I understand her act, her shtick. But this time, I think she's really lost it.
She's always been the angry leftist lesbian on "The View," but this past week she really went off the deep end.
So much so that there is speculation in the blogosphere that she just might not come back.
She's slated to go off the show in three weeks anyway, but lots of folks are speculating that she just might cash out right now.
Long known for saying fringy left stuff on 'The View," this week's blather was particularly interesting.First, she accuses the U.S. of state-sponsored terrorism. Then she gets angry because her co-panelist, Republican blonde bubblehead Elisabeth Hasselbeck, won't bail her out.
It was truly nutty.
Here's how it went:
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?
Later in the segment, there's this:
HASSELBECK: Do you not believe in terrorism?
O'DONNELL: I believe, Elisabeth, that 6,000 dead Americans from 9/11 and from this war is a lot less than 655,000 dead Iraqis.
HASSELBECK: But do you believe in terrorism?
O'DONNELL: I believe every human life is equal.
HASSELBECK: Do you believe there is terrorism?
O'DONNELL: I believe in state-sponsored terrorism. I believe there is government-sponsored terrorism by every nation in the world, including ours.
Later in the week, Rosie, after taking a lot of grief over her freaky leftist commentary, goes off on Hasselbeck for not sticking up for her.
O'DONNELL: ... I was asking you, who actually knows me, do you believe I think our troops are terrorists, Elisabeth?"
HASSELBECK: "I don't think..."
O'DONNELL: (cuts her off) "Do you believe that, yes or no?"
HASSELBECK: "Excuse me. Let me speak," Hasselbeck says, raising a finger in the air.
O'DONNELL: "You're going to doublespeak," O'Donnell says. "It's just a yes or a no."
HASSELBECK: "I am not a double speaker, and I don't put suggestions out there that lead people to think things and then not answer my own question, OK? I don't believe that you believe troops are terrorists. I have said that before. But when you say something like 650,000 Iraqis are dead, we invaded them ... "
O'DONNELL: "It's true!"
Of course by now they're yelling at each other and finally Rosie offers up this gem:
"Here's how it gets spun in the media: Rosie - big, fat, lesbian, loud Rosie - attacks innocent, pure, Christian Elisabeth. I'm not doing it."
The show's creator, Barbara Walters, said Rosie already scheduled time off to celebrate her partner's birthday. It will be interesting to see if she's back next week.
Several things strike me as odd about all this.
I think it's fully bizarre that Rosie purposely stuffs her foot in her mouth and then seems upset that anyone would dare call her out over it.
But this time, even the likes of anti-war notable Chris Matthews has had it with Rosie's nonsense.
Matthews, the host of MSNBC's "Hardball" apparently has given up on her.
This week, he had Jonathan Capehart of The Washington Post on his show. He asked him this:
"Why is Rosie O'Donnell, who gives a bad name to people who question this war, I have to say, it is inevitably a problem in this country that people ruin the anti-war position by Jane Fonda behavior, by this kind of behavior. There are millions and millions, in fact the overwhelming majority question this war, oppose it, want to see our troops home. And then somebody like this comes out and creates an easy target for the hawks."
Pretty tough for a liberal when you get thrown under the bus by Chris Matthews.
And what in the world is ABC thinking? What qualifies a loud, angry, obnoxious lesbian and a blonde, nitwitted "Survivor" castaway as political analysts anyway?
Walters has some credibility as a journalist or panelist or whatever, but Rose and Elisabeth? Give me a break. Must be the ratings, because it sure isn't the content that's keeping that lunacy on the air.
And finally, in all the stuff I've looked at regarding this little tiff between the Rosie and Lizzy, no one has questioned the credibility of that 655,000 number Rosie keeps spewing.
That number is highly dubious. It came from a study by Dr. Gilbert Burnham of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
It came out right before the congressional elections last November. It was highly controversial when it came out and most experts agree that it is overbaked.
Seems these particular researchers attempted to calculate how many more Iraqis have died since March 2003 than would have if there was no war.
To do this they gathered data from a sample of 1,849 Iraqi households with a total of 12,801 residents from late May to early July 2006. That sample was used to extrapolate the total figure. The estimate deals with deaths up to July.
"They're almost certainly way too high," said Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington.
"This is not analysis, this is politics," Cordesman said.
The methodology is questionable, the results are questionable, the 655,000 number is questionable, yet Rosie runs with it as unadulterated truth. That's just wrong.
Credible sources, including iraqbodycount.org, which is about as anti-war a Web site as you will ever find, puts the count at a minimum of 64,253 and a maximum of 70,384.
Now, that's certainly a lot of death and I am in no way trying to minimize the gravity of the loss of 70,000 lives.
But the fact that Rosie is willing to throw that 655,000 number out as fact over and over again speaks volumes to her credibility.
Basically, she has none.
She represents the worst of the Blame America First crowd.
