CLOSING THE BARN DOOR AFTER

CLOSING THE BARN DOOR AFTER THE NIPPLE ESCAPES: OK, so Janet is apparently banned from the Grammies this year, after “Nipplegate” was seen by nearly a billion people live, and countless more via the Drudge Report and numerous other Internet sources. And now she’ll get to play the martyr, and be the most talked about person at the Grammies, a show seen by far, far fewer people, and whose ratings in recent years have been steadily in decline.

The 2002 Grammies attracted just 19 million viewers. And while math was never my strong suit, a billion shocked people sounds like a more desirable audience than 19 million bored ones, especially for a pop star whose freshness dating expired several years ago.

Nice leftover from the Clintonian ’90s: break the law (broadcasting standards in this case), and become even more famous.

UPDATE: Ann Coulter is in rare form over Nipplegate:

Former front-runner Howard Dean sat out this week’s primaries, but still managed to make news by ridiculing the FCC’s plan to investigate MTV’s halftime show at the Super Bowl. Dean pronounced the proposed investigation “silly.” He explained that, as a doctor, a naked breast is “not exactly an unusual phenomenon for me.”

That’s an interesting standard. Presumably a primetime exhibition of Janet Jackson having a full pelvic exam and pap smear would not be “exactly an unusual phenomenon” for Dean either. Let’s just be grateful Dean’s not a proctologist.

Meanwhile, the rest of the country was not so copacetic about being flashed with what The New York Times called Janet Jackson’s “middle-aged woman’s breast.” Janet Jackson said she decided to add “the reveal” following the final rehearsal, which I found pretty shocking. Not the reveal — the fact that the number in question was actually rehearsed. Even CBS executives were enraged by MTV’s halftime show, saying they could have gotten the identical show from National Geographic for a fraction of the price.

Heh.