On the heels of Saturday’s NYT revelation of details from the O.J. Simpson infomercial, and a full week after the New York treatment, Vanity Fair columnist Michael Wolff has pulled together his take on the Judith Regan saga. The armchair psychology is fairly conventional—”Judith hates authority (and, conversely, loves power)”—but Wolff gets to offer up his status as Regan’s college classmate and former pal as proof of his insider perspective.* No real surprises in his layout of the corporate power struggles involved, either, except perhaps the idea that negotiations with Barbara Walters to conduct the Simpson interview didn’t so much fall apart as Regan decided she needed to be the one interrogating her author.
For those who believe that it wouldn’t be a Michael Wolff piece without a cheap-shot money quote, beyond describing Regan as “an unmistakable nutter,” he ropes in Bridie Clark‘s Because She Can, popularly considered to be a disguised portrait of Regan, describing it as “a kind of Devil Wears Prada, except that Judith would never be played by Meryl Streep, that former Vassar girl, but, at best, by Roseanne Barr.” (Anyone want to take odds on how recently Wolff’s rented She-Devil?) Personally, I would think maybe Patricia Clarkson could color her hair for the part, or Wendy Crewson could lighten hers a notch…
*I was going to say “not to mention that he almost hooked up with her,” except that he goes and mentions it.