my response to Bette Midler on American Idol last night.
PS, excellent post.
What a train wreck.
Bush and his cronies don’t want anyone to think at all, about the terrorists or much else. That might lead to questions he can’t answer.
As for the President’s role in protecting us, you’re quite right. Political affiliation is irrelevant. In fact, many of the Democrats actually served in the Armed Forces and could be excellent Commanders-in-Chief (a job that usually just requires staying out of the military’s way). Speaking of that, why does it seem like no one is troubled by the appointment of a “War Czar”? Setting aside the love affair with a slang title that is as anti-democratic as possible (we have drug czars, war czars, etc.), isn’t “War Czar” the President’s job? What’s next? Will he get someone to abuse alcohol for him, so he doesn’t even have to lift a glass to his lips anymore?
Great post. I agree usually with Ms. O’Donnell, and appreciate her being an out, visible albeit damaged just like the rest of us, TV personality. I watch The View a couple times a week and find their “Hot Topics” the only tolerable part of the show. My main concern with Rosie is her shrillness. She is very poor at (as many people are) listening to others. Ms. Hasselbeck is way off in her opinions and I believe motivated by “fear”, but she at least lets someone have an opinion articulated. They should all be speaking German as the verb comes at the end of the sentence and it is much harder to interupt a person. It wouldn’t be The View now would it then?!
P>S> Who will replace Rosie?
Most Americans don’t know how to unemotionally discuss a political issue, seldom relying upon logic and reason rather than volume and too often repeated rhetorical weapon-phrases formulated by our trashy mass-media industry.
There’s a good, culture-based reason why our Revolution’s constructors feared mob-rule just as much as tyranny by a minority.
One day, perhaps quickly coming, this mentality may very well spark our nation’s unraveling, from sea-to-sea, transforming this Northern continent into the New Third World of permanent-class-poverty and widespread dis-education, where people identify more with a faction than with some national goal or vision.
The seeds of our new civil war are all around, and in every city.
rob@egoz.org
P.S. I’d like to nominate Ann Coulter to replace O’Donnell. Americans would love the fire-pyre of national-discourse.
Rosie is a woman of instincts. She saw the writing on the wall (Monday’s show was when the discord was first planted and the producer chose not to go to commercial time after time.) and just let it all out. I do not fault her at all. She had nothing to lose and the argument was in itself educational about what this country is facing. Rosie was trying to speak to Elisabeth about standing up for friends against false accusation, but she never got through Elisabeth’s wall of blind faith in Bush and Fox News. Elisabeth didn’t even know rhetorical questions are meant to make the listeners think, but she stood by Fox News’ spin on it without any thought. Elisabeth really needs a reality check, but that requires a level of honesty and consciousness that she doesn’t seem capable of.