Celebrity silliness, sleaze reflects poorly on U.S.

In the news today, three people are fighting over the body of recently-deceased starlet Anna Nicole Smith: her mother, the man who claims to be her husband, and the man who claims to be the father of her child. Actually the man who claims to be her husband claims to be the father of her child, too. I'm not sure which is more disreputable, that three people are fighting over custody of her corpse, or that this is considered newsworthy.

And then of course there's the saga of the Lisa Marie Nowak, the Space Shuttle "astro-nut" and married mother of three who drove 1,500 miles in diapers to confront her romantic rival for the affections of another astronaut, and stands charged with attempted kidnapping and murder. Only Smith's death prevented the media from making a bigger deal of this than they did.

It's no wonder that Islamic extremists worldwide consider the U.S. to be morally decadent, and that even some of our historic friends and allies are having trouble taking us seriously. Here we are, in the middle of a global war against terrorism, two active shooting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the potential of some sort of military action against Iran, and these stories lead the news. And we're the world's last surviving superpower.... it's sad, is what it is.