Trials, Trial, Trials ... Yeah

A New York Times story by Gretchen Morgensen soberly reminds us that if we live in an Age of Shadenfreude, then we need public trials in which to roast those fallen stars to crispy. To wit: America was a nation founded by ambitious lawyers out to throw off the outrageous chains of tyranny, and today lawyers are just as ambitious, but they are also out to throw off the outrageous claims of celebrity.

As a result of the legal field's bold maneuverings on the battlefield of 'enquiring minds,' TheSmokingGun has become a household name. Legal eagle NYS Attorney General Eliot Spitzer is the golden boy of the Democratic Party. Please do not get in the space between Spitzer and a tv camera. You will get squished. It is more dangerous between Spitzer and a network camera crew than in the DMZ in North Korea. One can almost forget that dodgy campaign money from his dad in '98. Almost.

Court TV (aka, sotto voce, "the INVESTIGATION channel") is big as a result of the new legal chic, but they are evidently not chic enough to hang at Plaid's VIP Table, as Page Six reports, "COURT TV correspondent Beth Karas and friends being muscled out of their VIP table at Plaid to make room for Met Mo Vaughn and company." Sorry, counsel, baseball still trumps the legal field in the USA.

Dates to Keep in Mind, my little pomergranates: On January 20, Martha goes before the court; on February 4, WorldCom's Scott Sullivan gets to see if Justice is truly blind; In October, those rascally Enron execs get their shot. Then, of course, we cannot forget Jacko, Kobe, Scott Petersen, Robert Blake, the Bassinger-Baldwin's Beatings and Booze child custody fiasco (aka, the Battle for Ireland").

Finally, we have professional ambulance chaser Raoul Felder, who took time out from his busy schedule writing seriously unfunny travel books with Jackie Mason to represent David Guest. Guest himself couldn't make the hearing. "He had to have 20 injections in his head," explained Felder ... although he neglected to mention why the hypedermic needle looked ... so ... odd ... (averted gaze) ... okay, admittedly I went after a cheap laugh right there: but you know I had to say it.

We are going to need humor to fortify us against all the legal wranglings that stand between us and pure, unmitigated shadenfreude.