Kathie Lee

One of the things that kept me going over the years was imagining a Kathie Lee Gifford interview with Saddam Hussein. ("Wow, you look great! Did you lose weight? C'mon, let's hear it for the Butcher of Baghdad!") Now, in the wake of her stunning on-air announcement yesterday that she's leaving "Live with Regis and Kathie Lee" when her contract expires this summer, the possibility of her chatting up the Iraqi strongman ("Is that a new sidearm? It's gorgeous!") seems remote. But a guy can dream, can't he?

WHAT IS IT about Kathie Lee Gifford?People seem to love her. The ratings of "Live! With Regis & Kathie Lee" are boffo -- rocketing from 3 million daily viewers in 1991 to 8 million now. She has written a best-selling book, donates to charities, does commercials.And yet, some people can't stand her. Mention her name in an office, and someone will likely go, "Yyyeeeeeew!" Late-night comics and tabloid headlines have long taken their shots.But now, the headlines have turned particularly ugly, screaming of an alleged dalliance involving her husband -- which the tabloid itself may have set up, with Kathie Lee an innocent victim.

One day on "Live with Regis and Kathie Lee":Regis: "Coming up, Fabio is here with his new pinup calendar and so is the incomparable Susan Lucci of 'All My Children.' But right now ... you've seen these guys all over the news lately with the, um, situation in the Middle East, that whole business. Please welcome Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat!"(Applause.)Regis: "I'm telling ya, you guys look great!"Kathie Lee (squeezing Arafat's cheeks): "Look at the tan on this man!"

Whew! Do I have a headache! I think I'll take an Extra Strength Bufferin Advil Tylenol with proven cavity fighters, containing more of the lemon-freshened Borax that is recommended by doctors and plaque fighters for those days when I am feeling "not so fresh" in my personal region!The reason I'm feeling this way is that I have just spent six straight days going through the thousands of letters you readers sent in when I asked you to tell me which advertisements you don't like. It turns out that a lot of you really, really hate certain advertisements, to the point where you fantasize about acts of violence.

Kathie Lee Gifford's Christmas special airs at 9 tonight. Now that you know what to avoid, let's see what else is on."The Three Sopranos" (2 p.m.-4 p.m., MPT, Channels 22 and 67) -- This time it's the ladies' turn, as three of the world's greatest sopranos join forces onstage. Kathleen Cassello, Kallen Esperian and Cynthia Lawrence perform everything from operatic arias to Broadway melodies. PBS."The Nanny" (8 p.m.-8: 30 p.m., WJZ, Channel 13) -- The Woman With the Most Irritating Voice in the World almost meets her idol, Barbra Streisand.

AS KATHIE LEE GIFFORD tells it, a few weeks ago she was merely a talk-show entertainer and guilt-free celebrity endorser of products and services. Now, she says, she is chastened but eager to contribute to the fight to stamp out child labor around the world.Ms. Gifford's awakening came rather harshly, after negative publicity -- that dreaded bane of endorsers -- revealed that her line of clothing was being manufactured in sweat shops using child labor in Mexico, Honduras, Nicaragua and New York City.

THE NIGHTMARE BEGAN during a morning workout on the Stairmaster, which is the single most boring piece of exercise equipment ever invented.Trudging up and down and cursing silently, I gazed around the health club and made this chilling discovery: all the TV's were locked on "Regis and Kathie Lee."At this point, a strange calm descended upon me and I thought: "OK, it's about 198 degrees in this room and you're on a Stairmaster watching 'Regis and Kathie Lee,' which means your life has hit rock bottom.

IF YOU'RE ANYTHING LIKE me -- and millions are hoping you're not -- you have two towering ambitions in life.One is to sing a duet with Kathie Lee Gifford. Any song will do, but I was thinking either "Muskrat Love" or "Eve of Destruction."The other is to write a best-selling book.Once it was a difficult thing to write a best-seller. For one thing, you needed talent. And, even more difficult to come by, a good agent. Of course there was another option. If you didn't have talent, you could always wear dark glasses, hang out with nerds, gain maybe 50 pounds and change your name to Tom Clancy.

The pope and Regis and Kathie Lee -- or at least some clever impostors -- will visit Clarksville this morning to help send off Sister Mary Catherine Duerr, who is leaving her job as principal of the St. Louis School.The staff and children of St. Louis will hold a parade in the principal's honor. It will feature teachers dressed up as Regis and Kathie Lee and kindergartners dressed up as priests, nuns and the pope.Complete with a police escort, they will file by a reviewing stand where parents, teachers and Sister Mary Catherine will watch.

ONCE UPON A TIME, there was a shoe company in far-off Oregon. And this shoe company decided to pick an athlete as the centerpiece of its ad campaign.The shoe company was Nike.The player was Michael Jordan.As it turned out, Jordan became the best, and most famous, basketball player in the world.And Phil Knight, who runs Nike, would come to own $4.5 billion worth of Nike stock.It's a beautiful story in which boy meets shoe, shoe sells in the millions at unseemly prices and everyone gets rich, if you don't count the kids who buy them and the people in faraway lands who make them.