The View

TMZ has now confirmed the buzz that we exclusively reported last night: Rosie O'Donnell will announce on today's show that she is leaving "The View." And TMZ has confirmed that "View" honchos are already searching for her replacement.

Stay tuned!

UPDATE: LOG ON TO TMZ AT 11:15 AM EASTERN TIME AND WE'LL HAVE A CLIP OF ROSIE'S ANNOUNCEMENT.

Crow made her comments on her blog last week, and Rosie took a moment on this morning's "The View" to express her incredulity at the supposedly enviro-friendly suggestion. "Have you seen my ass?!" bellowed Rosie, and Barbara Walters was good enough to warn viewers not to use their sleeves, another of Crow's helpful suggestions.

Pretty-headed HOmemaker Deirdre had been scheduled for "The View" this past Monday, but in the wake of her husband's I-mess, as TMZ reported last week, she canceled all appearances related to her book, "Greening Your Cleaning." But there she was on today's show hawking the tidy tome.

In a post on his blog, TomDeLay.com, titled "If the Left takes Imus, We'll take Rosie," the controversial DeLay calls on conservatives to "protest and demand" that Rosie get the boot from "The View." DeLay uses Imus-gate to demonstrate the "concerted strategy" of the left to, in his words, "unite to destroy."

Going further, DeLay issues a challenge to fellow right-wingers: "If Don Imus falls to the pleas of political correctness, we're taking Rosie O'Donnell down with him." Rosie shot back on her blog late last night, calling DeLay a "criminal" and telling him to "go away."

After "Kill Bill" and "Sin City" re-injected high kitsch into the American cinema, we here at City of Industry were particularly interested in what the critics would say about Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodgriguez's newest, critic-proof films: Rodriguez's "Planet Terror" and Tarantino's "Death Proof," which are being released as a double feature entitled "Grindhouse" -- this weekend on 2,624 screens.

By far, my favorite review of the directors' combined 3-hour slasher & zombie hodgepodge comes from the Christian Science Monitor's Peter Rainer, who writes of Tarantino's newest:

"Tarantino devotes a great deal of time to scenes of the women just sassing each other – at times it's like a grindhouse version of 'The View.' [but]...Tarantino may have moved beyond the grindhouse conventions he has routinely championed. The extended sequences with the women in 'Death Proof,' before the blood and the vroom-vroom set in, could be his newfound attempt to humanize his people instead of treating them as car-crash mannequins. He has such a good, loosey-goosey feeling for the back-and-forth jabber of girlfriends that you almost wish he had jettisoned the skidding U-Turns and just made a film about women hanging out."

That's an intriguing idea, and one that's especially timely given the untimely death of Bob Clark. Tthe director got his start with horror schlock like "Black Christmas" and raunchy comedies like "Porky's," but the media -- and the world -- remembers him far more fondly for directing that near-perfect holiday film, "A Christmas Story."

Rosie O'Donnell isn't as paranoid or as radical-minded as her recent rants might suggest -- she's just trying to get herself fired from "The View," according to Dennis Miller.

Miller provided his analysis of the Rosie situation on last night's "The O'Reilly Factor," branding O'Donnell and "The View" co-host Joy Behar a "Thelma and Louise" tag team of liberal orthodoxy which is threatening to scare Elisabeth Hasselbeck into oblivion. Miller suggested that Rosie wants an ownership stake in her own morning show -- which she currently does not have at "The View" -- and is trying as hard as she can to get her bosses to show her the door.

Helpfully, Miller suggested one way to really piss off her bosses at ABC and Disney: "Announce that one of her former lovers was Tinkerbell."

Rosie O'Donnell felt Bill O'Reilly's wrath again last night on "The O'Reilly Factor," with Bill calling her "radical" and "dangerous," and suggesting, as a financial newspaper did, that she's spewing anti-American propaganda.

In his "Talking Points" segment last night, O'Reilly picked up the Investor's Business Daily's editorial calling O'Donnell "Tokyo Rosie," a reference to "Tokyo Rose," the nickname American GIs gave to Japanese women who broadcast anti-American messages over the airwaves during World War II.

As of this morning, Rosie had posted no response on her usual soapbox at rosie.com.

Thanks to Joy Behar, her "View" cohort, who gave Rosie a vehicular manifestation of Rosie's favorite combatant, Donald "Dump Truck" Trump as a gift for O'Donnell's 45th birthday on today's show. Touching, really.

The 77-year-old "View" host is fast becoming the go-to-ma'am for the latest in blown-out, wispy, ash blonde shag trends for the post-post-post-MTV crowd. When you're a graying Grammy winner, the Rosie man-bob just won't do! He bangs!

And for you men who find yourselves pushing 50 and beyond, but don't feel like going blonde, fear not -- the starched Walters Wave also comes in a lush Richie Sambora Chestnut Brown!

It's the latest cranial-dance craze sweeping the nation -- The Trump-Over!

First, you tilt your head to one side and flop your hair thataway. Then, grab your locks and toss them, imperiously, the other way across your scalp. The whole time, purse your lips and lightly squint your eyes in an I'm-a-balding-blowhard-billionaire scowl. Bingo! You're doing the Trump-Over!

Conan O'Brien's been doing it for years, but today, on the Daytime Emmy-nominated "The View," Rosie O'Donnell was joined by Joy, Elisabeth and guest host Susie Essman in a new, feminized version -- prompted by Trump's latest attack on Rosie's inversion therapy for chronic depression.

We kid, we kid! Rosie's OK -- she's doing herself some good, in fact.

In a special broadcast about depression and women, Rosie demonstrated "inversion therapy" -- wherein the patient suspends herself from a yoga swing. Rosie says that it releases the serotonin in her brain and that she indulges in the verticality for 15 to 30 minutes every day. Yo ga, girl!

No word on whether Babwa would be doing her own show about the experiences with depression -- The Great Depression, that is.

Rosie O'Donnell has just a couple words for "American Idol's" Nigel Lythgoe: Whatever, dude.

That, in effect, was Rosie's response to Lythgoe's stinging criticism, just a couple of hours after the "Idol" honcho called her remarks about his show "absurd," "ridiculous," "self-promotional" and "without thought or knowledge." On her blog at rosie.com, "The View's" resident firestarter had this to say [warning: spellings unchanged] --

what can u say really
from the coca-cola red couch

i call it as i see it
nigel l - sam r
same same same
1985 - 2007
blah blah blah blha
blha blha blah blha

Nigel Lythgoe, executive producer of "American Idol," has just released a statement in response to criticism made against the show by "View" host Rosie O'Donnell. It reads:

"Without wishing to add to the obvious self-promotion of Ms. O'Donnell, I feel as though I must refute her absurd and ridiculous claims that 'American Idol' is racist and/or weightist.

"Ms. O'Donnell has, once again, spoken without thought or knowledge. Viewers need only look at the show tonight to realize that 'American Idol' constantly confirms to America that talent has nothing to do with weight or color."

It was Rosie's comments on Tuesday's episode of "The View" that drew "Idol's" ire. Rosie called the show "weightist and racist" over the way it has handled the Antonella Barba photo scandal this season, as opposed to when it booted contestant Frenchie Davis for the same thing. Although an "Idol" spy tells us that the difference is that Frenchie was paid for her pre-Idol porn, while Antonella's photos were private, and published without her knowledge or permission.

"Idol" has also banned "The View" from using clips from the show.

As is their habit, Rosie and the "View" crew started to talk about last night's "Idol," but had no video to go with it. Ro explained the lack of footage was because "Idol" was unhappy over her slamming of the judges, her suggestions about Paula's "possible inattentiveness," and her accusations of racism and sizeism on yesterday's broadcast.

"It's weightist and wacist," said Rosie, doing her best Donald Duck impression. Silly wabbit Wosie, ever heard of Wuben Studdard? Fantasia? Babwa wasn't there to comment.

Earlier this week, the motormouth mamas got into a heated tiff over The Patriot Act, which allegedly left Elisabeth in tears backstage. While rumors swirled that "her days were numbered," Hasselbeck told L.A. radio station Star 98.7's Valentine and Lisa Foxx, "Rosie and I are friends." Define friends! Hasselbeck added that she and Rosie, despite political differences, have "a lot in common," and that the reason the women on the show can talk about such controversial topics is because "there is respect at that table." Is that what you call it?!

In an obvious reference to her previous stint on "Survivor," Elisabeth did admit that being the lone conservative voice on the show can make her feel like she's "out on an island sometimes."

Somehow, sleep deprivation and barbecuing rats seem like paradise compared to sitting with "The View" yentas every day!