Rosie's off the View

It seems like I was just writing about Rosie O'Donnell's return to daytime television, and now she's gone again, and the confetti with her, like a flower floating on the river that just meets your fingertips, but floats away before you can grasp it. (I think someone else came up with this metaphor, and was roundly chastised for it. I like it.)

It was regrettable that Rosie's inevitable departure from "The View" came suddenly and with great volition. I was gearing up to say goodbye, and anticipating a happy sendoff with a Broadway production number, confetti, and kind public words of affection from her cohosts. Now, as a fan, I feel confused and saddened, and robbed of the closure I was selfishly hoping would come.

But bravo to Rosie for walking away when things became ridiculous. I can only speculate, but it just doesn't seem like a coincidence that it happened on a day Barbara Walters was absent. In fact, it seemed almost engineered, with a repeat guest host who had dealt with the panel's contention before, Joy pulling out a laundry list of Bush's sins that set off neo-con Elisabeth Hasselbeck and pushing Rosie to the point where she had to force the truth.

Interesting, too, that Elisabeth Hasselbeck never answered Rosie's questions, but chose to launch into a tirade that might be excused as pregnancy hormones, but sounded more like a desperate push back from someone watching the cracks form in their ideology but afraid to accept what's breaking it.

I do feel some sympathy for Hasselbeck. One of the most difficult things is to accept the flaw in our ideology. People on the far edge of the spectrum, either side, always have the most difficult time accepting that the truths they hold aren't always truth, but point of view.

It has been an interesting year of growth for Hasselbeck. We have watched her go from appearing to be a mouthpiece for FOX News to questioning and challenging. And just when it appeared that she would become a thinking woman's conservative, her star on the rise (thanks in large part to Rosie O'Donnell, who allowed Elisabeth to have her say), she was pulled back into the neocon fold and petted and praised like a puppy. What an insult to an intelligent woman. And she almost gratefully fell back into it, appearing to prefer the comfortable, safe, familiar neocon role, instead of the harder, lonelier, independent thinker.

It was clear, before "Nuclear Wednesday," as Rosie calls it, that she was already moving on to new things.

Ultimately, the damage will not be done to Rosie, it will be done to The View, and the women who remain. The show will not regain the audience it had with Rosie, who, love her or hate her, always made things interesting and fun on the show. She elevated it from an innocuous daytime talk show to a meaningful place where people could go listen to intelligent, thoughtful women carry on the dialogues being carried out in many friendships across this country.

Rosie and Elisabeth were, for a while, proof that some civility remains in the sharp divide that dominates politics in our country. Their falling out only serves to remind us what a sharp divide it is.

Still, it would have been nice to have some closure. I'll miss Rosie on "The View."