BARBARA WALTERS: When I'm not on, I watch the program. And, I mean this tragedy that has happened is so terrible, but you Rosie are always so passionate. Right or wrong, you're passionate. You care. And you're one of the people who talked about gun control. And for me to hear you yesterday, because we haven't talked too much about it, numb, saying we're never going to get a gun control law, kind of giving up made me sad. I don't want to see you do that.
ROSIE O’DONNELL: I know. It made me sad, too, but it was really hard, you know, the "Million Mom March" after the 1999 Columbine, I mean, everyone thought that would work. What else would it take besides pulling high school kids bloody out of a second floor window. What else would it take to get sensible gun legislation? No one want to take away hunter's rights to hunt. We just want to sort of have sensible gun laws. You know, a teddy bear, has more regulations on it than a gun in terms of safety. Right, but I do feel defeated. I have to tell you. When that happened yesterday, it felt like, well here we go again. You know, it’s like "The Truman Show" or "Groundhog Day." We just wake up, and it just continues, and continues.
Token non-liberal Elisabeth Hasselbeck was off for the day. Instead of a right-of-center substitute, guest co-host Aisha Tyler, clearly in the liberal camp, started swinging strong for gun control.
"What's amazing to me is that the gun lobby is talking about, well, it's not legal guns that kill people, it's when people get guns illegally. But this is someone who bought a gun legally. It took them five minutes to run a background check. He had been committed to a mental hospital for two days for observation and that didn’t pop up on his record. He was clearly to everyone around him mentally disturbed. And, it's not about, like you said, it’s not about keeping guns out of the hands of hunters. But when a kid this upset, this out of it, can walk into and buy two guns and 50 rounds of bullets and nobody asks a question."
Barbara Walters briefly mentioned the argument that if other students had guns, perhaps they could have defended themselves from harm. That argument was snidely dismissed by the panel.
WALTERS: And now some of them are saying, if the students only had guns they could have defended–
TYLER: Oh yes. That’s absolutely--
BEHAR: That's crazy.
TYLER: You know, like the shoot up scene in "Heat." That’s a great idea.
Barbara Walters expressed hope that 2008 presidential candidates would fight for stronger gun control measures.
"But maybe, maybe this will make a difference in, in, with the candidates. Maybe it will be part of what is their, their program along with healthcare, that platform.
After Barbara Walters displayed the front page of the "New York Post" with a photo of Larry Birkhead and his son, Rosie ranted about how Fox News and the "New York Post," both owned by Rupert Murdoch, are part of an agenda to distract the American people from what is really happening. Walters defended Fox News noting they have done "around the clock" coverage of the Virginia Tech massacre. Having no sense of irony that all four co-hosts were liberal Rosie interrupted screaming that FNC is "slanted and right biased" and "right wing propaganda." She even claimed Fox is "lying" when they say they’re fair and balanced.
In a very noteworthy moment, Walters acknowledged that "The View" is "slanted in another way."
O’DONNELL:Right, but let's just say this: The "New York Post" is owned by Rupert Murdoch, who owns the Fox News channel. So, if you want to be distracted by what's really happening in Washington, pick up the "Post" or watch Fox News because they have an agenda to make you not really interested in the real things in this country, but rather Dannielynn.
WALTERS: But Fox News, but Fox News has done all around the clock -- I have listened to that too and they have done stories all around the clock on this --
O’DONNELL: They are slanted and right biased in my opinion
WALTERS: Well other programs are slanted too, in their own way. We are slanted in another way. But I just think for this I mean ---
O’DONNELL: We’re not, we’re not a news show though, Barbara. This is a news network. You turn on Fox News and you hear right wing propaganda. That is not news. There's no way that, that's news.
BEHAR: They say they're fair and balanced.
O’DONNELL: Well they're lying, if you ask me.
[applause]
For the record, even liberal television critic Tom Shales, a frequent Fox critic, praised FNC for its coverage.
"For Fox, it was a day of proving that the network is more than just a staging ground for shouting matches by firebrands and zealots. Throughout the day, its reporting was solid and enterprising and, gruesome as it sounds, Fox stayed ahead of CNN most of the time on the number of people killed or injured by the gunman, who still hadn't been identified by the time the evening network newscasts went on the air."
