The Talking Dog — that super-blunt blogger who always surprises and really doesn’t fit into any “blogspeak” slot — has a MUST READ take on the Michael Jackson verdict.
Here’s our edited down taste 4 U…but you need to read the whole thing:
Well, let the jokes fly: Michael “beat it”. He can moonwalk right out of the court house. Whatever. The jury was, as I feared, duly awestruck by the big-time celeb, and the prosecutor, alas, was a tad too aggressive on a case loaded with problematic characters the most prominent of which was the vic’s professional shakedown artist mom, who, evidently, seems to have placed her child in a freakish situation, hoping to cash in. (And given that the civil suit is to follow, where the troublesome “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard is replaced by “preponderance of the evidence”, may yet get that wish.)
The man remains a freak, and a deeply troubled individual, who should simply not be allowed alone in the presence of children, including his own. That’s the way it is: a lesser man (in celebrity status and wealth, that is), on mere accusation of what there seemed to be enough evidence here to convince a grand jury to indict (not that that’s all that hard), would probably find himself on a sex-offender registry and paying some social worker $150 an hour to babysit him with his own children.
Not the king of pop, though. He gets away with some… very troubling stuff. Well, he can have wild court house celebrations all he wants. I’m not sure this sort of accusation will be good for business….Jackson is wildly in debt, and while he won’t face jail (because his status as a celebrity is infinitely more important than the safety of children– as that jury saw it, and sadly, just about American jury would see it when the accused is a major star), he’ll probably face some hard financial times ahead….
In a world where just about any irate ex-spouse can swear out an accusation against just about any man that said man is molesting their children, and the man’s life goes to instantaneous hell without so much as a court hearing… the fact that Mr. Jackson can continue to be allowed to live in his 24-7 predatory playground… is beyond galling.
Of course, I might just be saying these things because I can’t moonwalk…
FOOTNOTE: The Talking Dog is in our Left Voices column. However, he often takes stands (such as the way he blasted John Kerry during the campaign) that irk people on the left. He is never predictable and (if he wanted to) could probably be a frequent contributor to top newspaper op-ed pages. He is anonymous…but he does know something about law.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.