This is why I love the internet. Unmediated contact. Of course, few other celebrities would go sans makeup in a do-rag and drink a beer on camera.

Matt and I TiVo “The View” every day, so we saw yesterday’s big shouting match between Rosie O’Donnell and Elisabeth Hasselbeck. (Scroll down here for a transcript.) What started as a discussion about the war turned into an unusually angry argument between Rosie and Elisabeth about whether Elisabeth has sufficiently defended Rosie in the face of Fox News commentators, who have claimed that Rosie has implied that American troops are terrorists. Matt cringed and covered his eyes and made noises and finally had to walk away from the TV. (He hates watching people argue.) Me, I was riveted. Rosie and Elisabeth shouted at each other while poor Joy Behar and guest host Sherri Shepherd were caught in the middle. Joy’s desperate plea to go to a commercial (“Is there no commercial on this show?”) was priceless.

I was riveted, but the whole thing annoyed the crap out of me. I only started watching “The View” last fall, and I’ve been impressed at the substantive political discussions the hosts often have. This could have been another one of those enlightening discussions for the audience, a great opportunity to point out the provincialism of Elisabeth and other war supporters, but no, Rosie had to make it all about her and her relationship with her co-host and she solved nothing.

Elisabeth Hasselbeck seems charming, but I’ve been annoyed by her rah-rah support for Bush and this stupid war. From what I can tell, only one thing motivates her: fear. She’s a young mom with a little girl and another baby on the way, and all that matters to her is that we might be attacked again. She’s totally been sucked in by the Bush Administration’s fearmongering. Forget “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself” – according to Bush, of course, we should be scared. Fear, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11.

Hasselbeck and others actually believe that George W. Bush is the only person who can “protect” us from “the terrorists.” But fighting terrorism is like fighting crime. Any president can do it. After all, it’s not the President who fights terrorism at all. It’s the people who work in government agencies who do it – on the federal, state, and local levels. All the president has to do is turn the government’s resources in the right direction, and we don’t need Bush or even a Republican in the White House for that to happen. “Protecting us” is just a massive law enforcement matter.

Terrorists are not boogeymen. They’re people, and they have motivations. Calling them “the enemy” – god, I think I hate that term more than almost any other – lets you off the hook from having to understand what motivates them. It lets you off the hook from having to think of them as individuals, from having to think about why terrorism happens. Calling them “the enemy” glorifies them, makes all this seem macho and fun, like we’re in “Star Wars” or “The Lord of the Rings.”

Living in a black/white, good/evil paradigm keeps you from having to actually think.

Boo on Elisabeth Hasselbeck for being such a sucker.

And boo on Rosie for making it personal instead of furthering the discussion.

Yesterday was Jerry Falwell’s funeral. But, um:

The funeral also drew protesters from the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., which sent about a dozen members who claimed Mr. Falwell was a friend of gay men and lesbians, The Associated Press reported.

And I didn’t think it was possible for the Westboro folks to get any stupider.

They’re not even trying anymore.