HATER OF THE WEEK - JUDGE HUGH BENNETT

Messy break-up, bitterly divisive couple, and a courtroom struggle for millions upon millions. There's really no surprise that our Hater of the Week comes from the divorce proceedings of Paul McCartney and Heather Mills. The surprise comes from who exactly has claimed the top spot on this week's list of haters. That's right, it's the man who was presiding over the hearings - Judge Hugh Bennett.

This seems wrong, because judges are not supposed to hate - they're supposed to be fair and just and only deal with facts and realities, not opinions. Some judges though, I'm sad to say, are simply not as unbiased as the makers of this site.

But that's the beauty of Judge Bennett's hate this week. While McCartney and Mills were dishing out the more traditional Direct Hates, Bennett somehow managed to dish out hates that were equally harsh to both sides. Take for instance the issue of money. Mills was asking for 250 million. To take that much away from McCartney would have been a great hate. And to give Mills nothing would have been a great hate, too. But in Bennett's infinite wisdom, he awarded Mills about 50 million - less than half of what she was asking, and yet still way more than McCartney wanted to give. In this way, Judge Bennett wasn't really hating, he was just hating on their hating. Brilliant! He made the two haters he was hating on look bad for hating on each other, but he hated on both of them equally - known as a King Solomon Hate. This brilliant move allows him to hate on both of them as much as he wants, and it just seems like he is hating on their hating, because they are the two principle hate parties involved.

This was both a brilliant and gutsy move, because there was a very real possibility of McCartney and Mills both hating on his King Solomon Hate and deciding to unify their hatred toward him. Had they done that, they could have hated on him mercilessly together, known as a Monkey-in-the-Middle Hate. Fortunately for Bennett, they continued to hate on each other...and it's that type of hating on hating that we try to reward on this site, since we are so passionately against any type of hating (which is hopefully becoming quite clear). Much like Judge Hugh Bennett, we're not hating. We're just saying...that Hugh Bennett is our Hater of the Week.

NHJB