Any century is lucky if it has a clown or two. The last century had
one in Ed Wynn. Not a comic, a clown. THE ED WYNN SHOW, starring
this genius, this clown, a must see in the earliest days of black and
white television, had one detractor, a television critic named Jack
Hellman. Hellman had written one or two blistering articles about the Wynn TV effort when one day he decided to visit the set with the show's publicity man, Henry Rogers. Hellman, a notoriously
unattractive man, was coming down the center aisle with Rogers when
Wynn, who'd never met Hellman, spotted him from the stage. "Who's
that with Henry," he asked his director. "Jack Hellman," came the
response. "I'm glad," said Wynn.
I recalled that story this morning when I read on Yahoo yet another
twisted, venomous attack on Americans, now including so many
conservatives, who dare to suggest we may have made some mistakes in
Iraq. Accompanying the piece, THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY; A VAST SLEEPER
CELL, was a photograph of its author, Ann Coulter, rendered
singularly unattractive by that hard, jaw-jutting up yours look from
which her singularly sick attacks spew.
And I said to myself: "I'm glad."