Viewing a Dream

I honestly don't know why I'm so effected by this dust up on The View. I respect Rosie O'Donnell, but I'm not a rabid fan. If I'm home during a weekday and there is absolutely nothing to do, I might flip on The View for a few minutes at the beginning to listen to them discuss current events, but I don't think I saw one session while Rosie's was on the show.

Still, I'm bothered by the clip that I've posted. I even dreamed about it last night. The dream wasn't about Rosie and Elisabeth. I was in a class, an art composition class, that was being taught by a young man and there were two other students, twins who looked an awful lot like Alicia Silverstone. Anyway, the teacher started talking about painting composition. I don't remember the substance of the discussion, but I remember thinking that the guy didn't know what he was talking about. I asked a question, trying to get a grip on his perspective because it was so radically different from mine, and it was clear that the twin sitting next to him thought my question was the dumbest thing she'd ever heard. She didn't say anything, but she looked down at the table, smirking. Her sister on the other hand appeared to be following the conversation. The teacher didn't appreciate the question, either because he couldn't answer it or because he too thought it was stupid. So, he brushed it off.

I did not appreciate that. At this point the dream became very clear. I asked the professor who his supervisor was.

"Dr. Barber."

"And, isn't your name Barber?"

"Yes."

"Interesting."

Then the dream refocused back to that fuzzy area where I could kind of see what was going on, but hear nothing. The teacher tried to set up a composition for painting, and even with my limited knowledge I could see that it was bad. The smirking twin was intent on the lecture, but her sister could also see that the class was worthless. I decided the class wasn't for me and I left.

I find that clip very interesting, because in it I see the tyranny of the nice. Elisabeth is the nice, sweet, all-American little mom, and to quote Rosie, she's the 'big, fat, loud, lesbian.' From the clip, I get that behind the scenes there was never a moment when Elisabeth came up to Rosie and said, "I know the media is being hard on you, and that we don't politically agree, but I want you to know that I still think you're a good person." Instead, she said nothing.

Make no mistake: that little dust up was more about personal issues between those two women than it was about politics. What I find interesting is the passive-aggressive position that Hasselbeck takes.

Because I've been in similar positions as Rosie, I really feel for her. One of the reasons I've taken up writing is because it requires a thoughtful selection of words. I experienced it at work recently. A person took part of what I said, dismissed the rest, and whipped up a whole drama in which I was "vicimizing" her. Fortunately, I have a handbook that pretty much dictates how I handle situations and it was very clear in short order that this woman was playing games.

That's what I see with Elisabeth Hasselbeck. She waited for the moment when Rosie would string three or four words together that could be taken out of context and then she sprang. The problem then is that either with, or without her knowlege, Hasselbeck had a conservative media machine taking those words and recontextualizing them in order to create a "Baghdad Rose" out of Rosie O'Donnell. And instead of recognizing it as a smear campaign, it appears that Hasselbeck bought into it, without examining the agenda behind it.

This little situation is going to haunt me for a while.