Another harpoon in the whale

From The New York Post:

January 9, 2007 -- THE tension between "The View" creator Barbara Walters and co-host Rosie O'Donnell, sparked by O'Donnell's feud with Donald Trump, boiled over yesterday morning when the portly comic called Walters "a [bleeping] liar."

The fight started around 8:30 a.m. when Walters, back from a two-week vacation, walked into the hair and makeup room at ABC studios and tried to hug O'Donnell, whom she hired onto the popular show.

According to spies, O'Donnell recoiled from Walters' touch and yelled, "You kept me in the newspapers this whole time!"

Both "View" producer Bill Geddie and Walters tried to calm O'Donnell. Walters told her, "I did everything I could to squash the story" - prompting Rosie to scream, "You didn't call me for 10 goddamn days, and you didn't tell me what you were going to say on television!"

O'Donnell is fuming because Trump went on Larry King two weeks ago - after she had called Trump a "snake-oil salesman" - and said Walters told him she regretted hiring O'Donnell. Trump also blasted the comic as "a horrible human being and a loser."

During her vacation, Walters issued a carefully worded statement saying, "I'm sorry there is friction between Donald and Rosie. That said, I do not regret for one moment my choice to hire Rosie O'Donnell as the moderator of 'The View.' "

After O'Donnell's outburst at Walters yesterday, Geddie jumped in and told her, "You've crossed the line." O'Donnell retorted, "Cameras are now outside of my house where my wife and kids are." She turned to Walters and said, "You went all around this and never called [Trump] a liar. You never said, 'Donald is lying.' You never called him a liar."

When Walters tried to defend herself, O'Donnell erupted, "Are you looking me in the face and denying you didn't tell him you didn't say this? You're a [bleeping] liar."

Remember how the lunatic asylums used to charge the public a penny to tour the cells and poke the lunatics with a willow twig?

The media coverage of O'Donnell is starting to feel something like that.

But then I remind myself that O'Donnell isn't some mentally retarded person without the wit to realize she is being tormented and turned into a spectacle. She is an adult professional entertainer of at least average intelligence who is being held up to public ridicule because of her massive ego and bottomless narcissism.

It is clear now that Trump was correcty when he said that Walters regrets her decision to hire O'Donnell. What remains to be seen is how long it will take Walters to correct her error. At this point I suppose I might be tempted to have some sympathy for Walters, however I find that I cannot.

O'Donnell's character was fully on display before she was hired by ABC and Walters has no one to blame but herself.