Planned Controversy is Bad Business

May 23, 2007, was not a good day for daytime television. "The View" which, with the addition of Rosie O'Donnell in September, had risen from fashion, fluff and frivolity to purpose and substance over this season, hit an all time low. By now everyone has heard about it (just turn on one of those InsideAccessInfotainmentEditionExtraTonight shows and you will be bombarded with clips, and of course every "news" show on television is jumping on the bandwagon in attempt to boost ratings): the "feud."

What saddens me is that ABC clearly set this up. Elisabeth Hasselbeck had obviously been prepped, as I think she has been for the last month or so. The split screens they used were planned in advance. It is just awful that ABC wants so badly to capitalize on Rosie's leaving (and the ratings boost she brought to the show) that they would resort to planning a feud.

I KNEW that Rosie had been set up when the clips page on the ABC Daytime page were titled, "The Feud pt 1" and "The Feud pt 2." ABC WANTED this controversy. Now they have retitled those clips, "Joy vs. Elisabeth" and "Rosie vs. Elisabeth."

Rosie speaks for MANY people and tries to open the eyes of the ostriches with their heads in the sand. Much of the WORLD views Americans in a terrible way. There are going to be people who don't agree, who think she is loud or brash. I just think she is a woman who stands up for what she believes, and wants Americans to see there is more than one point of VIEW. She asks people to THINK.

And for the record, at NO TIME, did Rosie EVER say that our troops were terrorists. She has ALWAYS supported the troops. I believe she SIMPLY said that OTHER people might consider Americans terrorists because we have occupied a country (which did NOTHING to the US), and have killed innocent citizens. I think she was POINTING OUT that the word TERRORIST has been overused to create fear in the hearts of the American people, and that if there is such a wide open definition of terrorist, perhaps OTHER PEOPLE might consider AMERICANS to be terrorists.