Contributing to the demise of our nation's priorities

Without a doubt, the best part of the Larry King/Paris Hilton interview was the juxtaposition of the Anderson Cooper commentary directly following it.

I've never actually watched a full episode of Larry King before. It's always on at the gym as I'm running on the treadmill, but I'm never home in time for it, and if I am, I've never thought to watch it. But today I attended a trade show for work and found myself at home by the late afternoon. I skipped the gym in favor of a quick neighborhood run, specifically so I could be exercised and showered in time for the 6 PM broadcast.

My first thoughts were that her hair was the wrong shade of blond and her makeup was too much. Remember when Barbara Walters interviewed Monica Lewinsky, and she looked immaculately virtuous yet desirably gorgeous with a single Club Monaco lipstick? Paris had so much going on above the neck I couldn't help but compare her to when Britney talked to Matt Lauer for an entire afternoon with a fake eyelash dangling from the ledge. I would even swear that Paris' makeup was smudged in the same place.

I thought Larry, and CNN in general, let us down with trite softball questions, until Anderson swooped in at 7 PM to call attention to her thinly veiled "rehabilitation," holes in her stories, and general lack of connection she seemed to spark with America, lest any of us wonder for half a second if possibly she was a new woman after all.

It's that lack of connection with the world that I think is the biggest problem here. Nicole Richie has also made a career of little more than acting like a spoiled dumb blond, but she has a likability about her that people are drawn to. I've heard her in interviews, and she is genuinely funny and sassy and smartly sarcastic - the kind of girl I would love to be friends with if only I thought she would go out for dinner. She just seems a little more down to earth. Paris would do well to take a lesson or two from her lower-profile friend.

Well, as long as it's not a driving lesson.