Rosie O'Donnell, Empty Talking Head

Rosie O'Donnell, Empty Talking Head
by Jaime Sneider

The self-proclaimed "Queen-of-Nice" Rosie O'Donnell recently used her TV show to attack New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani, the likely opponent of her friend and frequent guest Hillary Clinton. Using her TV show to push her political agenda forward is nothing new for Rosie -- just ask NRA member Tom Selleck, who earlier this year was invited on to her show to discuss his new movie, and instead was blamed for the Littleton, Colorado school shooting.

In the same breath that she criticized Giuliani's "out of control" behavior regarding his alleged imprisonment of homeless people, she accredited him for cleaning up the city. Like all left-leaning members of the media, Rosie wants to have her cake (and pie, and ice cream) and eat them too. She has not the slightest understanding of city politics, apparent from her inability to comprehend the correlation between getting homeless people off the street and improving New York City's quality of life.

Even more absurd is the fact that she criticized Giuliani for enforcing vagrancy laws when one can expect it would only take Rosie just a few seconds to waddle over to her phone and call the cops in the event that a homeless person decided to sleep on the public sidewalk in front of her lawn. Not to even mention the fact that the sidewalk in front of her friend Hillary's new home is not even accessible to the public. One can't walk - let alone sleep - in front of Ms. Clinton's house.

Hillary was in studio preparing to tape a segment for Rosie's TV show around the same time as Rosie made these comments to her audience during live broadcast. Despite this fact, Hillary contends her friend's tirade was not planned, but only incidentally coincided with her appearance. Hillary and Rosie talked mostly about cookies -- a subject matter very close to Rosie and one in which she evidently has a lot of experience with.

What, however, is the likelihood that Hillary baked the gingerbread cookies she brought with her on stage? In response to Hillary's TV appearance, The New York Daily News reported that when her decision to pursue a law career was called into question during the 1992 campaign for her husband, she defended her decision to be a lawyer sarcastically saying, "I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies."

Rosie O'Donnell joins the liberal Hollywood elite, spearheaded by Stephen Spielberg and Barbra Streisand, in her efforts to raise money for the Clintons. In October, Rosie participated in a 1-million dollar fundraiser for Hillary's Senate Run. Come Jan. 31, when Hillary's political donations are made public, everyone will find out whether Rosie is willing to stick her own money where her mouth is.

The only donation made by Rosie O'Donnell presently in the FEC database for the 2000 elections so far was a $1,000 contribution to Elizabeth Dole's exploratory committee. Of course, just about the only thing Rosie and Elizabeth have in common is that they are both female. It is perfectly consistent with the gender-identity politics of the left to support candidates financially and politically without even considering their policy. For Rosie, the fact that Elizabeth Dole is a woman qualifies her as a candidate, just as it does for Hillary. The very fact that even many Republicans questioned Dole's credentials as they relate to being the President of the United States did not stop Rosie from funded her run for office. Dole's inability to raise a large amount of money demonstrates a failure to gain popularity. The donations she did receive were generally large -- the average size contribution she got was bigger than George W's, indicating she was unable to amass a significant donor-base and the little funds she did accumulate came from wealthy donors.

One can only expect that Rosie would echo the platform of the Democratic Party and endorse campaign finance reform, restricting soft money donations and those made by single individuals to politicians. The Supreme Court has ruled, however, that money is equivalent to speech and any action to restrict donations abridges an individuals First Amendment right. Already having access to effective mediums of communication, Rosie is free to spout off her opinions without any qualifications whatsoever. Campaign finance reform for Rosie and all Hollywood liberals is a way of gaining a monopoly on speech in this country. One need only consider for a moment how society would function given a reality in which the only political discourse that occurred was on the Rosie O'Donnell show. This country would be better served if Rosie stuck to what she's good at -- putting things into her mouth.

Jaime Sneider is the Editorial Page Editor of the Daily Columbia Spectator.

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