There’s a tragic, ugly war raging on every news channel in America — and it’s not in Iraq.
The RoNald debacle is undoubtedly the conflict of our times, far surpassing the excitement of previous conflicts, such as Red Sox versus Yankees, Larry the Cable Guy versus objective taste and snakes versus Samuel L. Jackson.
Decades before either Rosie or Trump clawed their way out of John Hurt’s stomach and onto the front pages, H.L. Mencken wrote, “No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.” A quick look at the subsequent years of election returns and Hollywood blockbusters shows that Mencken might have been righter than he knew.
The Rosie/Donald war started like so many of these things do — in a way that no sane person remembers. But just in case some enterprising grad student wants to examine how this compares to the history of the labor movement or whether it syncs up with Dark Side of the Moon, I’ll break it down for you.
In a move some have likened to the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, Rosie criticized Trump on The View for not firing Miss USA Tara Conner after Conner’s scandalous partying necessitated a stint in rehab. (Apparently, the Miss USA sash brings with it a heavy emotional burden.) Rosie also claimed Trump had been personally bankrupt “so many times,” which is only accurate if your approximation of “so many” means “zero.”
Trump fired back by taking the moral high ground we might expect from the owner of the Miss USA pageant (not to be confused with the classier showcase of superficiality that is Miss America) by calling O’Donnell a “fat slob” and a “degenerate.” Trump later said that View producer and co-host Barbara Walters privately told him that she regretted hiring Rosie for the show, a claim that turned out to be demonstrably false when it was revealed that Walters has in fact been dead since 1987.
Allegedly under pressure from O’Donnell, Walters then attacked Trump on a later episode of The View, the same one where Rosie took issue with The Donald’s attacks on her weight and millions of viewers began yearning for a test of the Emergency Broadcasting System.
Since then, other celebrities have waded into these blood-soaked waters. Madonna – last seen smuggling children out of third-world countries like Harriet Tubman with a flair for mid-concert crucifixions – came to Rosie’s aid.
Feud, see page 12
Trump’s daughter Ivanka (she’s child 2 of 5 with wife 1 of 3, for those keeping score of Trump’s scores) said O’Donnell started the whole thing, which is unfair since we can hardly hold Rosie accountable for her own birth.
Trump and O’Donnell should put their differences aside and mate. Sure, Rosie’s gay and Donald’s married, but when two people hate each other as much as they do, having children is the only solution. Just ask my parents. Or Chelsea Clinton. The progeny could be a race of billionaire super children, with the scream of a banshee and the hair of the lead singer of A Flock of Seagulls.
Invariably, some high-minded freedom haters will complain about the media focusing on this story instead of the really important news, like why Posh Spice’s husband is getting $250 million to prove that soccer has about as much a chance of catching on in America as scarlet fever.
The plain truth is that we love this kind of news. Iraq, Iran, the deficit, stem cells — these issues aren’t just complicated, they’re boring as hell. Worse yet, they’re important, so in addition to not knowing where I stand, I can’t even achieve the ironic detachment necessary to deal with them in a rational, totally unhealthy manner. Not so with the Rosie/Donald conflict (or, as the Japanese call it, Godzilla versus Mechagodzilla).
The tone of the Rosie/Donald stories in the media has struck an important balance between, “Can you believe what these losers are fighting about?” and “Hey, check out what these losers are fighting about!” That’s no accident; it is an attitude that mirrors, and is mirrored by , the public’s. Trump may be rich, and O’Donnell may be famous, but we know we’re better than both of them and the feud reminds us of it.
For this reason, I’m calling on George Bush to make sure that the next war he launches isn’t against the Iranians or the Syrians or but against Jessica Simpson. And not just because Employee of the Month ought to count as a weapon of mass destruction. But, because, damn it, America’s spirits are down. And worse, yet, we’re bored.
This might sound like arrogance. I prefer to call it “the American way.” It keeps the news bearable and the politicians in check. If we can figure out a way to make cars run on it, the smug superiority of the American people might yet save the world.