http://www.eonline.com/news/article/index.jsp?uuid=dd6198c1-8050-47fd-90c1-16fc4d060aba

O'Reilly Attacks The View's O'Donnell Factor
by Natalie Finn

O'Boy.

Rosie O'Donnell was sucked into the No Spin Zone Thursday when Fox News host Bill O'Reilly questioned whether ABC should fire the morning chat maven over a posting on her personal blog and remarks she made on The View concerning the recent capture of 15 British sailors by the Iranian military.

On her Website, O'Donnell alleged that the British strayed into Iranian waters on purpose to help bolster the United States' government's increasingly hostile position toward the Middle Eastern nation.

"False flag operations are covert operations conducted by governments, corporations, or other organizations, which are designed to appear as if they are being carried out by other entities," the woman once largely known for her over-use of the phrase "cutie patootie" wrote Wednesday.

Then, in a clip from The View replayed on The O'Reilly Factor Thursday, O'Donnell seemingly expresses sympathy for the very people the Bush administration (and, largely, Fox News) is trying to convince the American public need to be defeated.

"I think they've been dehumanized to the point where they're not people. They're just the enemy," O'Donnell said. "They're terrorists. They have two choices, faith or fear. Faith or fear. That's your choice.

"You can walk through life believing in the goodness of the world or walk through life afraid of anyone who thinks differently than you and try to convert them to your way of thinking…Don't fear the terrorists. They're mothers and fathers."

Well, no one's going to tell millions of red-blooded Americans not to fear the terrorists on O'Reilly's watch.

"'Don't fear the terrorists.' The question is what should ABC do?" the right-wing pundit inquired of his guests-via-satellite, fellow Fox News analyst Bernard Goldberg and American University scholar Jane Hall. "Remember, ABC fired Bill Maher [who hosted Politically Incorrect at the time] after he said the 9/11 killers had courage."

O'Reilly went on to suggest that the situation over at The View is rapidly deteriorating now that the show has O'Donnell's vehemently liberal rhetoric dominating the relatively low-key conservative opining of cohost Elisabeth Hasselbeck, and that O'Donnell's politicizing is contributing to a ratings downturn. (After contributing to a ratings uptick with that big to-do with Donald Trump, of course.)

Hall, in turn, suggested that O'Donnell might be the only talk show host on broadcast TV right now representing the left wing so fervently on a daily basis.

ABC "said the show represents as variety of viewpoints," O'Reilly said. "There's a platform for free and open exchange of ideas. I don't believe that to be true. I don't believe Ann Coulter will get a program any time soon on ABC."

Ouch. Being compared to Ann Coulter is just no fun at all.

"Here you have young Elisabeth Hasselbeck getting hectored by Rosie O'Donnell and Joy Behar, two of the most far-left women in the United States of America. But it's beyond that," O'Reilly continued.

"These women aren't speaking for themselves. And I think both of you understand what I'm saying. They're spitting out the worst propaganda that is fed to them by far-left American haters on the net."

"And that's why I say, Bill, that the real danger is that they're mainstreaming this hateful nonsense. That's what this is about," Goldberg said, but then he split with Hall, who said that she didn't think O'Donnell had the right to go on TV and spout off irresponsibly. "That's not a First Amendment right," Hall said.

"Of course she does," Goldberg insisted. "Well, it is. It is. Joy Behar has every right to go on the air and compare Donald Rumsfeld to Hitler and I have every right to say I'll never watch that show even if somebody has gun to my head. And that's what more American people should do. They should say these people are not intelligent and they don't make any sense so don't watch."

Just so long as no one's going overboard with his metaphors here.

Meanwhile, Friday's installment of The View was taped before the Rosie episode of The O'Reilly Factor aired, so we'll have to wait to hear what, if anything, O'Donnell has to say about O'Reilly, who was a guest on the a.m. chatfest in October. (O'Donnell did interrupt a lot, but she raised her hand before speaking more than usual.)

Well, The View sure has been mixing it up in 2007.

At least O'Reilly knows he has an ally in Donald Trump, who told David Letterman in an interview set to air Friday on The Late Show that, although he doesn't wholly blame Barbara Walters for siding with O'Donnell during their Miss USA-fueled feud, the veteran newswoman is… fired, if you will.

"Barbara did not speak the truth and I didn't like it," Trump said. "She was trying to protect Rosie. She just said things that weren't so and therefore I sort of wrote her off my list. She's off the list."

"Rosie, as you know, went crazy at the prospect of my giving [Miss USA 2006 Tara Conner] a second chance," Trump continued.

"Rosie is sort of taking over the show from Barbara," he said. "It was sad to watch what was happening. But Rosie, they say, almost beat her up in the green room, and Barbara went out and did things she shouldn't do. I felt badly for Barbara. In a way, I feel that Barbara was just trying to keep the whole thing together. I don't totally blame her."

A rumble in the green room? Wait until O'Reilly gets a load of that one.