The Post is in quite a sympathetic mood with Tatum O'Neal this morning. First at bat is Andrea Peyser, who would normally take so much glee in kicking somebody while she's down. But not this Oscar-winning actress.

Somehow O'Neal's camp arranged for a softball piece with Peyser, which explains why she was at the top of the list of phone calls to make after getting sprung from the clink. Why Peyser? "She called me to explain herself," writes the columnist. "Also, because she liked my columns slamming another discarded wife, Dina Matos McGreevey." O'Neal retells her crack/coke arrest tale, but also!, how she wants to help the guy who sold her the goods.

Tatum, 44, told me how, in a funk, she met Alan Garcia, 33, "a drug addict who was panhandling," and bought coke.

I told her she was charged with buying crack, too.

"It's both?" she asked, surprised. "I didn't even know what I was buying!"

Tatum wants to reach out to the dealer, who was charged with a felony, while she faces a misdemeanor drug-possession charge.

"I'm going to try to see if I can help him. He's not a drug dealer. He's a panhandler who sold drugs. I'm going to talk to my lawyer."

Get this. Tatum, who's never been in jail before, is glad she was busted.

And then there's crazy lady Liz Smith, who points to O'Neal's Oscar win at age 10, which Smith thinks should've never been allowed ("Child actors are too special for such competition"), and also, her upbringing: "And to then be subjected to all that 'Hollywood glamour.' Her parents, actress Joanna Moore and actor Ryan O'Neal, fell short as ideal role models. Moore was abusive, neglectful and drug-addicted. Ryan was an overpowering bully, and less interested in raising a daughter (or his sons) than pursuing his private life - mostly with Farrah Fawcett, with whom Tatum had an acrimonious relationship before she grew up."