The Death of the Great American Bimbo

There are lots of people sad about Anna Nicole's death, but you know who's happy? Even happier than her former inlaws, with whom she was locked in a bitter estate fight when she died. Happier indeed is this astronaut woman from Houston. Anna's death knocked her right off the front page of the tabloids, where I don't think she wanted to be.

But for me it's been a grim laugh fest. In the past week I've seen the following headlines: "Lust in Space," "The Hussey from Houston," "Dark Side of the Loon," "Pop-scicle" (on the Daily News, breaking the story that Anna Nicole's daughter may have been fathered by Anna's dead ex-husband's frozen sperm), and the king of them all on today's New York Post: "Who's Yer Daddy?"

Of course the Post was the only paper I saw with the courage to ask the real question on Friday's front page: "Was It Murder?" Oh! How they hope it was!

I've got a simpler question for the Post: Was it news? I mean come on, people, there's genocide in Darfur. There's war in Iraq. There's a revival of soviet dictatorship in Russia. There's communism in Venezuella. Yesterday I was at the gym and (I'm not exagerating here) 22 minutes out of every half hour on CNN was devoted to covering Anna Nicole's death. On CNN! They were camped out side the morgue giving minute by minute updates on her autopsy, even when all they had to say was "Her body is being autopsied this morning and we should have some news in a few hours." I can just here James Earl Jones: "THIS is exploitation." Talk about whoring yourself out!

But I mean, really. Zha Zha's husband throwing his hat into the paternity ring was so amazingly bizare I for one could not shield my eyes from the train wreck. I just couldn't stop watching (or laughing, for that matter).