But for Dimond - the acquitted pop star's lightning-rod nemesis, who just got the bad news that Court TV won't be renewing her contract - it's a chance for "a little paid vacation," she told me yesterday.

Dimond added that her book about the singer's saga, "Be Careful Who You Love," is coming out in November.

"They can do whatever they want, those who have drunk the Kool-Aid on Diane Dimond," the controversial television personality said.

She was referring to the folks - notably Jackson defense attorney Thomas Mesereau - who complained that her reporting on Jackson's child-molestation trial was biased in favor of the prosecution.

"Two weeks ago, I was in Birmingham, Ala., to cover the Natalee Holloway case, and Mr. Mesereau was staying in the next-door hotel doing a death-penalty case," she said. "And he stopped by my hotel and he railed about me to the bartender for 15 minutes, about what an evil person and terrible reporter I am."

Mesereau didn't return my phone call, but I asked Dimond why she rouses such anger.

"It just that I have a really high BS meter, so when they want to spin me - and I say this modestly - I just know too much about it for the spin to work," she answered. "I can smell spin from the prosecution side, too. I'm actually not biased at all. People on both sides were mad at me, so I must have been doing it exactly right."

The hard-charging Dimond - who's been at the network since 2001 and admitted that she might have liked to re-up - preempted Court TV's official spin by confiding on Sunday to her Yahoo.com fan club that "my contract with Court TV is/was coming to an end in December and they decided to end it early. Court TV told me on Wednesday that they planned to dismantle my Investigative Unit and Friday was my last day there."

Court TV, meanwhile, called her "a respected journalist" who was "key to the network's successful coverage" of Jackson.

Really? My BS meter is buzzing: So why didn't they keep her?

Source: New York Daily News