Major Acid's E-Rag
It Strikes Me...
I Wouldn�t Want to Be Michael Jackson
Friday, November 12, was an interesting day. When I turned on the TV, every news channel along the spectrum was occupied with Yasser Arafat�s coffin mired in the seething mass of mourners crowded into his Ramallah compound. At the end of the day, I arrived home from work and flicked on the TV to find all the American news channels breathlessly describing the California courthouse where Scott Peterson�s jury was about to deliver their verdict. Talk about a banner news day!
Arafat�s sudden illness, quick descent into a coma, and ultimate death was a godsend for news networks visibly fatigued (and perhaps embarrassed) by their unrelenting coverage of the recent US presidential election. The news networks had been forced to cover the election, of course. Politics, after all, allows them to pretend to seriousness, even when they must know that superficiality rules, and that the whole thing bores their viewers to tears. Thus the lack of substance is spun so that the blame rests on a disinterested public, and news media pat themselves on the back for trying so hard to �engage� the viewer.
Arafat�s end allowed the news mavens to move away from the equally mind numbing post-election analysis. True, Arafat was politics, but at least it was international politics, and that generally means gunfire. The inevitable �balanced� coverage prevailed; for every talking head who said Arafat was a terrorist, there appeared an apologist proclaiming the virtues of the �father� of the Palestinian people.
Whatever your opinion, it is hard not to argue that the man had been an impediment to peace, although the talking heads, seeking impartiality, can�t seem to say even that. I have often wondered whether Arafat had hoped to be the Middle Eastern Nelson Mandela, the revered statesmen of a new country. Both men started out as terrorists, but only Mandela lived long enough to realize the dream and erase the stigma of a willingness to do violence for a political end. Arafat seems to have convinced a lot of Europeans that he was a saint, but even much of that was more a concern for placating restive, and dangerous, Islamic minorities than true support for the man.
In South Africa, Mandela is no longer the boss, and his successors don�t have his stature. His country is mired in a slow but sure slide into decrepitude and probably, in not too many years, chaos. Nor will Arafat�s successors have his prestige. The descent of Palestine into even deeper chaos is, if anything, more certain. Only it will be faster.
On this particular Friday, however, American news stations revealed just how shallow is their interest in matters of importance. For them, the news that the Scott Peterson jury was about to render its verdict pushed everything aside. Goodbye Ramallah, hello San Mateo County.
The talking heads were all but salivating. Here was something they could positively understand, something to get their average viewer excited enough sit up and pay attention. Never mind that the media had created the whole circus themselves in the first place. It was, after all, just another case of suspected domestic murder, but it was spun into a case representative of the reactionary mood of the nation as a whole. This was not just a case of murder, it was the murder of a foetus, too, if one believes in such a thing, and apparently middle America does. Even worse, it involved a man with the unforgivable desire to have sex outside of marriage when his own wife was pregnant!
Peterson was found guilty, of course. That was a foregone conclusion. Peterson had become the poster boy � or whipping boy � for both philandering and domestic violence, and the collective will of the US populace demanded his guilt. Peterson needed a miracle, and publicity seeking Geragos, his lawyer, proved human, not divine. For the self-righteous public, putting away Peterson would go a long way to making up for setting O J Simpson free. Simpson gets to play golf. Peterson gets to meditate on death row.
As I write, the penalty phase of Peterson�s trial is yet to happen, but capital punishment is the likely outcome. The jury can easily accept it, secure in the knowledge that California is so loathe to execute prisoners that Peterson could easily die of old age before all his appeals are exhausted. Still, there�s a slight problem: if the jury opts for capital punishment, Peterson gets an automatic appeal; if the jury opts for life without parole, Peterson�s legal team will have to convince a court that grounds for appeal exist.
For all of this, the news networks were in seventh heaven. Presidential campaign politics was blessedly over, and now � business as usual. The networks can be leisurely in their building up or tearing down (according to their particular bias) of Hilary Clinton, the Democratic heir apparent, as long as such unimportant matters don�t interfere with more pressing concerns, such as the next great murder trial.
As well, Middle Eastern politics will be more fun. Freed from having to be polite about Arafat, some real thought might be put into the problems. Who will take his place? How soon will civil war erupt? How many doomed �roadmaps� will the Bush administration float? How quickly will the Palestinians ratchet up the violence by blaming Israel for Arafat�s death? Okay, that has already started. Many already are convinced that Israel somehow poisoned the man, and even if that isn�t true, it will be seized on as if it were. This is the fun side of Middle Eastern politics for the news media.
And, of course, there will be Scott Peterson�s appeals. Even better, there will be the next big legal battle, likely the battle over the fate of Michael Jackson. If you have forgotten that Jackson�s out there, it�s time to recall the gloved one�s predicament. The vindictive American public�s taste for vengeance has only been whetted by doing in Peterson. And Peterson was a white guy.
In fact, Peterson was, by all accounts, a great guy, good looking, kind to neighbours and small animals. At least so it was until he developed a desire for comforts of the flesh outside his seemingly perfect marriage. In the born again USA, that�s a capital offence.
Jackson isn�t white, no matter the unusual pallor of his skin. Frankly, he�s strange. He dresses funny. He talks like he has helium tanks implanted in his lungs. He looks like a freak from another planet. And the American public, at least that ascendant, bible-thumping public of the heartland, believes he�s a pedophile. If Jackson truly is a brother from another planet, it�s time for him to phone home. But his trials can wait a little while yet. First Peterson�s sentencing needs to be settled.
All in all, it was a heck of a Friday. From Arafat to Peterson, the American news media righted their bored to death of election ships, and once again, all�s well with the news world. Unless you�re Michael Jackson, of course.
