April 27 (cont.)

The View takes on the health issues facing the First Responders who ran to help at Ground Zero following the terrorist attacks on September 11. Estimates are that up to half of those people who served are now facing life threatening illnesses as a result of exposure to toxins at the site of the devastation.

The View featured two first responders, Bonnie Giebfried and Vito Valenti, who now have chronic lung disease and other ailments.

Like other first responders, neither of them received equipment to protect them from the chemicals in the air: no masks or gloves.

Rosie immediately tries to lay the blame at the feet of a Bushie:

***

Rosie: At that time had Christie Whitman said that it was safe? Had it been declared safe down there? Because shortly after 9/11, the air was considered safe. Is that true, Dr. Moline?
Dr. Moline: That’s what was said a few days later. When they were down there it was too early and the air certainly wasn’t safe. It wasn’t safe for many, many months down at Ground Zero
Joy: We should say that this is Dr. Jacqueline Moline and she is the director of the WTC treatment program at Mount Sinai
Rosie: So you’ve been monitoring the first response workers who were down there who now have these respiratory diseases. Over half the people who were down there are now suffering the way these two people are?
Moline: We’ve seen it in countless, in thousands of people from the New York area and the responders throughout the whole country who came in and have now gone back to their communities. This is a national problem. People are sick. They have upper respiratory problems. They have cough, asthma, Reactive Airway Disease. People have scarring in their lungs and serious diseases requiring lung transplants like Vito is going to require.

***

So, lucky for Whitman she isn’t personally responsible for causing the illnesses of these two particular people. The health of the other tens of thousands of people: that may be a different story.

I remember watching the images of the people running through the smoke and the dust and talking to people about how awful it would be to be breathing in the chemicals, ash and soot. As the parent of three children with tracheotomies, I am aware of the difficulty of dealing with chronic lung disease and therefore sensitive to the risks of breathing in toxins.

In the immediate aftermath of the attack, nobody was thinking about where they could find masks; people were just trying to get in to try to save anyone who may have been trapped. This crisis was so shocking, people didn’t have a plan. Backward looking assessments always seem to make perfect sense.

The crew then discussed the belief that about half of the 50,000 first responders are sick from their exposures to toxins.

***

Moline: We used to know who had been at the World Trade Center cause we would hear them coughing.
Joy: When we come back we want to talk about the federal funding because that is really the tragedy here also
Rosie: We need federal funding for this and it is coming up soon in the Senate and no matter what you feel about this government, we need to take care of these people who went down there to help us as those buildings were attacked.
Joy: They volunteered.

***

First, I am curious how the cough of a person from the WTC attack sounds so drastically different than the cough of another person with asthma or reactive airway disease. This seemed like an odd statement.

This exchange also provoked the following question: What does a person’s feeling about this particular government have to do with the first responders in New York? Is Rosie suggesting some on the left might try to punish these first responders because they were connected to the Bush “regime”? Wow!

Upon returning from the commercial break, Baldwin continues his discussion with Rosie and Barbara. Someone must have told him he never answered Rosie’s question because he finally gets to it:

***
Baldwin: To finish answering your question, obviously calling your child a pig or anything else is improper and inappropriate and I apologized to my daughter for that.

***

I’m glad he finally acknowledged that. He goes on:

***
Baldwin: I can’t tell you how many people who are like amazing, you and I and all of us know the most famous and privileged people in the world and some of them would call me and say “God if they taped some of the things I said to my kid"-
Rosie: I said that on this show
Baldwin: And I have had a lot of other people say to me “if all of us were to lose our custody rights because you said something inappropriate, we would have a parentless society

***

This is true. Parents often do yell at their kids in the heat of an argument, possibly even crossing the line and calling their child a name. Hopefully, in this situation parents apologize to their child and do their best to role model better behavior going forward. The vast majority of parents would never consent to having their conversations taped and would be mortified if one of their arguments ended up being played for their friends, business colleagues or acquaintances. That being said, few parents would take the time to leave a belittling message on their child’s voicemail.

Barbara then asked him about his career and his future on 30 Rock.

***
Baldwin: Now in the world that we live in you know a person presses one button and the whole world knows what’s happened to you. Literally. Literally. Some man took this tape and construed that that was in the child’s interests to do that and pressed a button and it went over the entire world.

***

As a result of this situation, Baldwin has asked to be released from his contract on 30 Rock. He wants to channel his energy into really working on Parental Alienation and divorce litigation. He doesn’t know if they will let him go- he hopes so.

He thanked his mom for all she has done for him and the support she has given him.

He goes on to describe the tens of thousands of men who contact him about parental alienation and says that the women who contact him, who are in those men's lives now, are equally if not more angry.

***

Baldwin concluded: I have a great relationship with my daughter. My daughter used to come in to me and I’d say, I said to her once I go- we were lying in bed and I was waking her up, I had come into her room and I was rubbing her hair and she laughed at me and I go “what’s so funny?” she goes “the way you wake me up in the morning when you rub my hair and you ‘what do I want for breakfast’ “ and she goes “it’s so funny to me” and I go “why?” and she says “cause my mom opens the door and goes ‘Get the hell out of that bed right now. You’re late we got to have ’” and I am thinking to myself when women do a certain thing and it’s the mother it’s perceived one way and when men do it, it is perceived another way.

***

I bet Basinger and her attorneys loved hearing that little story retold to the audience of the View.

Why would he say this, at this time, other to sway public opinion in his favor? Should public opinion matter to him when his daughter has been hurt? Does hurting his daughter again help matters? This discussion was not in the best interest of his daughter, and that should be his only concern.

His relaying a story, that his daughter told him in confidence, to strike a blow at his ex-wife shows the same character flaw shown in the voicemail: Baldwin allows his anger to control his behavior.

Again, women do not have a right to keep their children form their fathers or to do anything to undermine the relationship between a child and father. Likewise, men do not have the right to undermine the relationship between their child and the child's mother, either.

The best we can hope for these three people is that they get whatever help they need to put an end to this feud.

Ireland may not be able to see through all of the smoke in her life now, but there will come a day when she will look back on this and with hindsight will be able to sort out right from wrong. She will hold both of these people accountable and I hope for their sakes she is able to forgive them.

Friday, April 27th show (cont.)

Baldwin can’t talk about where he stands with Ireland now but he is writing a book about parental alienation.

He explains that his friends and his colleagues know the truth about what has happened to him.  He also talks about Basinger's failed relationship with her own mother. Rosie tries to get him back on track:

***
Rosie: The problem that most people had, I think, was the use of the word pig
Baldwin: Yeah I think what had happened at that point was that I had reached a point …here’s what happens. In a divorce litigation there is a thing called the right of first refusal an in that if you and I are divorced and you have primary custody and you travel to go to work, you are obligated to give me the child.

***

Does this have anything to do with him calling her a pig?

Barbara interrupts briefly and then he goes on:

***

BW: There are two sides to this. There are always to every story two sides go ahead
Baldwin: Right but I am not discussing that, what I am saying is that in the right of first refusal orders that I have that were given to me by a judge if she goes away she has to give me the child and we knew that she didn’t do that three consecutive times in a row…”

***

Baldwin still didn’t respond to Rosie’s question but went on to explain how he had to go to court to force Basinger to turn the child over to him whenever she leaves town. As a result of that court fight, he recently had two “blissful” weeks with Ireland. Then Basinger came home and, he suggests, turned Ireland’s phone off and denied him access to her for 10 days.

***
Baldwin explained: What you learn in Parental Alienation is that affection for the alienated parent or loyalty to the alienated parent is portrayed as betrayal of the custodial parent and that parent communicates in very subtle and not so subtle terms that this person is not a part of my life and I don’t want to have anything to do with him and I don’t want you to either. And they violate court orders and they force you to keep this thing going.

***

Baldwin discussed his experiences with countless men who have had to walk away from their kids because they couldn’t fight their ex-wives efforts to undermine their relationships with their kids.

There can be no doubt that people in custody disputes make decisions that are often detrimental to their children. It is unfortunate that so many adults can’t find a way to mend their marriages before they put their children in this position. Once parents separate, and the gloves come off, the child begins to take the emotional beating.

No parent should be allowed to violate a court order. Family law should not reward parents who fail to comply with orders. If judges would transfer custody to the non-custodial parent when these abuses of the system occur, custodial parents would be much more likely to comply with the custody decisions.

If Baldwin is misrepresenting Basinger’s actions, you can bet her attorney will be all over him and his attorney at the next hearing. Based on the gag order he may have already overstepped the bounds laid down. If that’s true and the judge is already upset with him, that next hearing probably won’t go very well for him.

If he’s offering an accurate description of what has happened recently, it won’t be in Ireland’s best interests, either.

Friday, April 27^th continued:

In his only interview about the subject, Alec Baldwin joined the women to discuss the voicemail he left for his daughter.

The 6 year custody battle between Baldwin and Kim Basinger has gone on too long, but none of know why.

Baldwin starts out stating that there limitations on what he can and can’t say and that he believes this is a part of the problem and then says he has learned three main things from this situation.

***

Baldwin: “One is that my deep, deep, deep and seemingly endless frustration about this situation, which is complicated, led me to end up saying something to someone that I really meant to say to someone else and I have learned that to be angry- there’s nothing wrong with being angry-

BW: You didn’t mean to say it to your child

Baldwin: There’s nothing wrong with being frustrated or angry about something. It’s the way you do it and as people often do in this world I took it out on the wrong person because I am unable under the current dynamic to address the other person and I realize that was wrong

***

Baldwin has also learned that many, many people are targeting him because they have had abusive experiences with their own parents. They are transferring their anger at their parents onto him.

He also states that the people in tabloid journalism are often living with their own abuse and live with “shameful secrets” and so they do things like humiliate stars and expose people like Baldwin in order to cope with their own issues.

***

Baldwin: “That the guy who is responsible for this tape coming out. We don’t need to say his name. It doesn’t matter. The guy that’s responsible- I called some friends of mine in LA and I said “What’s his story?” and they told me his story, what he’s all about, where he’s coming from, what are his secrets, you know what I mean. You find out that everybody who works in tabloid media are people who are filled with self-hatred and shame and the way that they manage those feelings is they destroy the lives of other people and reveal your secrets and I thought to myself you know, it’s like I couldn’t get over how you know they could beat you all day long.”

***

Apparently Harvey Levin, managing editor of TMZ, has serious personal problems and is filled with self-hatred. Maybe, but it’s not really relevant to Baldwin’s situation. Levin, who has refused to disclose his source, is adamant he acquired the tape legally and then made an editorial decision to air the tape because he felt it was important.

The tape has triggered a lot of discussion about child abuse but has probably not helped Ireland much. If Basinger released this tape to better her custody battle position, she is no different from the parents who exposed their children for the transgender special. This is a highly personal and embarrassing situation for Ireland and at her age she deserves to have her problems with her parents kept before the judge.

Baldwin should be upset with Basinger, not Levin.

Will these actors ever realize that they live and die by the public sword?

April 27^th on the View:

Hot Topics:

Hey, hey, the gang’s all here.

First, Barbara plugs her special on trans-gendered children. When did Barbara begin to emulate Springer and Povich? 

The show is about kids who supposedly have “gender identity disorder” and their “very courageous parents” who support them. According to Barbara these kids apparently believe, almost from the time they can talk or think, that they were born into the wrong body. She says “What’s between their ears is not what’s between their legs.” She followed three children for the special- a 6 year old boy who thinks he is a girl, a 10 year old boy who thinks he is a girl and a 17 year old girl who thinks she is a boy.

What a tragic topic upon which to build a prime time show. These kids, particularly the 6 year old and 10 year old, have their private lives put out for the entire world (or at least the people who tune in) to gawk.

It is not possible to know why these kids have these issues. Is there a genetic abnormality? Did something happen to these kids in early childhood that caused this feeling? Did their parents consciously or subconsciously encourage this gender confusion? The questions could go on and on.

If adults want to go on TV to talk about their sexuality, let them.  It seems at least slightly unethical to put these children on the world’s stage when there is really no benefit to them and the potential for pain so great. Everyone knows that children can be quite nasty- bullying today has reached a level of cruelty many of us could never have imagined. Children should be protected from this sort of commercial exploitation about a topic of such a private nature. Gender and sexuality are prime teasing topics on playgrounds across this country. Why would a parent increase the possibility of pain for their child?

Barbara can’t say enough about these parents- who really knows anything about these parents? I hope they are as wonderful as Barbara suggests but their judgement is certainly open to criticism.

She says this isn’t about sex, it’s about gender and that these children feel this way from the time they could even think. These sorts of claims are very odd as most people can remember virtually nothing from their early childhoods- not special events, or people that were important to them. Even children who had a parent die at a young age don’t necessarily remember the loss they felt at the time. (This is not to say that they didn’t exhibit reaction to the loss or that they won’t have difficulty because of the loss. Toddlers and young children have brains that evolve over time and the ability to recall experiences and to verbalize about those experiences changes. There has not been a lot of study about this issue but the field is growing. Many have focused on repressed memory issues. The problem with the belief that young children repress negative memories is that also don’t remember positive memories. Click here for brief discussion of childhood memory)

People have the occasional memory of their early childhood experiences, often complimented by a picture to support their recollections. Somehow, these children, particularly the 6 year old, are able to articulate feelings they had from their toddler years.

This may get ratings but that doesn’t mean it should be aired. Sad, sad, sad…

Thursday, April 26 (cont.)

Next they brought up Bill O’Reilly:

***

Joy: And then you have people like O’Reilly, who hate your politics and that gives him a chance to talk.

Rosie: He didn’t hate my politics until we inadvertently brought up his scandal and then he called the show and threatened that if we ever brought up anything about his scandal again he would put us in his crosshairs- crosshairs was the word he used. I was like this is this is Tony Soprano crap, you know what I mean? If it was James Gandolfini I would have actually been afraid but it was only Bill O’Reilly…

***

The O’ Reilly scandal to which she refers occurred in October, 2004 and was settled with a confidentiality clause the same month.

Rosie wrote on her blog on April 1^st about an incident in which she was directed by someone to cease talking about O’Reilly’s personal issues. This direction came after she and Joy spoke about the matter on the View. This blog entry, (Click here to read) available for viewing at presents an interesting glimpse into Rosie’s mind:

PARSONS

Posted by ro on April 1st at 3:58pm in in the news

when joy and i
alluded to bill oreillys
sex scandal
on the view

we were told the following day
that we couldn’t bring it up anymore
or else bill o
would “go after” all the hosts of the view

hmmmmmmm

i saw his friday rosie spin
on you tube
where he edited my statements
to make it seem
as he wanted

like 1984
molding the facts
2 suit the needs
of big brother rupert

“Parsons was Winston’s fellow employee at the Ministry of Truth. He was a fattish but active man of paralyzing stupidity, a mass of imbecile enthusiasms—one of those completely unquestioning, devoted drudges on whom, more even than on the thought police, the stability of the Party depended.”
?
question authority
america
b4 its too late
spin spin spin

“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?… Has it ever occurred to your, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?… The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact, there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking—not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.

we r awake
PEACE OUT

***

O’Reilly has been railing about Rosie for ages. His concerns about her far left positions go back ages, however as she has begun to take increasingly extreme positions he has, like many, many others, begun to express a deeper concern.

O’Reilly was on the View last year on October 18^th. He tried to engage Rosie in a discussion about the war and she wouldn’t answer his question as to whether she wanted America to win the war in Iraq. Her response:

***

Rosie: Listen, it's like saying do you believe in God or the devil. If you're not with us, you're against us. That's antiquated thinking, Bill. Peace and harmony

***

O’Reilly cleared stated his belief that Rosie was a secular-progressive who bases her positions on emotions rather than facts or what’s best for the country. He stated his support of her right to hold her opinion but he clearly didn’t agree with her politics then and he doesn’t now.

Who knows what O’Reilly said to the producers at the View about Rosie and Joy talking about his “scandal” but if he did use the term “crosshairs” it wasn’t meant literally. He would have clearly been indicating his attention to play tit for tat. If Rosie goes after his personal life, he will not hesitate to go after hers.

O’Reilly should not passively allow her to try to deflect attention from her behavior by going after him personally. He very fairly comments on her positions as they are presented on the View. Her diatribes are fair game and why she takes offense when he or anyone else comments on them is ludicrous.

Additionally, O’Donnell puts her personal life in play all the time with her regular discussions about her relationships and her family. O’Reilly keeps his personal life and his family out of the spotlight. If he begins using his family to promote his career he would be opening up his family life for public scrutiny.

By the way, she wrote the blog entry on the 1^st of April stating that she wasn’t to mention O’Reilly’s situation again. Here she was on April 26^th mentioning it again…

On Thursday, the women opened with a discussion of how shocked they were that pretty much every news program in America covered the story about her not being renewed/ not renewing her contract.

***
Rosie: Yesterday’s announcement was a tad bit bigger than I expected. It was insane was it not?
***

Please- she not only expected it, she hoped and planned for it. Her feigned expressions as they listed the shows on which her departure was discussed were ridiculous. Joy then comments:

***
Joy: It’s ironic. You don’t really like that sort of thing yet you are the object of it.
***

If Rosie didn’t want to be the center of a media news storm, she didn’t have to be. The way Rosie chooses to raise issues causes Rosie to become the focus of the attention. Rarely do her actual policy positions get attention following her diatribes or insults or accusations.

Does Rosie notice that her approach to presenting her view, generally infused with anger, isn’t very effective in swaying public opinion? Her outbursts garner her attention and misinform viewers through their very selective presentation of information. They fortunately haven’t had an influence on public policy.

Rosie is right: It is sad that she is such big news while there are so many other really important things going on in the world.

By the way, she is news for many reasons: Millions of people watch this show. Rosie has pushed the envelope in a way that has garnered media coverage that ABC could never buy. Whether you love her or hate her, it is difficult to ignore her.

Additionally, after the Imus insanity, everyone is paying more attention to entertainers. Democrats are talking about fairness on the airwaves and conservative talk show hosts are under fire for their bias. Conservatives are concerned that while those whose espouse conservative views are under scrutiny, those on the left are not because the media “elites” agree with the more liberal positions so don’t see them as a threat. The pressure being placed on ABC and Disney has been exerted in part as a response to the fear of increasing scrutiny of conservative entertainers.

Also, people are curious about the details, which we will never be told, about why she won’t be back. The show has over 3 million viewers. That draws in a lot of advertising dollars and impacts a lot of local affiliates.

The success of the View after Rosie will depend on whether or not ABC Daytime can find a replacement who is smart, interesting and engaging. The new host doesn’t have to be liberal, although it will be more interesting for me if she is.

When Rosie leaves, Joy will try to pick up the slack, although she doesn’t push the extremes in the same way. Elisabeth won’t have to work so hard and Barbara can go back to being friends with Donald Trump.

After Rosie explained why she was leaving, Barbara took a turn. She barely looked up from her note cards- this failure to look at the camera makes her appear insincere:

***

Rosie: Go ahead, Barbara
BW: You keep saying dont be sad and we should all be upbeat and I am sad. I am sad- I induced you to come here. I knew you were only coming for one year. I hoped it would be for more then one year. We have had, to say the least, an interesting year.
Rosie: We certainly have
BW: We have had an exciting, fun-filled provocative we have all loved it we have al gotten together and you will be missed, very much missed
Rosie: Well you know- thank you. But Ill still be on my blog
BW: I would like to make one thing perfectly clear. I do not participate in the negotiations for Rosie.
Rosie: Correct its ABC Daytime
BW: It was ABC Daytime. This is not, you know Im going to read Oh I did this and I did that and it brings back a lot of other things that I was accused of doing that I did not do. It was between your representatives
Rosie: My agents
BW: and ABC Daytime This is not my doing or my choice. Rosie will be on with us until the end of June
Rosie: Yes, per my contract. They are not kicking me out, dont worry- its okay
BW: We have not- were going to be deluged with letters. We have not thought about a replacement because we had hoped you would come back
Rosie: I know- we tried

***

Barbara says she had nothing to do with the negotiations, at all.

If you believe that I have a bridge to nowhere I would like to sell you.

This has been a long year for Walters. I think she pursued Rosie in the beginning because she respected her comic talent and failed to realize how political Rosie likes to be. Barbara misjudged Rosie.

Ultimately, Barbara was forced to spend an incredible amount of time defending Rosies comments. Her ongoing issues with Trump are a great example of how Rosie sucked Barbara into her feuds. As recently as April 16, Rosie tried to force Walters into an on air discussion about a private matter, presumably between Trump and Walters about Rosie. Walters had to refuse to get into it. It was a shocking exchange and showed how little Rosie respects Walters.

At the Matrix Awards on April 23, ODonnell again brought Barbara into the Trump feud when she told a very off color joke about Trump and then drew attention to Barbara, who was in the audience. Rosies behavior was very passive aggressive. Her judgment: non-existent.

If Barbara had really come out swinging on Rosies behalf, their might have been more negotiations going on.

It seems possible that all of her talk about free speech in recent weeks has been in the hopes of protecting her career. Most likely, ABC fired Rosie. This may have been done through a politically correct negotiation but if ABC wanted her they would have paid up. Maybe ABC offered to keep her on but demanded better behavior and accountability of ODonnell. She can not be submissive, therefore she had to go.

Her performance at the Matrix Awards was probably in part an expression of Rosies frustration. Here was an audience of 2000 women, including a group of high school girls. Why she needed to tell sexually off-color jokes and say eat me while holding her crotch

Again, she puts a face on the far left. She deserves little if any respect. She must, however be attended to as her views reflect those of many on the far left. They will pull us down a path our country can not afford to travel. We must recognize people like her and hold them accountable for their words and actions.

So again, I will miss Rosie on the View.  I may not like her, but I will miss her.

Today on the View Rosie led off with story broken on TMZ earlier this morning:

***

Rosie: Big news, breaking news, breaking news …Did you hear it’s on CNN as breaking news?

BW: I heard- I know a little bit about it

Rosie: Breaking news: I have decided that we couldn’t come to terms with my deal with ABC so next year I am not going to be on the View however I will be coming back and guest hosting. I will be doing one hour specials on Autism and depression and stuff that I am interested in. I’m just not going to do the every day thing ‘cause we couldn’t get ya know they wanted me three years, I wanted one year and then we were like okay what if we- and I was like- it just didn’t work and that’s show biz but it’s not sad because I loved it here and I love you guys and I am not going away. I’m just not going to be here every day.

***

It would have been interesting to be a fly on that negotiation wall. As Rosie’s conduct regarding political matters has grown increasingly vitriolic, more and more people have expressed concerns about her being given such a powerful forum. I would guess that ABC has been under increasing pressure to control Rosie. I do not believe Rosie can be controlled in a forum as open as the View.

As I have noted previously, she was good for the conservative movement because she shows how deranged many on the far left can be. The issue on the View has not been Rosie. The problem has been that the program has failed to offer a conservative to challenge her when she goes on her ridiculous rants. Elisabeth is a nice and sweet woman but she is either unable to fight with the big girls or she just isn’t that conservative.

Rosie leaving will not address the bigger issue on the View- the liberal bias of the hosts and guest hosts. Joy is much like Rosie. Joy has simply been living in Rosie’s shadow the past 9 months. The guest hosts rarely offer mainstream views of political issues.

As they begin their search for a replacement, I hope they try to find a conservative woman to join the show. Woman across America could benefit from hearing some two-sided discussions about the very pressing issues of our time.

In the mean time, I hope she moves onto another forum from which she can throw out her views so that mainstream America can continue to learn what the left is really about. Otherwise, I will miss her.

 

Let’s talk about real news:

BW went on a rare rant: “Today I am not crazy about George Bush. I have personal reasons…. We get to the west side- I can’t cross the street. I literally can’t cross the street.”

She goes on to complain about how the police had barricaded the streets to ensure the safe passage of the President- who would be coming within minutes. She had to wait 15 minutes. She is really upset about this as she thinks her time is obviously the most important concern in the world.

Barbara Walters is not the sun.

She goes on to say “He is the President he is not a king.”

***

Barbara, here is a newsflash for you: Presidents are more important than Kings.

Kings are unelected men who believe they somehow have a genetic right to rule over people. Royals placed themselves above others for no reason other than birthright and look down their noses at the commoners will never really be allowed into their world- they are the worst of the elite.

Thankfully our forefathers recognized that men should be ruled by elected people and fought a war to free us from the Kings for whom Barbara would wait.

Americans should happily wait for a secured Presidential Motorcade to pass. Barbara should suck it up, talk on her cell phone, grab a hot dog, whatever.

Most importantly, she should get over herself.

Rosie is going away- this is a loss for conservatives. She put a face on the liberal establishment that we need to see.

She is sticking around until June. They just couldn't come to an agreement about the terms of her contract.

Barbara made it clear that she was not let go...

More to come...

 

The women had a very pertinent exchange triggered by Sheryl Crow approaching Karl Rove at the Correspondent’s dinner with Lorie David to raise concerns about global warming:

***

Joy: They went up to Karl Rove and they said something about global warming because that’s their thing right now and he said to Sheryl Crow “I don’t work for you” and she said to “You work for me” and Karl Rove said “I don’t work for you, I work for the American people.” Isn’t Sheryl Crow an American?

Rosie: She said that’s what she said: “We are the American people”

Elisabeth: Maybe he meant not just her specifically

Joy: What was he talking about: “I work for the American people, I don’t work for Sheryl Crow”

Elisabeth: Maybe he just assumed “Look, I am not just working for you. I am working for everybody. And everybody may not feel exactly the same way you do

***

Karl Rove does not working for Sheryl Crow and really, he is not working for all of the American people. Republicans get caught up in this myth that politicians represent everybody. They can’t represent everybody because there is virtually no policy upon which everyone will agree. Politicians often make strategic decisions about their policy positions. Sometimes conservatives make political sacrifices to do what they think is right and they hope their base will come to understand their choices. Rarely is this true of Democratic politicians.

Republicans have tried, domestically, to meet people in the middle. This may have worked for Bush in Texas, where the middle looks a little different than some of the middle across America. The left of Texas is perhaps slightly more conservative than the left of New York or California or Massachusetts. Not all in the middle or on the left are prone to teamwork.

“No Child Left Behind” is just one example of Bush angering conservatives to work with the Democrats (Kennedy) to create public policy that Bush really believed would help American children being disserved by their local school districts. The conservatives got angry (and still are) and the Democrats openly blame Bush for all of the problems with the program. Democrats never take Kennedy to task- they blame Bush.

Rove and the rest of the conservatives need to understand that they will never make people like Crow happy. She will never meet you part way and she will never vote for a conservative candidate. Even when conservatives do what they want, it will be the conservative’s fault when their programs don’t work. Rove and other conservatives need to make the decisions they think are best for this country, knowing that the other side is rooting for their failure.

Democrats do not worry what the red states think about their policies. They just think conservatives are a bunch of racist, capitalist pigs who selfishly think only of themselves. When Harry Reid says the war is lost, he is not thinking about how he works for the American people. He is thinking about how many more Democratic senate seats he will garner if the ”Republicans” lose the war. He is not thinking about America or the cost to America’s credibility or the risks to Americans if we all lose the war. He does not think about the fact that people around the world will not say the Republicans lost the war. They will say the Americans lost the war. Harry Reid thinks about his Democratic base before he makes any political decision.

Nancy Pelosi is not thinking about the American people when she skips a meeting with General Petreus. She was not thinking about the American people when she met with the leader of Syria, she was pandering to her base.

What would lead someone to believe that Republicans are putting the country first? Bush and the Republicans are pursuing policy that many Americans do not like. Their decisions have cost them politically yet they are staying the course. If these decisions were being made for strictly political reasons, why would they stay on a path that is so costly, politically? They are trying to do what is right, i.e. correct.

I don't agree with everything Rove says or does, but he is right about this: He does not work for Sheryl Crow.

Elisabeth has crossed over and she doesn't seem to realize it.   The faces of her co-hosts say it all.

***
Elisabeth: Which is odd because even most of the Republicans are really giving Gonzales a hard time. I think it was, I wrote his name down, Republican Tom Coburn said “Why should you not be judged by the same standards by which you judged the dismissed U.S. attorneys.” I believe, I believe that and I believe that if the Bush administration wants to retain credibility they should encourage
Joy: Retain?
Elisabeth: Well, I knew- you know-
Joy: I’m retaining more water than they’re retaining credibility
Elisabeth: I will resume my statement
Rosie: Finish Elisabeth, finish
Joy: Sorry. Go ahead
Elisabeth: If they want to retain credibility he would recommend that he resign. I don’t know how else they can remove themselves from this

***

The truth of this matter is as follows:

This situation has been handled poorly from the beginning.  The Republicans should have known better than to talk about any political issue with the Democrats: they should have just declined to engage in any and all discussions about the exercise of Executive Branch authority.
 
That being said, the Republicans opened the door and are now trying to hold back a stampede.  Much harder to re-close a door than to leave it shut in the first place.

There is no way to remove themselves from this situation and any Republican who thinks that the resignation of Mr. Gonzales will settle this issue is absolutely certifiable.

This is only the beginning. 

If Gonzales resigns, who will take his place? Who would the Democrats advise the President to send their way for confirmation hearings? To whom would they consent?

The answer is NO ONE WE WOULD WANT!

Additionally, what talented Republican would want the job at this point?  The next 18 months will be filled with political dog fight after political dog fight.  Knowing that Republicans tend to fight a gentleman's game while Democrats behave like junkyard dogs can not possibly be reassuring to anyone who would consider putting their foot in the ring.

No Republicans are safe. While Sandy Berger walks away after stealing documents from the National Archives that may have influenced the findings of the 9/11 commission, Scooter Libby is going to jail for having remembered something differently than another person about an issue that was determined to be a non-issue. Wolfowitz is about to be thrown to the dogs because he gave his girlfriend a promotion yet we have a Senator running for President only because her husband's coattails were long and his fundraising skills have kept her in the game. We have Republicans under fire because companies they used to work for get government contracts yet no one seems to care that Senator Feinstein's husband's firm has just been awarded an Army contract worth $600 million now and up to over $3 billion dollars over time.  (See San Francisco Chronicle Article)

We are currently in more than one war in America.  The war going on in America is ultimately far more dangerous than any war going on in the Middle East.  The political infighting undermines our credibility around the world and threatens the Constitutional balance of power that has kept out country strong for centuries.  If foreign powers see our government as divided in a way that prevents our country from taking action to protect its interests overseas, those foreign powers will be emboldened

This administration may have over stepped its bounds at times. At  other times it may have failed to act.   This is not to say that disagreement is not at times warranted. It is to point out that the ruthless, political attacks are not helpful.

I hope for Gonzales' sake that whatever decision he makes he will walk with his head held high and his mouth tightly closed.

or

More supposition by Rosie that Gonzales is about to be fired:

***

Rosie: Now what about that. It’s almost sort of the kiss of death. Remember after Katrina he finally went down there weeks later and said “Good job Brownie, I think you’re doing a good job
Joy: He said “Heck of a job Brownie”
Rosie: And now he’s saying good job Gonzales. It seems like that’s what they give you right before the pink slip, right

***

There really is no winning here. If Bush doesn’t say he supports Gonzales then we would hear- The President is refusing to support Gonzales- he’s going to be out soon. The President supports Gonzales and he’s out, as well.

What can the President say?

For starters:

“We have a lot of work to do and I will no longer allow the Congress to hogtie my staff for political purposes.

The American people want us to get to work- taking care of our troops, protecting our borders, prosecuting illegal gun owners…

I am ordering my staff back to work. These witch hunts have got to stop.

We are hurting good people who are trying their best to serve the American people. The Democrats are on the hunt and don’t seem to care who they hurt. The continual efforts to criminalize political differences is leading us down a dangerous path and I will not walk along that path or knowingly allow anyone who works for me to be placed upon it by opportunists.

Now- I am waiting for some bills from Congress. I encourage the members of Congress to get back to work. They had a nice long vacation and should be well-rested.

Let’s all get back to doing the people’s work and let the voters decide in 2008 which direction they want the politicians to lead.

If the Congress proceeds with their efforts, I will fight them every step of the way.

And by the way, does anyone know if Sandy Berger has taken his lie detector test yet?

 

 

Then the women go on to listen to Elisabeth talk about the Bachelor. She blathers on about this ridiculous show and then is asked if she believes this stuff about the Bachelor finding true love with one of these women.

***
Elisabeth: Look I am now. I’m brainwashed. I do. Like I said: obviously there is something wrong here but (as she make the “I am crazy” sign with her fingers going in circles)
Joy: Look I can’t really fault you. President Bush believes Gonzales- what can I tell ya

***

Joy believes Elisabeth and Bush apparently share the trait of having been brainwashed. The only difference in Joy's eyes seems to be that Elisabeth can admit it.

The President is not brain-washed- he respects Gonzales.  Much like Barbara Walters seems to stand behind the lunacy espoused by both Rosie and Joy on a daily basis. Does she agree with everything the two of them say? No. But she continues to support them in their positions.

By the way- If Bush has been brainwashed by Gonzales, how can he be Gonzales' puppeteer?  Maybe Rosie can explain that to us. (I'm sure it will go back to Cheney and Rove.)