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Rosie 1, President 0

http://extratv.warnerbros.com/dailynews/extra/0704/07_15d.html

Rosie 1, President 0

It's score one for Rosie O'Donnell, zero for President Bush. O'Donnell has seldom seemed happier than when "Extra" caught up with her Wednesday, just hours after the U.S. Senate voted down the president's call for a constitutional ban on gay marriage.

"You know what, I got little tears in my eyes because truthfully I think it's what this country stands for," O'Donnell told us.

America's most famous gay rights crusader was in Key West, Florida, at a charity exhibition of her art works and the maiden voyage of R Family Vacations, her cruise line for gay and lesbian families, when O'Donnell congratulated all the senators who opposed the gay marriage ban.

"I'm proud of every single one of them who voted to reject it," she insisted.

Rosie launched her passionate one-woman war against the White House over gay rights and gay marriage with her high-profile wedding to longtime love Kelli Carpenter in San Francisco earlier this year.

And as she told "Extra," O'Donnell claims the president has been using the gay marriage issue as a distraction, from what she calls his immoral war in Iraq. "As if no one's going to remember you started a war on fabricated facts and went to war to get oil because you're from an oil family, and friends with the Saudis," O'Donnell insisted. "And you want to start blaming the gay people? Hold it, hold it, hold it."

And on the eve of Martha Stewart's sentencing, Rosie claimed that the embattled tycoon has also been used as a distraction by the Bush administration. "She is the most successful woman in America, and to think the federal government is taking her down for a $30,000 stock trade is obscene."

Meanwhile, and perhaps not so surprisingly, O'Donnell has vowed to do everything she can to help the democrats defeat her nemesis, President Bush, come November.

For more on Rosie O'Donnell and her fight for equality, don't miss Thursday's edition of "Extra."