It's a bizarre time to be living in Washington DC. Ahead of next year's presidential election, and amid a firestorm of criticism surrounding the war in Iraq, the political mud-slinging has gotten ugly, with half the government facing the prospect of being ousted in '08.
It's a regime change of sorts. Visible on the horizon, but still shrouded in uncertainty. The city's oldest, richest power gluttons have started trembling in their boots.
Of course no one wants to be associated with the Bush administration -- the further distance from the president the better. But with both parties guilty of trumpeting the war in its early stages, and in the absence of any kind of viable exit strategy, PR machines are working overtime to dig up scandals where they can be found.
Or Gonzalez, or Libby, or the lesser known Randall Tobias.
In the years immediately following 9/11, with support for the US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq at an all-time high, it seemed the military was one of the only institutions that was somehow haram to criticize. Support Our Troops, they told us.
And as recently as November, Senator John Kerry -- still considered a Democratic golden boy at the time -- created a media stir by suggesting that the troops were uneducated. Or at least that's how Fox News spun it. Kerry's camp attempted damage control by saying the comment was intended as a joke. It was good excuse, and perhaps a truthful one, but it went down as political suicide nonetheless.
Fast-forward to today. The latest casualty of so-called troop-bashing is not a Washington politician (though both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are taking heat for voting against the latest incarnation of the Iraq war spending bill.)
Instead conservative pundits will spend their Memorial Day holiday toasting the downfall of a media powerhouse. She's probably one of the only talk-show hosts in history to actually improve a network's television ratings, and still be sent heading for the hills.
I'm of course talking about Rosie O'Donnell.
After more than eight months of loud-mouthed political commentary that added some much-needed relevance to The View, it was O'Donnell's statements about the Iraq war that apparently crossed the line:
O’DONNELL: I just want to say something. 655,000 Iraqi civilians are dead. Who are the terrorists?Critics jumped all over this one. On Wednesday the sh*t hit the fan when O'Donnell called her co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck "cowardly" for not saying anything in her defense.
HASSELBECK: Who are the terrorists?
O’DONNELL: 655,000 Iraqis — I’m saying you have to look, we invaded –
HASSELBECK: Wait, who are you calling terrorists now? Americans?
O’DONNELL: I’m saying if you were in Iraq, and the other country, the United States, the richest in the world, invaded your country and killed 655,000 of your citizens, what would you call us?
HASSELBECK: Are we killing their citizens or are their people also killing their citizens?
O’DONNELL: We’re invading a sovereign nation, occupying a country against the U.N.
"655,000 Iraqi civilians have died. Who are the terrorists?"
"Do not call me a coward, because number 1, I sit here every single day, open my heart and tell people what I believe," Hasselbeck retorted.
Their catfight continued despite failed attempts by their co-hosts to cut to commercial.
If Americans are ever going to wake up to the reckless, exploitative reality of US foreign policy in the Middle East, it's time to drop the social taboos, to let the debate go on uncensored.
It's time for a reality check. No more sacred cows.
[Tarboush Tip: Nadeem]
