Reader: Ted Haggard swapped agendas...and mates...with Gary Busey

ABC pulled a swap with the first segment of Celebrity Wife Swap, moving up the episode that had been scheduled for next week to this past Tuesday. And what swap led off the new season? Pastor Ted Haggard traded wives with Gary Busey, sending his mate -- who already deserved...

By Patricia Calhoun

January 5, 2012

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ABC pulled a swap with the first segment of Celebrity Wife Swap, moving up the episode that had been scheduled for next week to this past Tuesday. And what swap led off the new season? Pastor Ted Haggard traded wives with Gary Busey, sending his mate -- who already deserved hazard pay for weathering the Mike Jones scandal -- to live with the wacky star in Los Angeles.

Fortunately, Nick Lucchesi had tuned in, and was able to give a blow-by-blow account.

Early in the show, for example, Gayle Haggard asks Busey: "Do you go to church?"

Replies Busey: "I am a church."

Pew!

Greg smelled something funny about this set-up:

Gayle was just begging Busey to ask her about her past so she could give him her little prerehearsed speech. The Haggards had SUCH an agenda on that show it was ridiculous. "I have to be resurrected in Colorado Springs." Uh-huh. OK, Ted. Sure. Did you just come up with that?

F. Scott Fitzgerald may have said there were no second acts in American lives, but Ted Haggard has to be on his third or fourth. What should he do for an encore? Let us prey....

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Patricia Calhoun is editor-in-chief of Westword, the alt-weekly she co-founded in September 1977. She’s been inducted into the Colorado Press Association Hall of Fame, the Association of Alternative Newsmedia Hall of Fame and the Colorado Restaurant Association Hall of Fame. She’s also received dozens of local, state and national awards for writing, including first place for feature writing and first place for column writing with the Society of Professional Journalists. Patricia is a weekly commentator on Colorado Inside Out, PBS 12's public affairs roundtable, which has won two Emmys.

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