They Burn Witches, Don't They?

There's really no sense in my writing yet another angry screed against Nancy Grace; I've written quite a few already -- including an open letter to CNN published in the Huffington Post and circulated far and wide online -- and they've accomplished pretty much nothing other than to stop me from actually resorting to some form of physical violence.

I think with this latest suicide that the most repugnant, irresponsible and dangerous person on television is linked to -- a woman who may have admittedly killed her baby in a drunken accident but who wound up lighting herself on fire only after becoming the nightly target of Grace's entirely self-serving indignant histrionics -- the best I can hope for is that at some point Nancy Grace decides that Nancy Grace herself doesn't deserve to live.

Wouldn't that be a beautiful thing: Nancy Grace devoting hours and hours of airtime, night after night, to hammering away at Nancy Grace; a woman who's now been implicated in two deaths; who regularly flouts any standard of decency, morality and ethical conduct, all in the name of making herself rich; who believes that she has the right to play the role of judge and jury -- and, inadvertently, executioner -- over cases that haven't yet been decided or have already been ruled on fairly and justly, trying them separately or retrying them in the court of public opinion; who claims to speak for the victims but who herself is a bullying victimizer; who subverts the real justice system over and over again using one of the most powerful weapons the world has ever seen: a televised forum. Could Nancy Grace bring Nancy Grace on her show, slap a clever nickname on her like "Vodka Mom" or "Tot Mom" -- "Grudge Judge" maybe? -- and pile onto her, eviscerating her until she feels so guilty for being a reckless, wretched, despicable monster that it would lead Nancy Grace to take her own life? Could Nancy Grace put Nancy Grace on trial publicly -- doling out whatever punishment she and she alone feels is deserved?

That would be something worth watching.

Here now is the last thing I wrote about Grace, published just a few months ago. You can literally replace one or two words and it works perfectly this morning.

"An Open Letter To CNN Regarding Nancy Grace" (Originally Published, 2.14.12)

You have to fire Nancy Grace.

Is that simple and unambiguous enough for you to get through your heads the gravity of the situation that the world's most irresponsible cable news presence has put your network in? Is it finally sinking in just how reckless, unhinged and flat-out dangerous Grace is -- and what an embarrassment she is to the CNN brand I have to assume you value -- now that she's used your airwaves to make the ludicrously inflammatory claim that Whitney Houston may have been murdered, without a shred of actual proof? Did you cringe when one of your level-headed anchors, Don Lemon, was forced to follow up her ridiculous, histrionic accusation with a disclaimer distancing CNN from the opportunistic ravings of one of its own? Are you maybe, now, after all this time, beginning to realize the level of shame that Grace has heaped at your doorstep for the past seven years -- seven years in which you've inexplicably given her free rein to bullhorn whatever wild theories or self-serving but ultimately defamatory blather have popped into her overactive mind?

You can't let this continue. Enough is enough.

I'll say it again: You have got to fire Nancy Grace -- and you have got to do it now.

For reasons most sane people will never quite understand, you let it slide when Grace -- in a near-sociopathic display of morbid prurience and sadistic exploitation -- berated Florida mother Melinda Duckett on-air to the point where it may have led her to kill herself, then ran the pre-taped interview immediately following the suicide. You looked the other way when, after months of indignant torch-and-pitchfork bluster from a CNN host's chair directed toward them, it was revealed that three Duke lacrosse players were in fact innocent of all rape charges against them, a verdict which prompted the perpetually wrong Grace to not only refuse to admit that she was wrong but to sub in another CNN anchor to deliver the news of the court's decision. You abdicated your responsibility to do something to stop the daily onslaught of incendiary invective spewing from the geyser of crap in the middle of Grace's face in the wake of the Casey Anthony verdict. Whether Casey Anthony is truly guilty or innocent doesn't matter one bit -- a court spoke and justice as we know it in this country was served. But that didn't matter to Nancy Grace, because in her mind she is the only real arbiter of right, wrong and legality and therefore it's within her God-given right to sit in judgment of each and every court case she calculatingly milks of every last drop of soap-opera tawdriness in the name of keeping herself relevant.

And that's just scratching the surface of her vulgarity.

She can do this kind of thing all she wants. This is a free country. But she should not be allowed to do it as a representative of CNN.

You have to fire Nancy Grace and you have to do it now -- before she does any more damage to your already tarnished reputation. You simply cannot continue to provide her with an on-air forum at your network and simultaneously claim to be a responsible news organization, one which holds itself to a high journalistic standard. The two just don't go together -- they can't.

She's already a national laughingstock, but you don't have to be by association. Not anymore.

Get rid of her.

Because I guarantee that her outrageous and irresponsible rants about the life and death of Whitney Houston -- informed only by her megalomania and the apparent voices in her pea brain -- are only going to continue. They're only going to get worse, in fact. And they're only going to bring more shame to CNN.

You have to do it. She's left you no choice.

Related: The Daily Banter: The Despicable Nancy Grace/7.11.12

Judging Nancy

As a nice little follow-up to my piece yesterday -- the one that ran both here and at the Huffington Post demanding that CNN take action it never will -- my friend Mary Beth Williams over at Salon ran down in pretty graphic detail the despicable ins and outs of Nancy Grace's reign of on-air terror.

In case you still don't know why Grace is such a worthless piece of shit, consider this all the elucidation you'll need.

Salon: Nancy Grace Is More Terrible Than Ever/2.15.12

I'd like to think that I inspired this piece, but then again I'd like to think that I'm constantly inspiring Mary Beth to do all sorts of things -- none of them, unfortunately, ever done to me.

An Open Letter To CNN Regarding Nancy Grace

You have to fire Nancy Grace.

Is that simple and unambiguous enough for you to get through your heads the gravity of the situation that the world's most irresponsible cable news presence has put your network in? Is it finally sinking in just how reckless, unhinged and flat-out dangerous Grace is -- and what an embarrassment she is to the CNN brand I have to assume you value -- now that she's used your airwaves to make the ludicrously inflammatory claim that Whitney Houston may have been murdered, without a shred of actual proof? Did you cringe when one of your level-headed anchors, Don Lemon, was forced to follow up her ridiculous, histrionic accusation with a disclaimer distancing CNN from the opportunistic ravings of one of its own? Are you maybe, now, after all this time, beginning to realize the level of shame that Grace has heaped at your doorstep for the past seven years -- seven years in which you've inexplicably given her free rein to bullhorn whatever wild theories or self-serving but ultimately defamatory blather have popped into her overactive mind?

You can't let this continue. Enough is enough.

I'll say it again: You have got to fire Nancy Grace -- and you have got to do it now.

For reasons most sane people will never quite understand, you let it slide when Grace -- in a near-sociopathic display of morbid prurience and sadistic exploitation -- berated Florida mother Melinda Duckett on-air to the point where it may have led her to kill herself, then ran the pre-taped interview immediately following the suicide. You looked the other way when, after months of indignant torch-and-pitchfork bluster from a CNN host's chair directed toward them, it was revealed that three Duke lacrosse players were in fact innocent of all rape charges against them, a verdict which prompted the perpetually wrong Grace to not only refuse to admit that she was wrong but to sub in another CNN anchor to deliver the news of the court's decision. You abdicated your responsibility to do something to stop the daily onslaught of incendiary invective spewing from the geyser of crap in the middle of Grace's face in the wake of the Casey Anthony verdict. Whether Casey Anthony is truly guilty or innocent doesn't matter one bit -- a court spoke and justice as we know it in this country was served. But that didn't matter to Nancy Grace, because in her mind she is the only real arbiter of right, wrong and legality and therefore it's within her God-given right to sit in judgment of each and every court case she calculatingly milks of every last drop of soap-opera tawdriness in the name of keeping herself relevant.

And that's just scratching the surface of her vulgarity.

She can do this kind of thing all she wants. This is a free country. But she should not be allowed to do it as a representative of CNN.

You have to fire Nancy Grace and you have to do it now -- before she does any more damage to your already tarnished reputation. You simply cannot continue to provide her with an on-air forum at your network and simultaneously claim to be a responsible news organization, one which holds itself to a high journalistic standard. The two just don't go together -- they can't.

She's already a national laughingstock, but you don't have to be by association. Not anymore.

Get rid of her.

Because I guarantee that her outrageous and irresponsible rants about the life and death of Whitney Houston -- informed only by her megalomania and the apparent voices in her pea brain -- are only going to continue. They're only going to get worse, in fact. And they're only going to bring more shame to CNN.

You have to do it. She's left you no choice.

(Cross-posted at the Huffington Post)

Thoroughly Predictable Quote of the Day

"I was very disturbed, because I think it is a huge miscarriage of justice. I believe that while Amanda Knox did not wield the knife herself, I think that she was there, with her boyfriend, and that he did the deed, and that she egged him on. That’s what I think happened."

-- Dancing with the Stars contestant Nancy Grace, on the release of Amanda Knox

Right. Because the special power of omniscience bestowed upon her by her father, the Dark Lord Satan, allows Nancy to make this kind of iron-clad pronouncement without fearing that she'll look like a complete fucking idiot. I love how in Grace-land the courts are always right when they issue a conviction and always wrong when they come back with an acquittal -- because no one accused of a crime is ever innocent. Once you've been charged, you're automatically guilty; screw it, why bother with a trial at all?

I swear, it's not even worth getting pissed about anymore.

You know who should've been a miscarriage?

Nancy Grace.

Quote of the Day

"It was reported that television ratings for the trial were extraordinary. Clearly, the broadcast of an official and serious court proceeding such as this trial where a young girl was dead and her mother faced the death penalty devolved into cheap, soap-opera-like entertainment."

-- Judge Belvin Perry, who presided over the Casey Anthony trial, in a ruling this week that will keep the names of the jurors in the case secret until public outrage over the verdict subsides

Cheap, soap-opera-like entertainment. You think?

While it may seem a little presumptuous, it's really not that much of a stretch so let's call this what it is: The judge in the Casey Anthony trial is basically keeping the jurors hidden because there's a legitimate threat to their safety in the atmosphere created by irresponsible, narcissistic goons like Nancy Grace. I get the ratings thing; I know that bloodthirsty outrage makes for great television. But in this case it's flat-out dangerous. Everyone, including the judge who presided over the Anthony case, understands this and has directly or indirectly castigated those who've fomented this climate. And yet CNN continues to allow Grace -- by a wide margin the worst offender -- to have a forum on its air. The lack of journalistic ethics is just mind-boggling.

Jury Tampering

The always great Gary Tuchman just made a terrific point on CNN about the possible repercussions of Nancy Grace's one-witch crusade against anyone and everyone associated with the Casey Anthony acquittal: Who the hell's going to want to step up and serve on a jury after this, knowing that if they turn in a verdict that doesn't roundly satisfy the public's need for blind vengeance they'll be vilified night after night on national television to the point where their lives might actually be put in danger?

Is that not reason alone for CNN to reconsider its position on continuing to give this unholy monster a platform from which to rage on?

Quote of the Day

"Every time a Casey Anthony-type trial captures the public's attention, someone gets the idea that we need a new law in response to the completely unrepresentative case, a law that presumably would have prevented that particularly travesty from happening. The problem, of course, is that the new law -- usually poorly written and passed in a fit of hysteria -- is too late to apply to the case it was designed for. But it does then apply to everyone else. Laws named after crime victims and dead people are usually a bad idea. They play more to emotion than reason. But they're disturbingly predictable, especially when they come after the death of a child."

-- Radley Balko, in the Huffington Post, on the knee-jerk stupidity that is the proposed "Caylee's Law"

If you couldn't see something like this coming in the wake of the Casey Anthony verdict you've been living under a bridge for the past couple of decades. The public consensus that Anthony got away with murder is so overwhelming that it's the safest bet possible for any jackass politician looking to prove that he or she loves children and is tough on crime to back a new law aimed at undoing this supposed injustice ex post facto. There's almost nothing that stands against one of the clearest fundamental principles of America's legal system -- that this is a nation of laws, not men -- than actually naming a law after somebody, particularly a murdered child, as a means of honoring his or her supposed legacy. As Balko says, these kinds of laws are often hastily thrown together in a fit of outrage and heartbreak -- or at the very least the knowledge that the window in which that outrage and heartbreak can be opportunistically exploited is relatively small -- and they would rarely survive constitutional scrutiny should anyone give a shit about such things at the time they're sharpening their pitchforks.

When it comes to the potential exploitation or suffering of kids in this country, our brains shut down completely and we're happy to turn into a screeching mob because we somehow believe that it serves the greater good of keeping children safe, therefore the end justifies the means. This is a ridiculous tack to take and often a very destructive one -- and I say this as a father who'd probably be more than willing to strangle someone with his bare hands should a hair on his daughter's head ever be harmed.

Maybe Casey Anthony killed her daughter and will now get away with it. Maybe she didn't. Neither you nor I -- nor anyone else -- will ever know the truth. But a court of law has spoken and while its verdict may incense and infuriate you as a parent, a human being, whatever, it's absurd, disgusting and un-American to try to figure out a way to essentially set aside a jury's verdict through legislation or, maybe worse, to publicly castigate that jury night after night simply because the verdict it returned didn't satisfy your mindless bloodlust.

Which brings me, of course, to Nancy Grace.

The woman seriously needs to shut the fuck up because she's going to get somebody killed.

I happened to stumble across Grace's wall-to-wall coverage of the "Countdown to Tot Mom's Release from Jail" last night and I'm glad I hadn't eaten before I did. It for the most part goes without saying that I expect nothing at all from Nancy Grace: I don't expect her to behave like a reputable journalist, an upstanding member of the legal community, or even a semi-sane human being. But her constant and deafening drum-beat that justice wasn't served in the Casey Anthony case and that everyone associated with securing Anthony's acquittal on murder charges should burn in hell is new territory even for a woman who's already basically killed somebody.

Grace isn't parsing her language; she isn't offering the disclaimer that, "Well, the system did what it's supposed to do but given what I saw I don't agree that the right call was made." No, Grace is both narcissistically playing on the anger many feel in the wake of the verdict and feeding it by rallying the torch and pitchfork crowd with exhortations of joyous, dancing devils and an unfeeling, kid-killing bitch of a defendant who will now be free to go forth and make millions. She's spitting venom at Anthony, at her defense lawyer, at the jurors themselves and at the system that supposedly went so horribly wrong somewhere. Except that it didn't. The system did exactly what it was supposed to do -- and the details of the case that Anthony and her lawyer seized upon and exploited, horrific though they may be, are the same kinds of details that often ensure that an innocent person is able to prove as much.

Once again, is Casey Anthony innocent? I can't say. Neither can you. And neither can fucking Nancy Grace. That's why we have judges and juries and trials and verdicts -- and why we have to abide by them, even the ones we don't like.

Quote of the Day

"Whatever you or I may think of the case, the fact remains that a 'kooky jury' found Anthony not guilty, which means that Anthony now has, among other things, the right to not be excoriated by a two-bit character assassin like Nancy Grace. Yet in Grace's avenging world, her ironclad interpretation of events trumps anyone else's – it even, as in the case of the Duke trial, trumps the eventual illumination of the facts. She talks about speaking the truth, yet weaves elaborate fictions of a champagne-popping defense team, a story in which 'Tot Mom is going walk out of jail probably tomorrow and she's probably going to get a million-dollar book deal and maybe a quarter-a-million dollars for licensing fees for photos and she's going to be living on easy street, living the sweet life that she's got tattooed on her back.' Grace's version of 'truth' is what the rest of us like to refer to as 'imagination.'"

-- Mary Elizabeth Williams in Salon

By now it's no secret what I think of Nancy Grace. I wish I had the time to expound on her predictably grotesque and opportunistic reaction to the Casey Anthony verdict, but thankfully M-Liz hit it on the head.

In case you don't know my thoughts on Grace, I once called her "the most loathsome, feckless troll to currently, inexplicably, have a forum on national television," a "vile, unscrupulous monster who peddles morbid prurience like a five-dollar whore and whose brand of rank solipsism is matched only by her near-sociopathic disregard for the lives she's ruined and exploited and by her apparent contempt for the tenets of responsible journalism (to say nothing of basic human decency)."

Over-Reactor

If you needed any more proof that the world would be an infinitely better place if someone plugged the Fukushima Dai'ichi reactor with Nancy Grace's fat, repugnant ass, just watch this: Nancy using her substantial experience as a shitty lawyer and a shamelessly ambitious cable TV blowhard and fear-monger to debate the potential danger of radiation from Japan making it to the west coast of the U.S.

I can't help but wonder about all the really great, selfless things Nancy's college fiancé would be doing right now had he been the one in that relationship to live past 1979.

Turnabout is Fair Prey

I don't even know where the hell to begin with this one.

Anybody who's visited this site more than a couple of times is probably well aware of my unrelenting abhorrence of Nancy Grace. In the past, I've called her "the most loathsome, feckless troll to currently, inexplicably, have a forum on national television," a "vile, unscrupulous monster who peddles morbid prurience like a five-dollar whore and whose brand of rank solipsism is matched only by her near-sociopathic disregard for the lives she's ruined and exploited and by her apparent contempt for the tenets of responsible journalism (to say nothing of basic human decency)."

And that was exercising restraint.

Well, in a display of almost incomprehensibly naked hypocrisy, lawyers for both Nancy Grace and CNN filed an emergency motion in an Ocala, Florida courtroom yesterday demanding that cameras be barred from recording Grace's scheduled deposition this Thursday in the wrongful death suit brought against her and her employer. The suit, as you probably know, stems from an interview Grace did in 2006 with the mother of a missing toddler -- an interview that was more like a police interrogation and one which may have led to the woman committing suicide less than 24-hours later. The family of Melinda Duckett claims that not only did Grace coax the troubled 21-year-old mother onto her show then bully her when she couldn't or wouldn't satisfactorily answer questions about her missing son -- leading Grace to of course imply that Duckett herself was behind the disappearance -- but that Grace then added insult to injury by airing the pre-taped interview after Duckett had already shot herself.

Grace's lawyers say the presence of cameras in the courtroom would cause unnecessary embarrassment to their client.

Sorry -- what?

The irony is so bald-faced as to be almost laughable: Nancy Grace was allowed to put a 21-year-old girl from Ocala -- a woman who, regardless of what she may or may not have done, was an unsophisticated neophyte when it came to the way a modern media feeding frenzy works and was clueless to the fact that she was the blood in the shark-infested waters -- in front of a television camera and publicly eviscerated her to the point where it may have led to her killing herself. But now Grace, who's made an entire career out of pulling this kind of repugnant horseshit over and over again in the name of ratings, should be afforded a measure of respect and spared the embarrassment of being grilled on national television? She somehow deserves more consideration than she gives the guests on her show, many of whom she seems to delight in playing the venerable inquisitor of? She deserves to be spared just a small taste of what she put Melinda Duckett through?

Not a chance.

In the spirit of what Matt Taibbi once said about Bob Novak: Live by the sword, die by it, you fucking dog.

(Update, 9:30pm: Smile pretty, Nancy. TMZ: Nancy Grace Must Appear on Camera, Judge Rules/1.26.10)

Nancy Shrew

Late last week, a Harvard professor and psychiatrist filed a paper on behalf of the family of 21-year-old Melinda Duckett claiming that Nancy Grace's relentless on-air harassment contributed to Duckett's suicide in 2006. Duckett was a person of interest in the case of her missing son, so of course Grace took it upon herself to play the role of judge and jury in the court of public opinion, conducting an interview in which she beat the hell out of a very distraught and confused Melinda Duckett, who then shot herself in the head the next day. What's almost worse is that CNN went ahead and aired the pre-taped interview that night, after news of Duckett's suicide had already broken. The Duckett family's decision to sue Nancy Grace is what led me to write this in August of 2008.

"Judging Nancy" (Originally Published, 8.2.08)

A couple of weeks ago, I did a quick interview with Radar Online magazine for a story it was putting together on the most hated pundits on cable news. At the time, I was just coming off an admittedly questionable decision I'd made to write a somewhat negative piece about Gawker and its sister site, Jezebel.com, and wasn't feeling the need to heap any more career-disadvantageous invective in a fresh direction. I think my exact words to Neel Shah -- the Radar columnist doing the interview -- were, "I've burned enough bridges for one week, thanks." In the end, he and I chatted for a while about the abstracts of the current punditry craze, but I never specifically cited anyone I thought should be held up for more scorn than the others.

In retrospect, I'm kind of sorry I held back -- at least when it comes to one person in particular.

I'm not really going out on much of a limb or breaking any new ground by saying that CNN's Nancy Grace is the most loathsome, feckless troll to currently, inexplicably, have a forum on national television. She's a vile, unscrupulous monster who peddles morbid prurience like a five-dollar whore and whose brand of rank solipsism is matched only by her near-sociopathic disregard for the lives she's ruined and exploited and by her apparent contempt for the tenets of responsible journalism (to say nothing of basic human decency). Seriously, I rarely spew this much unrestrained venom, but the woman could get hit by a bus and I'm not sure the world would be a lesser place for it.

Her tenure at CNN Headline News has brought a heretofore unknown level of shame to the entire operation.

But now, it looks like somebody might finally be about to hold her accountable for her bullshit.

On Thursday, a federal judge in Ocala, Florida refused to heel to the arrogant condescensions of the high-priced lawyers representing Nancy Grace and CNN, ruling against their calls for the quick dismissal of a lawsuit claiming that Grace pushed the mother of a missing toddler into committing suicide two years ago. The family of Melinda Duckett charges that not only did Grace coax the troubled 21 year old mother onto her show, then badger and bully her when she couldn't or wouldn't satisfactorily answer questions about her missing son -- leading Grace to of course imply that Duckett herself was behind the disappearance -- but that Grace then added insult to injury by airing the pre-taped interview after Duckett had shot herself.

Although police do consider Duckett the only viable suspect in the case, which is still open, attorneys for the woman's family rightly point out that whatever information Melinda Duckett may have had about her missing son died with her, thanks to Nancy Grace taking upon herself the role of Grand Inquisitor. Did Duckett kill her little boy? We don't know for sure, and thanks to Grace's purely ratings-driven brand of contrived, overly-aggressive indignation, we probably never will.

In a just world, the Duckett family's lawsuit -- which a skeptic could easily argue is little more than a cynical attempt to cash in on the death of a loved one -- would only be the tip of the iceberg, and Nancy Grace would face criminal charges of obstructing justice (at the very least) in addition to the wrongful death civil action. For now, though, the threat of hitting CNN and Grace in both their wallets and the court of public opinion will have to do -- and their argument that a successful suit by the Ducketts would "severely chill" journalists' ability to cover missing persons cases is a staggeringly laughable conceit, given that Nancy Grace is the furthest thing from a journalist.

On the contrary, what she does every night on CNN is an insult to responsible journalism, and if the network were half the unassailable bastion of credibility it purports to be, it would have fired her odious ass a long time ago.

Maybe it will take the justice system -- the one Nancy Grace so vaingloriously touts herself as the defender of -- to do what greedy network executives are unwilling to: force her off the air.

And maybe it will do it by making them all pay.

Quote of the Week (Early Contender)

"Hailey is a much better person than I am."

-- Nancy Grace, referring to the lead character in her debut novel and probably not realizing that she could've written about the rise of Pol Pot and her lead character would've been a better person than she is

Related:

DXM: Judging Nancy/8.2.08

Cole Case

From the AP: LAS VEGAS (AP) — A 6-year-old boy abducted from his home at gunpoint was safe in his father's custody Sunday as police tried to untangle any ties the youngster's family had to the Mexican drug dealers suspected of taking him. Police were interviewing Cole Puffinburger after he was found by a bus driver Saturday night on a quiet street outside a Methodist church in Las Vegas.

The Bad News: Nancy Grace doesn't get to say "Cole Puffinburger" over and over again for weeks into months on end.

The Good News: Lou Dobbs gets to blame Mexicans.

Judging Nancy

A couple of weeks ago, I did a quick interview with Radar Online magazine for a story it was putting together on the most hated pundits on cable news. At the time, I was just coming off an admittedly questionable decision I'd made to write a somewhat negative piece about Gawker and its sister site, Jezebel.com, and wasn't feeling the need to heap any more career-disadvantageous invective in a fresh direction. I think my exact words to Neel Shah -- the Radar columnist doing the interview -- were, "I've burned enough bridges for one week, thanks." In the end, he and I chatted for a while about the abstracts of the current punditry craze, but I never specifically cited anyone I thought should be held up for more scorn than the others.

In retrospect, I'm kind of sorry I held back -- at least when it comes to one person in particular.

I'm not really going out on much of a limb or breaking any new ground by saying that CNN's Nancy Grace is the most loathsome, feckless troll to currently, inexplicably, have a forum on national television. She's a vile, unscrupulous monster who peddles morbid prurience like a five-dollar whore and whose brand of rank solipsism is matched only by her near-sociopathic disregard for the lives she's ruined and exploited and by her apparent contempt for the tenets of responsible journalism (to say nothing of basic human decency). Seriously, I rarely spew this much unrestrained venom, but the woman could get hit by a bus and I'm not sure the world would be a lesser place for it.

Her tenure at CNN Headline News has brought a heretofore unknown level of shame to the entire operation.

But now, it looks like somebody might finally be about to hold her accountable for her bullshit.

On Thursday, a federal judge in Ocala, Florida refused to heel to the arrogant condescensions of the high-priced lawyers representing Nancy Grace and CNN, ruling against their calls for the quick dismissal of a lawsuit claiming that Grace pushed the mother of a missing toddler into committing suicide two years ago. The family of Melinda Duckett charges that not only did Grace coax the troubled 21 year old mother onto her show, then badger and bully her when she couldn't or wouldn't satisfactorily answer questions about her missing son -- leading Grace to of course imply that Duckett herself was behind the disappearance -- but that Grace then added insult to injury by airing the pre-taped interview after Duckett had shot herself.

Although police do consider Duckett the only viable suspect in the case, which is still open, attorneys for the woman's family rightly point out that whatever information Melinda Duckett may have had about her missing son died with her, thanks to Nancy Grace taking upon herself the role of Grand Inquisitor. Did Duckett kill her little boy? We don't know for sure, and thanks to Grace's purely ratings-driven brand of contrived, overly-aggressive indignation, we probably never will.

In a just world, the Duckett family's lawsuit -- which a skeptic could easily argue is little more than a cynical attempt to cash in on the death of a loved one -- would only be the tip of the iceberg, and Nancy Grace would face criminal charges of obstructing justice (at the very least) in addition to the wrongful death civil action. For now though, the threat of hitting CNN and Grace in both their wallets and the court of public opinion will have to do -- and their argument that a successful suit by the Ducketts would "severely chill" journalists' ability to cover missing persons cases is a staggeringly laughable conceit, given that Nancy Grace is the furthest thing from a journalist.

On the contrary, what she does every night on CNN is an insult to responsible journalism, and if the network were half the unassailable bastion of credibility it purports to be, it would have fired her odious ass a long time ago.

Maybe it will take the justice system -- the one Nancy Grace so vaingloriously touts herself as the defender of -- to do what greedy network executives are unwilling to: force her off the air.

And maybe it will do it by making them all pay.