Shawn Matlock (formerly Young Shawn) wasn’t on slut patrol when he plopped his butt down to watch TV.  Sometimes, it just happens that way.

Being a staunch Republican, Shawn naturally gravitated toward Fox News so he could get the day’s news in a fair and balanced presentation. 

As Neil Cavuto introduced his guest, I dropped my pen. The expert was none other than Fort Worth’s own Mimi Coffey. Some might think that’s great. I mean a local attorney called upon by one of the major news networks to comment as a legal expert on the ongoing celebrity divorce.

The lawyers of Tarrant County, Texas, don’t get a lot of call for television appearances.  It’s not like Harris County, where  scandal and intrigue make the  national news on a regular basis.  So when the call comes, it’s hard to say no.

But Cavuto, a man with his finger on the pulse of society, stemming from his early experiences as a  White House intern in the Carter administration where he was charged with making sure Jimmy was still alive at all times, was doing a story on the Paul McCartney/Heather Mills divorce, part of the great liberal plot to undermine a family values, and needed a lawyer to call them as she saw them.  And there was Mimi.

Why Mimi?

Mimi Coffey is a self-appointed expert DWI defense attorney in Fort Worth. Yeah, she’s a criminal defense attorney. As far as I know, she doesn’t handle family law cases. I’m even more certain that she doesn’t practice family law in England.

Apparently, she’s no Raoul Lionel Felder.  But then, who is?  Now I think Shawn may be getting a bit nit-picking with the England bit, since few of us have QC after our names.  This may have something to do with Shawn’s open disdain for the Beatles, itself a very telling detail that could help explain why he turned to the Republican party for comfort and companionship.  “You ain’t gonna make it with anyone anyhow.”

But as those of us who are occasionally asked to be the lunch meat in the media sandwich know, attorneys are pre-interviewed before hitting the airwaves to make sure that we have something to say that they TV producers want the public to hear.  Mimi obviously gave them some of the good stuff or she would have never hit the big time.

Ms. Coffey never really answered a question posed to her. How she got on the Neil Cavuto show on Fox News to discuss the divorce of a former Beatle and, in Ms. Coffey’s words, “a gold digger” is a complete mystery to me.

There’s the money line.  Heather Mills, a woman who has known adversity as well as the life of plenty, is a “gold digger.”  That’s a pretty harsh characterization, implying evil intent in her seducing the cute Beatle into her web of fiscal foolery.  Did Mimi’s attack come from her heartfelt political convictions?  Not at all, Shawn tells us.

Now before someone out there criticizes Fox News because they are “too conservative” like me, hold on a second. Keep this in mind. Mimi Coffey is a bleeding heart liberal Democrat. She’s not afraid to say it either.

Far be it for me to criticize Fox News for being “too conservative.”  After all, it’s one of my favorite gigs, before they  cut me off for making fun of the anchors too well.  But that doesn’t mean that Fox News gets a free ride at Simple Justice.

I can’t blame Mimi for taking the divorce commentary gig, though one may wonder whether she told the assistant who called that she doesn’t actually do divorces, and neither Paul nor Heather has much of a connection to Fort Worth, Texas.  After all, it’s not like she’s going to get a lot of opportunity to get her smiling face on the tube, nor is anything she’s going to say have any influence over public thought on a topic of importance. 

Neil Cavuto, on the other hand, doesn’t get away that easy.  It’s not that Fox News in “conservative” (what happened to fair and balanced, Shawn?), but his lack of credibility comes across loud and clear.  Mimi didn’t call Fox News and demand her time on-air to opine about this divorce; They called her. 

Of all the lawyers in all the world, they selected Mimi to be the one to go onto Cavuto’s national cable show as a celebrity divorce expert.  So while I might be inclined to ridicule Neil Cavuto for being an unmitigated slut to the conservative leanings of Rupert Murdoch following the demise of his career as a respected business journalist, today I don’t have to.  Instead, I need only note that his use of Mimi demonstrates that he has no credibility at all.  And that’s good enough for me.