"Rosie the Riveting" to Bolt from The View

Rosie O'Donell is leaving The View after her controverial stint there jacked ratings by 17 percent, says USA Today.

Among her many "rants" (the paper's word):

She compared fundamentalist Christians to Islamic extremists: "Radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America where we have a separation of church and state."…

Commenting on the resignation of Rep. Mark Foley: "It's the same thing that happened in the Catholic Church, when a pedophile priest would move from parish to parish because the Catholic Church was afraid of lawsuits. And here's the most interesting thing about the Deliver us from Evil documentary, that the person who was in charge of investigating all the allegations of pedophilia in the Catholic Church from the '80s until just recently was guess who? The current pope."…

Commenting about how Danny DeVito's visit to the show, when he was acting drunk, attracted attention: "The fact is that it's news all over the world. That you know, you can imagine in China it's like: 'Ching chong, ching chong. Danny DeVito, ching chong, chong, chong, chong. Drunk. The View. Ching chong.' "…

Called for the impeachment of President Bush: "I think we should do it so the world knows that the nation is not standing behind this president's choices; that the nation, a democracy, feels differently than the man who is leading as if it was a dictatorship and that we represent this country; he does not lead as a monarch."…

Claimed that the World Trade Center's Building 7 was brought down by explosives on 9/11: "I do believe that it is the first time in history that fire has ever melted steel. I do believe that it defies physics for the World Trade Center Tower 7 … which collapsed in on itself. It is impossible for a building to fall the way it fell without explosives being involved. … World Trade 1 and 2 got hit by planes; seven, miraculously, the first time in history, steel was melted by fire."…

Defended shock jock Don Imus: "What's the next step … your job is going to be taken away if you think or say something that America doesn't like?"

More here. USA Today (and everyone else) figures she'll be back on daytime TV faster than even she can say "ching chong ching chong." Here's hoping she and Henry Kissinger start a talk show that goes right up against Tyra's and Rachel Ray's.

Question for Hit & Runners: What percentage of the above statements might you agree with? And will Joy Behar be able to move into the power vacuum created by Rosie being booted out the airlock?

And here's the recent Matrix Awards rant in which Rosie told Donald Trump to "eat me" and that so offended Bill O'Reilly and other delicate flowers of American media: