Just when you think TV news can’t further debase itself, along comes the death of Anna Nicole Smith.
This talent-bereft, gold-digging, airhead bimbo, whose calling card was a set of artificially inflated breasts, was a sad, pathetic creature. On TV, her death should have been worthy of a 15-second mention, to match the time she spent in the national spotlight for being a former Playboy model who brazenly married an octogenarian millionaire and guarded access to his will with an Uzi.
The NBC network, supposedly the most sane and sober of the big news outlets, was the worst of those aggrandizing Smith’s death. From NBC Nightly News and MSNBC (the worst of the lot) to the idiot video tabloid shows like Extra and “Abcess Hollywood,” it devoted vast amounts of time to the Anna Nicole “story.” This included stooping to the bizarre extent of interviewing Zsa Zsa Gabor’s husband, who intimated he could be the father of Smith’s baby.
What was most detestable and distasteful was Brian Williams, the posturing phony and political ass-kissing No. 1 talking hairdo at NBC, giving this vast amounts of airtime, by TV standards. This cut into the other Bizarro World story, about astronaut Liz “Depends” Nowak, and served to cheapen NBC News’ increasingly pointed looks behind the scenes at what our troops face in Iraq.
The next time a big-titted C-list celebrity dies, Williams should use the three minutes to instead recite the names and hometowns of the US servicemen killed that week in our unspeakable war in Iraq.
J.R. is back in the high life again
The intelligence and style level at the State House went up a bunch of points when Governor Don Carcieri hired P&J’s dear old friend, J.R. Pagliarini, as deputy chief of staff. (If you call him anything other than J.R., such as his real name, John, he’ll think you are either a cop or a creditor, so consider yourself forewarned.)
J.R. served with another longtime P&J buddy, Linc Chafee, as his state director and deputy chief of staff, and he has ties with Linc going back to his days as mayor of War-ick. He has prior State House experience, within and outside of government, working on the staff of Governor Ed “Gerber Baby” DiPrete (boy, along with Mike Doyle and Nancy Martin, the Gerb never knew how good he had it for a while), and as a lobbyist.
Congrats from Casa Diablo, J.R. Stop by for a Pernod, grapefruit, and champagne cocktail sometime soon. Also, we offer a tip of the beret and sombrero to the Don for going after the best and the brightest. J.R.’s a class act on all fronts.
