Fox News Channel Thinks Anna Nicole Is More Important Story Than Walter Reed

"I made a check today of the Fox News website, and as of today, since this scandal broke, they have had exactly one video on Walter Reed, and 55 videos on Anna Nicole Smith during that period. So I think maybe the priorities are a little bit skewed over there."

-- Greg Mitchell of Editor and Publisher magazine, last night on Countdown With Keith Olbermann.

Hear the quote, and a really embarrassing comment by Britt Hume, in the below video:

A Great Writer Is Hard To Find

Flannery O'Connor and Anna Nicole Smith were both 39 when they died. This is the first time in the history of the world these two women have ever been mentioned in the same breath.

One of my favorite lines in any work of fiction comes in the third last paragraph of O'Connor's short story "A Good Man Is Hard to Find." Outside the context of the story, it's hard to fully appreciate, but the line comes shortly after the old woman in the story gets three bullets pumped into her chest by an escaped convict referred to as The Misfit.

"She would of been a good woman," The Misfit said, "if it had been somebody
there to shoot her every minute of her life."

Think about this for a bit.

The best thing I've read about Anna Nicole Smith in the last day contains only three words (which forms merely a headline) and a single vivid image. Here it is over on Andrew Sullivan's blog.

A vivid image? An economy of language? Reminds me of a southern Catholic writer who never saw 40.

Flannery O'Connor fans should not miss

this travel story in Sunday's New York

Times. Here it is.

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Anna Nicole Dead At 39

A few years ago, when she had a show on E!, I gave these dolls away as gag gifts.

Think the ebay prices on these are headed higher?

The whole mess is rather sad.

But this story is just beginning, really.

Let the hagiography begin, all you anchors on the 24-hour cable networks, because a little later, when the lawsuits start, and more information is leaked to the press, the end of this beautiful woman's life is going to become really ugly.

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