By Sean Sullivan Lagniappe columnist

Let me start with one of those disclaimers I seem to lean on every couple of weeks, the way that goofy guy in your office leans on the latest television catch phrase to season his boring conversations. So here it is; I don’t think it is a good thing that three people last week were attacked and killed by alligators in Florida. On that bent, I don’t it’s think good that anybody ever gets attacked and killed by alligators.

OK, that’s not entirely true I’m sure there have been people out there that over the years got what they had coming in the jaws of Alligator mississippiensis. Now with that disclaimer in place giving me absolution from anyone who would claim I’m some heartless jerk, let’s talk about gators and something even more cold-blooded: television news commentators.

What provided the impetus to begin my latest reality crusade was a quote from a talking head commenting on the recent attacks by alligators in Florida. As per usual this particular cable news channel wheeled out and dusted off an expert to discuss the gator attacks.

Most news agencies have a stable of experts from which they draw for everything from hurricanes to terrorism to gator attacks. What binds all these experts together is that the talking head reporters don’t really listen to any of them and just use them as a frame in which to paint their own personal, uneducated, un-expert opinion of what happened.

So the other night one of these pointless discussions was going on between an alligator behavior expert and one of the network’s air-headed reporters. All the trite “never swim at night” “never swim after drenching yourself in pig’s blood with a wounded poodle that is thrashing the water” commentaries were delivered. It was at their conclusion when it happened.

The exchange went something like this:

Gator expert ”...so you see with the encroachment of man on the natural wetlands in Florida and the severe drought that has been plaguing the state, there have been more chances of human-alligator contact this spring”

News chick: ”...so what you’re saying at this time is that you feel like these alligator attacks are unrelated.”

That is what she said, which so smartly leaves the window open for information that will link all three killings together into some sort of alligator super plan. While everyone knows alligators can’t talk, they sure as hell can text message and coordinate a week of terror for Florida. I wonder what their demands of us humans are, so we can meet them and make the reptiles end their reign of terror?

Like any savvy reporter should, Ms. Intrepid left open some options so she could take full advantage of the story if some serial killer alligator or Al Qaeda link angle develops. That person should be moved to Sunday late nights as quickly as possible before her stupidity infects the whole staff. This alligator conspiracy stupidity also opened a recent wound received I received during the Cheney “Quail-gate” period.

Like the alligator comment, another talking head showed he had no idea what he was talking about when he chimed during the “Quail-gate” coverage. The newshound felt compelled to state he didn’t see why Cheney had to use something as big as a shotgun to hunt something as small as a quail. That statement is ignorant on a couple of levels, but in lieu of a dissertation on shot shells and the mechanics of bird shooting, let me just say the guy is an idiot. The fact he had no idea of what he was talking about didn’t stop him, nor will the fact that alligators are wild animals that feed opportunistically prevent news commentators from asking a criminal psychologist to comment on what to look for in an alligator that might react violently towards humans.

Sean Sullivan is Lagniappe lagniappe columnist. Contact him at ssullivan@lagniappemobile.com.

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