Barbara Walters 'Not Responsible' for Rosie's Rants

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Still shot of Barbara Walters from 5/7/2008 "I am not responsible" says Barbara Walters on Rosie O’Donnell’s extremist remarks on "The View." Appearing on the May 7 "O’Reilly Factor," host Bill O’Reilly brought up Rosie’s most controversial remarks, notably comparing "radical Christianity" to radical Islam and her famous 9-11 conspiracy theories editorializing it hurt Barbara as the founder and co-executive producer of the show.

Although Walters did not defend Rosie’s ravings, she refused to take responsibility asserting Rosie did not hurt her, "The View," or ABC. Additionally, the veteran journalist felt Rosie regrets some of those remarks. O’Reilly sharply disagreed and alluded to Rosie’s comments this week praising Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

The relevant portion of the transcript is below.

BILL O’REILLY: Rosie O’Donnell, now, I am going to talk about this because I was involved with this story. You even mentioned me in this book, erroneously, and I’ll mention that in a moment.

BARBARA WALTERS: Oh dear.

O’REILLY: But the, the problem here and you do in your book give both sides of the O’Donnell story. You give the bad Rosie and the good Rosie, okay, and that’s fine with me. I think the inside baseball is good. But the problem here is that you, Barbara Walters, and ABC were given this woman a platform to spew hate, H-A-T-E. That was my problem with her. It wasn’t, it wasn’t that I disagreed or ideology. But when you say Evangelical Christians are just as bad as Al Qaeda, when you accuse your government of killing people on 9-11, that’s hate.

WALTERS: Look.

O’REILLY: Go ahead.

WALTERS: Okay, when we hired Rosie-

O’REILLY: Right.

WALTERS: -she had not been on television in three years. She had an enormously successful program, rather uncontroversial that she did for years. She was, she was loved, you know, she was the good Rosie. When she was on the program there were some wonderful times. I had some great affection for Rosie. I did and I still do. I deplored what she said. I think it did her harm. I think it eventually worked against her. And I think perhaps she knows it. And nobody can say that what she said was wonderful, but there are so many good sides to Rosie.

O’REILLY: You know, it hurt you.

WALTERS: You don’t think so, I do. It hurt the program.

O’REILLY: It hurt you because you’re the face of the program.

WALTERS: I don’t, I don’t think it-

O’REILLY: It hurt ABC and it hurt you.

WALTERS: I don’t think I was responsible for what Rosie O’Donnell said and I don’t think anybody-

O’REILLY: You’re her boss.

WALTERS: -including you blamed me for that. You know, we have a wonderful year this year. I don’t want to be Pollyanna and say everything is wonderful.

O’REILLY: No, Goldberg has done a good job and your ratings are good.

WALTERS: Rosie hurt herself. Sometimes she says things that she regrets, and I’m sure she regretted a lot of them.

O’REILLY: No, she doesn’t regret it. She’s up, she’s out this week saying Reverend Wright is a good guy and we should all applaud him. She’s a nut.

WALTERS: I have not heard her say that.

O’REILLY: She hurt you because she dragged you in the mud with the Trump thing and all of this other business, and you were in a very difficult position. And you write about what a difficult position it was.

WALTERS: Bill, you can only hurt yourself. She did not hurt me. She did not drag me through the mud. Did I like it? No, I didn’t like it. But I don’t think that people blamed me for her remarks anymore than anybody’s going to blame you for whatever I say. I sure hope they don’t.


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Rein 'em in, Barbara

I understand what Barbara is saying, because Rosie's image at the time was the Queen of Nice. Even so, she'd already stirred up a little controversy in her life. And Barbara let Rosie go on way too long and get away with too much. Joy Behar is another example of that.

When you put the clowns in charge, don't be surprised when a circus breaks out.

As long as you are talking

As long as you are talking liberal jibberish, you can keep talking as long as you want on The View, or as I call it My Liberal View. 

Baba

You ignorant slut!

Will you just please go away?!? Have you no shame?!?

LOL. I wish she would just

LOL. I wish she would just go away and take her show with her.

"Bill you can only hurt

"Bill you can only hurt yourself."

...and her new book is doing a good job of that.

 

"They need to have a course in college called common sense and everyone should take it. Problem is there isn't too many people that could pass or teach it." -my grandfather

Barbara Walters is in

Barbara Walters is in denial. The Rosie thing did hurt her, and people did blame her.

A lot of people who formerly respected Ms. Walters lost that respect as a result of her refusing to rein Rosie in, even a little.

And a lot of people ended up pitying her, because it seemed that she had no power at all; like Rosie was running the show.

A BIG YENTA FRAUD!!

CHARLIE  This is a woman who was the network slut to get the money. H. REASONER knew the score back then and now she is out with a book that is garbage. Just remember back then when she was making her move she was very angry at gilda Radner AND HER baba wawa IMPERSANATION.

Post Redux

As I posted on Tim's blog yesterday regarding Barbara's life, loves and career . . . "Some whores aren't in it for the money."

I wish Bill O would PLEASE

I wish Bill O would PLEASE stop interrupting and answering his own questions. Let the guest speak for at least a nano-second!! I'm so tired of his narcissism.

Amen. O'Reilly, at his

Amen. O'Reilly, at his big-headed best, said, in effect, that if the View had "O'Reilly" on it, to contradict O'Donnell's views it would have helped. He has gotten to the point that he thinks that just by having the top cable news show, it means he's the most authoritive voice in the world. He's past accepting any legitimate criticism - he won't even entertain it...

The only O'Reilly segment worth watching . . .

is the weekly trivia contest between Martha McCallum and Steve Doocey. O'Reilly sometimes actually lets these two finish a sentence and it's fun to play along.