Much has been made about the grotesque display that passes for politics these days at the GOP debate last week, particularly surrounding Donald Trump’s performance. What’s been sort of lost in all of the hullaballoo over his sexist statements is the complete drive-by that happened to Rosie O’Donnell. We covered it here, but it seems not too many people took Trump and the audience at the debate to task for making a mockery of someone completely uninvolved in the whole event.

Until now that is. Country music singer Chely Wright, who became the first country star to come out publicly back in 2010, has come to stand at Rosie’s side in a lengthy Facebook post that changes the conversation about Donald Trump, Rosie O’Donnell, and Megyn Kelly. Wright attests that when she heard the crowd of 5,000 cheer at Trump’s dig at Rosie O’Donnell, she “felt a wave of nausea sweep over me and it has remained for days.” She continues, “Nearly ALL 5,000 people allowed this man-- who aspires to be the leader of OUR America-- to publicly bully, mock, attack Rosie O'Donnell (again-- he's been doing it for a decade and it's bothered me for as long), but they cheered him on as he did it."

But Wright didn't stop there. "Shame on you, if you were in that audience and you cheered for this," she writes. "Shame on you if you cheered and snickered at home. This is not a matter of the Left or the Right-- this is a matter of basic decorum and decency. I saw very little of either in that moment.”

Wright then links to a piece Elizabeth Birch, an attorney and personal friend of O’Donnell, wrote for Huffington Post. In it, Birch testifies to all the good deeds Rosie has done, not because it made her look good, but because it was the right thing to do. When generous acts are undertaken for the right reasons, word of them often does not reach the public’s eye. Birch lets readers know that “by 2005, [Rosie] had already contributed well over $60,000,000 to charities focused on the health and well being of children. Through her own charity, the For All Kids Foundation, she contributed millions in capital grants to hundreds of day care centers all of the country serving low income children. This was not someone else's money nor leveraging her celebrity. This was investing her own hard earned cash. And her generosity began well before she hit pay dirt on the Rosie O'Donnell Show.”

Unfortunately, because O'Donnell is an outspoken, liberal lesbian, and that crowd was full of… well, the kind of people who go to a GOP debate for fun, thousands of people had a laugh at her expense when Trump decided to reignite a long-dead feud. It isn’t right. Cheers to Chely Wright and Elizabeth Birch for telling us all about the real O'Donnell.

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