Listening to the Broward County, Fla. coroner warn that the still-unburied remains of the late Anna Nicole Smith were getting a bit ripe reminded me of one of Ambrose Bierce’s more notorious remarks.

Speaking of a deceased actress in whose lifetime, he noted, was famous for her composure, Bierce, 19th century journalism’s precursor of our beloved Ann Coulter, said that unfortunately, the lady was now “quite decomposed.”

I can’t help but wonder what Bierce would have said about the current media mania concerning the aftermath of Miss Smith’s death, the disposal of her body, and the identity of the father of her last child.

How would he have reacted to the endless television coverage of the trial which is supposed to resolve the question of who will gain possession of her body before it falls apart? And what about the proceeding morphing into a showcase for the dramatic talents of the trial judge, who appears to lust after a career as a male Judge Judy and is accused of using the trial as a screen test?

“He is not as pretty as Judge Judy, but he is cut from the same tooth,'' Vinnie Politan, co-host of Court TV's weekday morning show “Bloom & Politan,” told The Miami Herald. “We here at Court TV love him. This is going to put him on the map, and he knows it.”

It is not too much of a reach to say that Broward County Circuit Judge Larry Seidlin has turned the proceedings into something of a circus, where he stars as the high-wire trapeze performer. Nor to note that television has encouraged his theatrics by covering the trial almost from dawn ‘til dusk.

I agree with whoever it was that said his honor is suffering from an advanced case of Itoitis, recalling the jurist in the O.J. Simpson case. Judge Seidlin, however, unlike Judge Ito, is amusing.

The endless coverage has been so intense that it has all but drowned out the comings and goings of Britney whatsername as she meanders from rehab to rehab having shorn her golden locks and tattooed the nape of her neck in what the media diagnoses as a cry for help. Previous cries, such as her refusal to don underwear and her penchant for making it obvious, have gone unheeded. Continued...