Yesterday morning’s rip of Deadline Hollywod Daily‘s Nikki Finke by MCN’s David Poland was brutally phrased, to say the least. “Fact is, whether I like it or not, Nikki is the Niche Winchell in this tiny little world of show business insiders,” Poland said. “She lies often, gets it wrong almost as often, but always thinks she is truthful and right. And I do believe that she really does believe that. Such is the nature of the sociopath.

“The glory of the professional, morality-free gossip is that burnt bridges mean little, since there is always someone else there with a can of gas and some matches to hand you…since you are so happy to take it, spread it, and light it.

“But this is a small town. And when the gossip is too exposed — when everyone is paying attention — the dynamics of how people use gossips change. The price of getting caught feeding the monster gets higher and higher.

“The advantage that Walter Winchell had — aside from an era with a slower news cycle — a national consumer platform. His smears really could damage the public image of talent. Not so much Nikki. She is more the ugly mean girl with money in showbiz high school.

“And I don’t mean that as a comment on Nikki’s looks. She is a perfectly nice looking woman. What I mean to say is that she is the kind of mean girl who uses the power she gathers from someone else’s power (in high school, her parents’ money…in Hollywood, targeted information from powerful people) to feel better about herself by hurting others and feeling powerful in her own right as a result.

“And the people who gather to feed this manipulation? Weasels. Every one. Unless it is your job to service someone else’s bad behavior — in which case, you have my sympathy — if you feed the cycle, all the while snickering about how you can control The Nikki, you are a small as the tool you use.”

I feel like a Tryceratops watching King Kong and that huge Tyrannosaurus Rex duke it out in Act Two of King Kong. It starts around the 4:25 mark.