Fall from Grace

Used Karr. Last night, Headline News' Nancy Grace made little effort to mask her contempt for the Boulder County (Colo.) District Attorney’s performance in first arresting John Mark Karr and then yesterday announcing she would not press charges after determining that his DNA did not match that found on the murdered JonBenet Ramsey a decade ago. Each night Grace proudly wears her "perspective as a former violent crimes prosecutor and as a crime victim herself,” accessorized with pearls of disdain. Monday’s target was Bolder DA Mary Lacy, who was somehow to blame for allowing Karr’s impromptu Bangkok press conference to launch ten days of round the clock speculation. Lacy, a relatively small-town prosecutor handed the crime of the turn-of-the-century, didn’t realize that what she thought were peanuts of disclosure would attract a thunderous herd of media attention. The empty story became the elephant in America’s living room for a week and a half, and Grace and her stern-faced far righteous experts got a boost in ratings as revitalizing as a stiff breeze at the condor roost. Not surprisingly, when the unsatisfying end came, Grace and her flock were pissed. But the jury is still out on whether Lacy erred. Later Monday night, DNA expert and Simpson Defense Team Member Barry Sheck ranted about media over-reaction to ‘Nightline’ host Terry Moran as if he were the team captain. On Tuesday morning, other anyalysts were crediting Lacy with taking the appropriate steps in a difficult process. The obviously put-out Grace would call it a "Colossal blunder." That might justify how – despite the story dropping off both CNN's Top 10 most important stories and Top 10 most popular stories, Grace would announce shows that looked into "the next step in the decade-old investigation" (Tuesday), "piece together 'what went wrong' in the JonBenet Ramsey murder investigation" (Wednesday), and an hour-special on the case September 1 and 4.
Photo: Putting the CNN in Nancy.