She's a celebrity, get her out of here!

Sometimes, we wonder, are we too hard on Katrina vanden Heuvel for refusing to publish women in equal number to men? Are we too hard on her because she's turned a strong, left weekly into the unofficial house organ for her Council for Foreign Relations? Are we too hard on her because her overly applauded article this year boasted of "dozens" of photos in the magazine's possession of the abuse of Iraqis but didn't run one photo? Are we too hard on her for using her forum to promote organizations that she and her family belong to -- and often lead -- without disclosing that to readers?

As she rushes off as some sort of one-person editorial first responder to every disaster, is it wrong to hold her to journalistic standards?

The answer comes back, yes.

Eric Morrison (Juneau Empire) informs us, she's a celebrity.



Our apologies. Our sincere apologies. All this time, we were operating under the impression that she was attempting to be a journalist. We never realized that she was actually the third Landers sister. The unknown Landers, the one shut out from the non-nude Playboy pictorial. Audrey, Judy, Katrina could use a phone call!

Knowing now that she's a celebrity, we understand how wrong it was of us to judge her journalistically when she went to town on David Corn and for Barack Obama. While we were confused by the titles "editor" and "publisher," Matt Stearns (McClatchy Newspapers) wasn't and wisely saw fit to quote David Corn and ignore Katrina vanden Landers.

We not only regret our error, we now understand why, though RadioNation with Laura Flanders was cut from six hours a week to one, Katrina vanden Landers has been happy to hog air time repeatedly -- five guest appearances since the last week of May! Now an hour show doesn't have a lot of time to waste but obviously D-list celebs like Katrina vanden Landers bring in the tens and twenties of listeners across the world. Again, our apologies. And speaking for her devoted fans (both of them), let's all hope she doesn't screw this regular gig up the way she did her last one at Air America Radio. We'll save that tale for when she enters the Celebrity Gone Completely Nuts and pops up on the front of tabloids -- well, the inside pages -- everywhere.