The Britney Spears circus gets another clown.

Dr phil

Just when you though the public downward spiral of Britney Spears couldn't get any weirder, enter Dr. Phil.

After the latest escapade, with Britney being taken into the hospital on a gurney, she had to suffer the indignity of Dr. Phil barging into her hospital room, brandishing his own unique version of tough love all the while.

Now, if all this happened under the radar, if no one knew about it, I would say that Dr. Phil was doing a good thing. He was trying to help out a woman in need.

But it got plastered all over the news outlets and Dr. Phil even wanted to do a special about it, supposedly to help all the people suffering from the same thing Britney was going through.

CNN.com put it excellently in this article: "That's assuming, of course, they have been in and out of rehab in recent months, arrived in public in short skirts and no underwear, shaved their heads bald, run over a photographer's foot, banged up a car in a parking lot and left without notifying the owner, and attacked another car with an umbrella."

So, what it looks like instead that Dr. Phil was simply taken advantage of the Britney Spears tragedy to get some publicity for himself. Of course, not being stupid, he trashed the special--for now. But he still looks like a charlatan and an opportunist.

Best part about this, is that, supposedly, he was there at the request of the Spears family. Which proves that bad parent doesn't exclusively occur during childhood. I could happen your entire life.