Rosie Makes up Facts and Smears Volunteer Soldiers

By Justin McCarthy | May 01, 2007 | 12:03

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Update/Video link at bottom.

Update at bottom with other blogs covering story.

The May 1 edition of "The View" marked the fourth anniversary of President Bush’s famous "mission accomplished" announcement with Rosie O’Donnell’s predictable rants against the war and the administration. The co-host mysteriously claimed Afghanistan had nothing to do with September 11 and downplayed the Al Qaeda threat, claiming it is simply a U.S. government scare tactic. Additionally, Rosie, with the aide of guest co-host Ricki Lake, followed Charles Rangel and Andy Rooney to assert that U.S. soldiers are not patriots, but losers who join out of desperation.

O’DONNELL: Wait, can I just say something? Why do people enlist in the Army?
RICKI LAKE: To get an education, and they're poor-
O’DONNELL: Thank you.
LAKE: -and that’s the only way to get one.
O’DONNELL: The vast majority– Yes, Elisabeth. It’s true!

No, it’s not. According to a recent study by the Heritage Foundation, military enlistees are "better educated, wealthier, and more rural on average than their civilian peers." Additionally, "recruits have a higher percentage of high school graduates" and "the distribution of household income of recruits is noticably higher than the entire youth population." Of course, facts don’t matter to Rosie O’Donnell. After all, fire can’t melt steel.

Token non-liberal Elisabeth Hasselbeck responded harshly and Rosie continued to smear volunteer soldiers before she claimed that she does support the troops.

HASSELBECK: First of all, in the past year, the testing scores of our armed services have been higher than ever, so the education level-
O’DONNELL: You are wrong. We have more convicted felons in the Army because we’re allowing them to get through.
HASSELBECK: So they're awful. They’re awful then.
O’DONNELL: Elisabeth, I do everything I can to support the troops financially and emotionally. I love them as much as you do. I'm as much of a patriot. I want them home.

The fact free analysis continued as Rosie made this observation.

"Well, listen, Elisabeth, we shouldn't be fighting this war, because we were not attacked by either of the nations we invaded. 19 Saudis were on those planes and we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq."

Perhaps she’s forgetting that Afghanistan’s then ruling Taliban knowingly harbored Al Qaeda training camps. Also, 15 of the hijackers were Saudi, two were from the United Arab Emirates, one was Egyptian, and one Lebanese. Rosie then continued to downplay the terrorist threat.

ELISABETH HASSELBECK: Do you believe Al Qaeda, do you believe Al Qaeda is alive and working and planning in Iraq?
O’DONNELL: Well, I think there might be some guy on dialysis in a cave, but I don’t think he’s really a threat.
HASSELBECK: You don’t think there are operatives in Al Qaeda, the number one guy--
O’DONNELL: There are terrorists in America too. What about Tim McVee (sic)? What about him? He was a terrorist in America.
HASSELBECK: Does he have cells operating right now in this country?
O’DONNELL: Well, you know, they use those words so that they can scare people "terror" and "cell."
HASSELBECK: Well, guess what, guess what. Terrorists are scary. Terrorists don't need us to help them be scary. They’re scary. They’re scary people.

Update (Ken Shepherd | 16:58 EDT): Ian at HotAir has video here.

Update (Ken Shepherd | May 2, 10:30 EDT): Here are some other blogs that picked up this item: