The latest spat between co-hosts Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Rosie O'Donnell on the daytime television show The View has gotten a tremendous amount of media coverage. It has been the subject of entire segments on media outlets as far reaching in their political leanings as Fox & Friends and MSNBC's Keith Olbermann. It has also found its way into traditionally non-political venues like People magazine. Can it really be true that these two loudmouth idiots with no grasp on factual reality are having the most meaningful public debate in the minds of many Americans regarding the Iraq War? Take a look at this video from their show this week:
Since the conflict began there have been arguments for and against American policy passing each other aimlessly on the airwaves like ocean liners in the dead of night. Fox News takes the "for the war" position and beats the drum as loud as it can to resonate with those who agree with their point of view and MSNBC does the exact same thing from the opposite perspective each day and night on their own network. Strangely, as the two sides never seem to appear in the same place at the same time, no meaningful debate ever gets put before the public.
Even in political circles, all Republicans at their party's primary debates are uniformly for the American presence in the region and all Democrats at their own party debates claim to be uniformly against it. Since neither side is ever in the same room with the opposing point of view, nobody has to answer any meaningful questions and nobody is ever held accountable for the flaws in their own beliefs.
It seems as if some people have decided that if somebody might not agree with them, rather than risking the possibility that their own views might be challenged and overcome by a more persuasive opposing viewpoint - they actually feel they are better off saving their comments until they are in a room full of people who think the same way they do. Instead of changing their own failed opinion, they prefer to change the people they are speaking with. This kind of systemic idiocy is not only ridiculous on an intellectual level, it leads to absurd outcomes like these two morons from The View seeming to be great minds of the new "Idiocracy" we are now living in!
Rosie O'Donnell and Elisabeth Hasselbeck are, in my strong opinion, not qualified to speak with any expertise on the topic of war, politics, the ethics of combat, the difficulties troops face... and most other topics of importance. One is an idiot who finished 3rd on a reality TV show where she stopped eating for weeks until her hair fell out because she wanted to win the grand prize of a few hundred thousand dollars. The other is a comedian whose biggest claims to fame are her constant self-pity over being overweight and her overly proud attitude for being a lesbian (there is nothing wrong with being a lesbian, but anyone who truly favors equal rights understands that being a lesbian does not entitle you to any more praise from others than being heterosexual would).
Yes, that's right. Two idiots, who are on television only because real programming that requires writers and scripts is too expensive to produce, actually began discussing the war and forcing each other to at least acknowledge opposing positions about the war. Rosie intelligently brought up the fact that some media outlets have disingenuously claimed she is "against the troops" for questioning the duality of being both an occupying force in Iraq while claiming the inhabitants are terrorists. Elizabeth succinctly pointed out the face that Rosie should not expect others to defend her point of view when they don't agree with it just because they are both paid by the same production company.
Now, to be sure, this was not a high level cabinet meeting or significant United Nations debate about the future of the region. This was not even particularly interesting television programming. However, it seems to me that the public is now so starved for some kind of analysis which requires speakers to at least address the views of their opposition that even these two ill prepared twits were able to garner tremendous attention by attempting to do so.
This is not a call for the return of yelling matches like CrossFire was before Jon Stewart shut them down. This is a call for politicians, pundits and the populace to look around at the sad state of debate in this country and do something to bring it back as a mainstay of our country's strategic discourse. Without politicians who at least acknowledge and directly respond to each other's point of view, the public can never have an apples to apples comparison by which to decide their vote. If you are waiting for one during a Presidential debate, just keep in mind the fact that the National League of Woman Votersrefused to sanction the last presidential debate because the two political parties had choreographed the rules of the show to such an extent that neither candidate was allowed to address the other or to respond directly to each other.
Can it really be, that Rosie and Elisabeth are more likely to hash out agreements on The View than presidential nominees are to reach meaningful definitions of agreement and disagreement about a war that is costing American lives daily at a rate even greater than The View is costing brain cells to commit suicide within its audience?
