TELEVISION: Lost in Translation

THIS MORNING, I was getting my haircut and I was staring off at the television, which was tuned into "Inside Edition" on WUSA/9. Fortunately, the volume was muted, but the closed captioning was scrolling at the bottom of the screen. I lost interest after a while and then CBS' Bob Schieffer came on a split screen with White House correspondent John Roberts in the West Wing press room.

As Schieffer was talking, the closed captioning indicated he was talking about Jennifer Aniston being invited to present at the Oscars, or something like that. I wish I had a notebook with me at the time, because the image of CBS's elder statesman speculating about the chances of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie showing up to the Academy Awards was priceless. I was confused for a moment. CBS broke into regularly scheduled programming to discuss Brangelina and Jennifer Aniston?

THEN PRESIDENT BUSH walks into the press room and the close captioning indicates he's talking about Kate Moss. I could have only wished President Bush was chatting about celebrity gossip, but then the closed captioning corrected itself. As it turned out, the president was giving a preview to his upcoming State of the Union address. (But he opened up saying he didn't want to give away any spoilers for fear that the White House press corps would doze off during Tuesday's address at the Capitol. Well see about that ...)