The B!tch Replies:  Hold on to your Daisy Dukes for this one: Jessica Simpson, Patron Saint of Sea Chickens, may actually be smarter than she looks. And acts. And is.

A quick recap: Simpson says she's working on a country album via Columbia Records, and it's due out later this year. She says she wants to channel the "strength" she admires in other female country artists like Shania, Faith and Reba.

Why, you ask? The pop music and movie scenes can be pretty catty, quick to dump any performer who has lost that hallowed teen and tween audience. And Simpson is definitely one of those people. The tweens are all preoccupied with High School Musical and its bevy of focus-group-approved actors. Teens have T-Pain and T.I. and all the other T's.

And country music has a history of being very welcoming, I am told. In fact, there is a long track record of well-known, noncountry singers finding fresh income from the country audience.

"Bon Jovi, Kelly Clarkson and, currently, the Eagles have all recorded music that has been played on country radio," says Ed Salamon, executive director of Country Radio Broadcasters in Nashville. "Country radio and country listeners will give Jessica Simpson's new music a fair chance."

Simpson may also have her eye on the audience that first noticed her when she costarred in The Dukes of Hazzard.

The film performed very well, especially in the South, market analysts have said. And as a bonus, Simpson was thoughtful enough to shoot an entire music video aimed at dirty old male line dancers.

I guarantee you those horny hombres are still, this very second, thinking about Jessica, her walkin' boots and her agreeable backup squadron of perky yee-haw girls.

Why not capitalize on those people? Those boots were made for exploitation, I guess.

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