Need a break from Anna Nicole Smith? Iraq? the Edwards bloggers?

Well, let me introduce you to Dick Cavett, who lit up many an evening way (way) back when with his talk show for culture snobs. (I think it’s in reruns, or was, somewhere on cable. TCM?)) Nostalgia isn’t my thing—or his, apparently. Because Cavett’s got a blog at the NYTimes (and, unfortunately, behind the pay wall). His first post is heavenly. “Our grip on our glorious language may be loosening,” he writes:

Let’s get everybody’s favorite example out of the way: the leader of the free world’s goofy inability to pronounce what is arguably the most important word in his vocabulary: “nuclear.” What is so hard? A school kid botching it Bush’s way — “nuke-you-lur” — would have to stand in the corner. Fortunately, an oval office has no corners.

(Does Bush’s atom have a nuke-you-luss? Does it work in reverse? Is Bush’s railway a foo-nick-lee-ur? Let’s bet.) …
I think we’re just stuck with the president’s individualist English. This is the man who gave us, “I know how hard it is to put food on your family,” and who told Brian Williams, regarding his alleged Camus studies, “I have an ‘eckalectic’ reading list.” Until he was nice enough to repeat it, I was sure he had said “epileptic,” which at least would have been a word. I prefer the three-syllable version “eclectic,” but then he is The Decider.

But money talks nonetheless, as is amply demonstrated by this detail buried in paragraph three of a story about the deal on a Palestinian national unity government between Hamas and Fatah:

The Saudis pledged to donate USD 1 billion
to the new government in a bid to help it overcome the difficulties created by the economic blockade on the PA.

The Saudis just agreed to pay off the Palestinians to put their house in order. Let’s hope it works.

Anna Nicole Smith is dead. Larry King and Wolf Blitzer of (”It’s Called Journalism“) CNN spent the better part of this afternoon eulogizing her:

Gawker tells it best:

And Larry hit the nail on the head:

KING: It’s a story for the books. It’s a story that will be written about and talked about. I imagine there’ll be a major motion picture about it.

(The pulp of Sidney Sheldon is beginning to look better and better, no?.)

But wait. I’m still sobbing, because it gets worse–much, much worse! It turns out that Ben and Felicity

don’t actually get together:

EXCLUSIVE! KERI RUSSELL PREGNANT!

The father is Keri’s fiancé, studly New York-based contractor Shane Deary.

I’m heartbroken. But I’ll tell you what really did me in. That Astro-Nut has demolished my faith in everything.

Just as the New York Times predicted:

Many are also wondering whether the “Right Stuff” image of astronauts has been tarnished, or if that image somehow confused technical excellence with emotional stability.