Yesterday, the Times-Argus brought you one of the more bizarre stories in modern memory, the saga of one Jayna Hutchinson, who, until recently, was facing jail time for staring cock-eyed at a police dog.

That’s right. On the night of July 31 last year, an inebriated Hutchinson approached police officers investigating a brawl at a West Fairlee “establishment.” Police officers told Hutchinson “bluntly” to bug off. Hutchinson failed to bug off.

And that was when she stared in a “taunting/harrassing manner” at the K9 member of the unit.

Animal cruelty charges were filed, and then, thanks to a State’s Attorney with a modicum of common sense, charges were quickly dropped.

“‘After looking at the video, I did not think it was worthwhile proceeding,” Orange County State’s Attorney Will Porter said Tuesday.”

Which would be the end of the story, if another mongrel hadn’t gotten almost immediately involved.

That mongrel would be Bill O’Reilly, whose attempts to gin up controversy involving State Representative Bill Lippert we mocked just weeks ago.

You’ll remember that within hours of Bill Lofy’s sharply worded op-ed defending Lippert and castigating O’Reilly, Lofy had email from an O’Reilly Factor producer, inviting him to be ritually savaged in the Fox Studios.

Apparently O’Reilly’s staff is keeping a very sharp eye peeled for the stray unflattering story out of the Green Mountain State.

Again, within hours, the public defender in the Hutchinson dog-staring debacle also had mail from Fox.

Wrote Kelly Green on the Defender General’s email list:

Dear Defenders,

Fox News wants the video of my client making faces at the police dog. What’s your advice to us?

Thanks,
Kelly Green

Want VDB’s advice, Kelly?

Take the film of Hutchinson staring down the dog to video wizard Bill Simmon. Have Bill splice in various photographs of loofas and falafel for 1/3000 of a second at five-second intervals. (We recommend the 7-inch “raw loofa” at Webvitamins, for only $2.40, and falafel from Mamoun’s Falafel on MacDougal Street in New York.)

Then comply with the Fox request without further ado.

Within moments of the footage airing, O’Reilly’s tiny audience will feel strangely compelled to eat healthy and bathe regularly.

In short, if that audience insists upon swallowing propaganda night after night after night, nothing says that the proganda they swallow can’t benefit the rest of society.

Late Update, 11:02 am:

The Public Defender in the now-infamous “dog staring” case has just reached VDB via email. She takes exception to the notion that the charges were “quickly dropped.” Her email follows:

Dear Mr. Baruth,

The charges against Ms. Hutchinson were not quickly dropped. The prosecutor continued to pursue the case for nearly a year, and only dropped it when, on the eve of the trial, he finally took the time to review his evidence. Ms. Hutchinson lived with this bogus charge hanging over her head for far too long.

Sincerely yours,
Kelly Green

We stand corrected.

And we’d like to extend our congratulations to Defender Green. It was a bogus charge, and Ms. Hutchinson was lucky to have first-class legal talent.

Later Update, 3:56 pm:

Dog-Stare Debacle story makes the national media, via Raw Story. God help us all.