Poor Tammy Faye

It's so easy to make fun of Tammy Faye Bakker. I myself have done it loads of times.



With her ski slope curling, Daisy Duck eyelashes; with her Flo the Waitress beehive hairdo; with her King Tut raccoon makeup applied with a trowel; with her ostentatious jewelry, clothes, and furniture which just screams New Money Hick.

Gosh, she might as well have an insult bullseye on her noggin, she's that easy to pick on.

But I'll tell you, when I was channelsurfing earlier tonight, I caught sight of her on Larry King on CNN, with this tagline under her tear-stained cheeked face:

"Tammy Faye Fights For Her Life: Has Stage 4 Cancer"

Cruel though it was, I remember thinking in that clinically detached, medical way we have been taught to use: that's it, we're seeing a dead woman walking.

And that is a very creepy feeling to have -- to know this might be one of the last times we see this poor woman alive before us.

Tammy Faye Bakker means very little to me. I wasn't even aware of her husband's travails back in the 1980s.

But for some reason, this situation gives me pause.

How television makes an event come alive to you, and yet, how it takes away from the utter tragedy of life, by reducing it to merely news.