This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2007, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

For some reason, I've been frustrated that the biggest television story these past two weeks was about a rotund, dark-haired, liberal loudmouth from New York getting into a verbal catfight with a rail-thin, blond, ultraconservative reality-TV nobody.

So Rosie O'Donnell tells her doe-eyed, vacuous "The View" co-host, Elizabeth Hasselbeck, she's "cowardly," and the nation's TV writers and gossip columnists go ape with ink.

Even the Los Angeles Times wrote a piece about the two negotiating some kind of friendship deal through e-mails over the weekend.

What's so interesting about two self-absorbed people going at it for a half-minute on national television in a superficial debate about the Iraq war? And who cares whether they make up?

Haven't viewers watched "Hannity & Colmes"? How about "The O'Reilly Factor"? That's enough hot air spewing from the mouths of television idiots to fill the Hindenburg.

The televised tiff erupted when O'Donnell insinuated it was really the U.S. that is the terrorist, invading Iraq and starting a war that O'Donnell says has resulted in the deaths of more than 100,000 Iraqis.

O'Donnell was criticized for her statement, and an argument began when she accused Hasselbeck of being "cowardly" for not speaking up for her when the criticisms mounted.

That led to a lot of finger-pointing and a split-screen shouting match on "The View" that became the viral video of the week on the Internet.

Then, O'Donnell left the show three weeks before she was contracted to leave - an unexpected and delightful turn - and the show went back to what it was really good at: being a boring, shallow and phony chat-fest. What do you expect from a show that hires co-hosts with no real television experience except for being on "Survivor"?

But did the verbal sparring between Hasselbeck and O'Donnell, which they were apt to do from time to time on "The View," have to become the water-cooler talk of the week?

After all, arguing is what we humans do best and often. Husbands and wives do it hourly. Co-workers do it every noon hour when they can't decide where to go to lunch. Conflict has been the backbone of human existence. Why do you think we're at war in the first place?

The Great O'Donnell-Hasselbeck Debate all comes down to our celebrity-obsessed culture, where who says it - and with how much vitriol - is deemed more important than what is said. It's the same reason viewers got all excited when O'Reilly burst a blood vessel in April's shouting match with fellow Fox News stooge Geraldo Rivera.

Unfortunately, O'Donnell and Hasselbeck's argument about the tragic human loss from the Iraq war was lost in all the will-they-or-won't-they-go-to-blows malarkey.

Instead, what viewers focused on during their squabble is that O'Donnell's face looks like a big Fuji apple when she gets really mad and that Hasselbeck needs to lay off the tanning spray.

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* VINCE HORIUCHI's column appears Mondays and Fridays. He can be reached at vince@sltrib.com or 801-257-8607. For more television insights, visit Horiuchi's blog, "The Village Vidiot," at blogs.sltrib.com/tv/ and catch his PopCast podcast Tuesdays at sltrib.com/entertainment. Send comments about this column to living editor@sltrib.com.