This Rosie has many thorns.

I first saw Rosie O’Donnell in the late 1980s when she was a “V-J” for the music television station VH1. To be honest, I found her quite amusing.

O’Donnell would later parlay that stint on TV into a career in stand-up comedy. Her act usually contained self-deprecating stories of her attempts to do aerobics in-synch with a much tinier instructor.

Eventually she would find success in film. But it was daytime television where she was able to find a platform to espouse her staunch liberalism. There was even one shameful display where she berated actor Tom Selleck and his membership with the National Rifle Association.

However, in a March 2002 interview with Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly, I actually obtained a measure of respect for Rosie.

She talked about how she challenged the sanctimonious Hollywood types to put up a $1 million cover when asked to participate in a telethon for the victims of 9/11 and their families. O’Donnell felt that if these well-to-do entertainment folks are going to ask the common folk for money, they themselves should pave the way as O’Donnell would. Predictably, the Hollywood elites did not pony up and O’Donnell stuck to her convictions by declining to appear.

Despite her openly gay lifestyle, O’Donnell eschewed the “in your face” gayness displayed by the likes of Ellen DeGeneres. In the same O’Reilly interview, Rosie spoke of the stance she took when DeGeneres asked her to march in honor of Matthew Shepard, a young gay man who was brutally murdered in October 1998.


Matthew Shepard was killed, it was horrifying to everyone. Ellen called me, crying, and said, would I march on Washington? And I said no. And she said, "Why?" And I said, "Because you didn't march for James Byrd."

Byrd was the man who, in June 1998 in Texas, was tied to a pickup truck by three men and subsequently dragged three miles.

Again, I admired Rosie’s stance by saying hate crimes are not merely restricted to homosexuals.

However, what little respect I had for Rosie O’Donnell vanished with her appalling commentary this past week.


Rosie O'Donnell says "radical" Christians in America are just as much of a threat as the followers of radical Islam who piloted hijacked jetliners into New York's Twin Towers and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.

O'Donnell, the newest face on ABC's "The View," yesterday let her feelings fly after co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck noted militant Islam provides a threat to free people.

"Just a minute," she interrupted. "Radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America where we have separation of church and state."

I would have been very interested on what basis O’Donnell makes this claim. I know the liberals were having the dry heaves after the 2004 Presidential election when an additional 2-3 million evangelical Christians turned out to vote. That proved to be the margin of victory for President George W. Bush. Is she perpetuating the liberal mantra of “Bush is the biggest terrorist”? Therefore, Christians who voted for Bush are radicals because they put a terrorist in office and thus are just as threatening as kooks who slam planes into buildings, killing 3,000 people.

An inconvenient truth for liberals is that the religion of radical Islam is predicated on death. In the minds of their believers there is an obligation to bring death to anyone who dare criticizes such an ideology. Hence, the brutal slaying of Dutch film director Theo van Gogh.

On the other had, Christianity is based on making sacrifices. The entire Christian faith is surrounded by the fact the God gave his only son, Jesus Christ, to die so that we may not perish but have eternal life. That notion alone seems radical to many people.

Oh, and another thing. If radical Christianity is just as dangerous as radical Islam, why is it the entertainment industry regularly skewers Christianity but not Islam?

I digress.

O’Donnell’s absurdity continued.


She had been saying America was attacked "not by a nation."

Yet, she said, "And as a result of the attack and the killing of nearly 3,000 innocent people we invaded two countries and killed innocent people."

So you’re telling me that the Al-Qaida supporting Taliban government in Afghanistan was innocent? And the beheading loons found in Iraq, like al-Zarqawi, are harmless?

Welcome back to daytime TV, Rosie. We were starting to have a shortage of self-loathing until you came back around.