Entertainment

George Stephanopoulos is key to GMA beating Today

Good Morning America” has managed to do for the last nine weeks what everyone knew, absolutely knew , was impossible to do.

The perpetual No. 2 morning show is in the No. 1 spot, beating “Today,” which had been at the top for so long, it was like a dictator for life. But, hey, even Fidel stepped down eventually.

So, what exactly has changed?

George Stephanopoulos, that’s what. Nearly three years ago, he got the gig to hold down the show next to co-host Robin Roberts. He’s not just held it down, but brought it up.

At first, Bill Clinton’s former mouthpiece and senior policy advisor seemed like such a weird choice. I mean he was/is ABC’s resident policy wonk.

Sure, he was good at handling delicate matters like war (between Bill and Hil) and peace (the Gennifer Flowers debacle). But that doesn’t exactly prepare a guy for interviewing Lady Gaga or cooking with Emeril.

Turns out, George was the missing ingredient in the almost-there “GMA” recipe.

For the most part, Stephanopolous leaves the goofy standing outside in 10-degree weather with 14-year-old rockers to Lara Spencer and the cooking segments and 50-uses-for-used-pantyhose segments to Sam Champion, Josh Elliott and the rest of the team.

This leaves George as the “gravitas light” king of morning TV.

OK, in the interest of full disclosure, I must confess that George and I have been seen together wearing robes.

Oh, go clean your mind! We share a hairdresser, Damien Miano of Miano Viel Salon & Spa.

I’ve always been impressed that, in that hairstyling chair, George is just one of the guys with a wet head graciously speaking to anyone, even Republicans with conservative cuts.

Which is more than you can say for me. I don’t like conservative… cuts.

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Pull up the trailer. I feel an addiction coming on.

My latest shame is “Couples Therapy,” a show so cringe-worthy and full of tacky reality show has-beens that it makes the “Honey Boo Boo” clan look like the Obamas

Simon van Kempen and Alex McCord, the embarrassing couple who pretended to have a life of bliss on “Real Housewives of New York” are now on the fritz and trying to find true intimacy in public with a TV shrink.

They are there with other troubled marrieds like 51-year-old actor Doug Hutchinson and his 16-year-old, hot-pants bride.

Seriously? You can bypass that? You need to see a shrink.

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Another addiction begins for me this Saturday night on Bio, when the real Long Island medium, Kim Russo, connects Regis Philbin with his dead Delta pilot brother on the premiere of “The Haunting Of…”

Kim is not a dopey caricature, but just your average soccer mom who really does speak to the dead like we speak to each other.