Barb’s battlin’ barbs

Barbara Walters and Colorado Gov. Bill Owens mixed it up on yesterday’s “Good Morning America” during a verbal free-for-all.

Walters, subbing for vacationing Diane Sawyer, was discussing her interview with John and Patsy Ramsey, which aired on last Friday’s “20/20.”

Everything was going along swimmingly until Owens intimated that the Ramseys had gone to Walters because she wouldn’t ask the tough questions.

“Yes, they came to you with no preconditions,” Owens said to Walters. “But, you know, they didn’t go to Peter Jennings, they didn’t go to Tom Brokaw. They went to you. And I think we should have expected more from that interview.”

“I have to say, Governor, I rather resent your implication that . . . if they went to Peter Jennings or Tom Brokaw they would have had a tougher interview,” Walters shot back. “I think the interview was relatively tough.”

Walters pressed Owens to divulge whatever “new information” he had on the JonBenet case.

Owens refused — but pointed out that it took the Ramseys four months to finally talk to Boulder cops after the murder.

The James gang

“Sopranos” star James Gandolfini (Tony Soprano) made a surprise appearance last Saturday night at a benefit in Whippany, N.J. honoring fellow “Sopranos” star Dominic Chianese (“Uncle Junior”).

Chianese was being feted by the New Jersey Chapter of Cooley’s Anemia, a horrific blood disease affecting children who cannot produce enough red blood cells.

Photographer Adolfo Gallela, who took the official photos at the benefit, will be featured tonight (8 p.m.) on MSNBC’s “Special Edition,” which highlights his book, “Cinema Wiseguys,” a photographic look at actors (Frank Adonis, Vincent Pastore, Joey Bono) who make a living portraying mobsters.

Kennedy center

Get out the banjos — CBS and NBC will be dueling next season with competing Jackie O. movies.

TV Guide’s Max Robins reports that CBS will turn Donald Spoto’s “Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis: A Life,” into a miniseries, possibly starring Jean Tripplehorn.

NBC, meanwhile, has acquired “Jackie, Ethel, Joan: Women of Camelot,” J. Randy Taraborrelli’s bio of the Kennedy wives, and could air the mini as early as November.

Robins also reports that CBS will air a Whitney Houston concert in May from Houston’s New Jersey mansion.