Too Short for a Blog Post, Too Long for a Tweet 209

Here are a couple of excerpts from a book I recently read, "Ladies Who Punch: The Explosive Inside Story of 'The View,'" by Ramin Setoodeh.




At least one of her famous guests was moved by the procession. In the days after the wedding, Tutera got a call from Trump requesting a bid on his upcoming ceremony, set for January 2005. He wanted a carbon copy of what he’d seen, and long before Melania plagiarized from Michelle Obama’s Democratic National Convention speech, she borrowed something from the View bride. “Melania and Donald copied my design and hired someone else,” Tutera said. “That’s the God’s honest truth. Look at the photos of their wedding versus Star’s. It’s the exact same thing! The way the flowers were set up, the layout, the whole thing.”

Her show was the place to go if you loved talking about pop culture, celebrities—and Rosie O’Donnell. Instead of engaging in normal banter with her famous guests, many of her questions revolved around Rosie’s own obsessions: All My Children, Ally McBeal, Ring Dings, decoupage, Tom Cruise, and Barbra Streisand. No star, no matter how big, could escape Rosie’s rabid interests. On February 3, 1997, Hillary Rodham Clinton participated in an interview that was unlike anything she’d previously done on TV. Rather than discuss public policy or health care, the first lady played a round of trivia about The Mary Tyler Moore Show, kissed Oscar the Grouch, and belted out a duet of “The Telephone Hour” from Bye Bye Birdie.