At the risk of adding to the already voluminous and sticky (or is it stinky?) ink regarding the death of Anna Nicole Smith, I have to make an admission.

I often watched episodes of her positively dreadful TV show, "The Anna Nicole Smith Show."

What, you ask? Whaaaattt?

I'm sure I've mentioned it in previous columns because, frankly, it was bizarre behavior -- mine for watching and the show itself.

I always felt so sad after viewing it. Why did I watch?

Since she died I have been feeling pangs of guilt -- guilt that I watched a shipwreck waiting to happen and didn't scream "Stop!"

We just kept watching. We delighted in the bizarre behavior and begged for more, obviously, as the show just kept on going, one episode more pathetic than the previous one. Her life, not ours.

The tragedies we have seen played out in recent months, worse than any scriptwriter could have imagined, prove we are a society caught up in the lives of celebrities, even those who blatantly show us they are troubled and tormented souls.

We sit and watch and laugh and then, eventually, hit the remote. We can move on.

As this plays out, I suppose I have been wondering more and more why nobody thought to snatch young Daniel, who died tragically just a few months ago, from this road to destruction.

I thought about his chances of growing up "normal" each time I watched. It was hard to watch, but we did, didn't we?

As a youngster Daniel was seen in many of the episodes on her show. Impressionable and being raised without a father, he was eyewitness to his mother's plunge into drugs and exhibitionism.

He would, eventually, do the same, and surprise, surprise, move into depression. He would be seen by the world as he moved through puberty. It couldn't have been easy.

Embarrassing a child, while claiming love, Anna Nicole just seemed to revel in her notoriety, not her motherhood, no matter the claims he was her life. She would kiss him, profess her devotion, and make it right. Or so it seemed.

Also watching at close range was a young man who, at the time, had no name. He was just there. He was constantly cleaning up after her messes, running her errands, listening to her verbal abuse. I often wondered who he was. An actor? A real person?

I now know it was Howard K. Stern. Her lawyer, we have learned, but a few years ago on that show he was nameless and looked like a star-struck kid out of college who lucked out getting a job as a go-fer for his idol.

Now he is also described as her lover, supposedly, joining the ranks of many others, including the billionaire she married.

He just watched. He was her confidant and, the most recent claim, father of the baby girl born just a few months ago ... on television, of course.

Call me cynical. I doubt it.

The last interview granted to ET's television host, Mark Steines, was relentless, from step-by-step make-up and hair, to the interview of a dazed Anna Nicole, with lip gloss perfection and mumbled responses. She would be gone just a few days later.

Always in her shadow, now Stern will be in the spotlight. It never ends.

There will be a book, more than one.

There will be a movie, probably more than one. Young girls will still aspire to be like her, just as she aspired to be like Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield.

Her vet, her masseuse, her gardener, even her mother and a sister will tell (and sell) their stories.

The concern now is to save the baby girl who is the innocent party in all of this. Dannielynn could be very rich some day.

The media will follow her for each and every birthday.

That's her mother's legacy and yet another curse.

We have a chance to do something right, but we won't.

We need to make sure this infant has a loving home and then allow her to run in open fields, play hopscotch, eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, go to school, to the prom, feel protected and safe.

No paparazzi.

The reality? Fat chance. But so worth hoping for.