Brouhaha by the B team

I don’t mean to brag, but I saw Pat O’Brien having lunch last week at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills. I was standing this close to him. “Hey, you’re Pat O’Brien,” I wanted to say, “you have a drinking problem and you allegedly left that raunchy message on a woman’s voicemail that subsequently got passed around the Internet, heaping much scorn on you. Also, you host ‘The Insider.’ ”

It was exciting, I have to admit, like standing this close to, say, Paula Abdul. If I were to run into Abdul having lunch at the Four Seasons, I might be tempted to say, “Hey, you’re Paula Abdul. You act strangely on ‘American Idol,’ and then you landed the cover of People magazine to say that any perceived strange behavior was the result of a long-standing hidden illness, and you released a statement last week to discredit the ex-contestant who says he had sex with you while he was on the show. Now I’ve heard that ABC’s ‘Prime Time Live’ is going behind the scenes of your show. You seem to be in even bigger trouble than O’Brien over there.”

Both O’Brien and Abdul have big bookings this week. Though he has already come out of rehab and is back to enjoying the baked halibut at some of our finest local hotels, O’Brien officially emerges Wednesday to appear on a very special prime-time “Dr. Phil” (does O’Brien’s PPO cover the session? And what’s his co-pay?) and then to resume his hosting duties the next night on “The Insider.” He goes back to work, in other words.

Abdul’s the more interesting story, in that she’s still unfolding, if not unraveling. Last week on “Idol,” viewers witnessed her face frozen in agonizing emotional pain at the dismissal of contestant Constantine, and she managed to say, “I can’t even speak. I’m shocked. I really am.”

A bit later, she was in full weep mode. It was good practice for her “Dr. Phil,” although there’s always a chance that Oprah will get her first. The ABC News piece, timed to throw a wet blanket on the finale of “American Idol,” is being positioned as a behind-the-scenes expose of the reality show, focusing much attention on Abdul in the aftermath of the accusations by Corey Clark, the ex-”Idol” contestant who alleges that he and Abdul had sex while he was on the show and that she gave him tips and made promises about aiding his post-”Idol” career.

People like O’Brien and Abdul -- one a host, the other a judge -- used to be the kind of demi-TV stars who facilitated the attention-giving to the real stars, passing scandal, glory and whatever else up the food chain. After all, the last time I saw O’Brien on TV, he was chasing a newly split-up Brad Pitt all the way to Japan.

Now he’s the story, or what passes for the story in these lean times for TV stars. Not to underestimate the gossip value of any public figure’s lecherous comments caught on tape. But Pat O’Brien? He’s the guy on the way to the scandal involving the more interesting person.

I wonder if his case became a cause celebre in part because TV continues to have difficulty manufacturing the stars who, in another time, seemed to come rolling off an assembly line. (Where’s the new Roseanne, the new Bill Cosby, even the new George Clooney?)

Weirdly, although TV is short on stars right now, it’s lousy with actual actors, even great ones (Anthony LaPaglia of CBS’ “Without a Trace,” Naveen Andrews of ABC’s “Lost,” Felicity Huffman of ABC’s “Desperate Housewives,” just for starters).

Even press-shy President Bush is a bigger star than any of the so-called stars of network TV today.

There was much harrumphing last week when the White House got the networks to preempt and/or rearrange their Thursday prime-time lineups to cover a Bush press conference that the White House sprung on them a day before the first night of May sweeps.

In the end, the Bush people agreed to push the press conference up from 8:30 Eastern time to 8 p.m. At 8:58 p.m., Bush said, “A final question. Hutch? I don’t want to cut into some of these TV shows that are getting ready to air ... for the sake of the economy.”

The networks made sure he didn’t. By 9 p.m., NBC and CBS had cut to “The Apprentice” and “Survivor,” respectively. Enough reality, bring on “reality.” Bring me Pat O’Brien delivering the latest news about Paula Abdul on “The Insider.”

Because then, the next time I see him at the Four Seasons, I could just say, “Love your work.”