i'll probably regret this, but i am actually going to link to a fox news article on the michael jackson fiasco, if only because it supports the important principle that there are always two sides to a lawsuit and that you are innocent until proven guilty, no matter how much of a wierdo you are.

in any case, guilty or not, with lots of video tape and a lawyer already working on the case for the better part of a year, you can bet it's going to get ugly and that it will be competing with the upcoming primaries for sound bites every night. something tells me that getting your political message out just got that much harder, which of course favors the candidates with the most money.

update: more people comment on the amount of time being spent on covering the jackson case, at the expense of more weighty news.

the bleat:

"Two big bombs in Istanbul, and what’s the big story of the day? Following around a pervy slab of albino Play-Doh as he turns himself into the police. I was stunned to discover last night that Nightline not only covered the Jackson case in detail, but bumped coverage of the Whitehall speech, which was the most important speech since the Iraq campaign began and arguably the most important speech of the war, period."

George W. Bush Loves Michael Jackson:

"A number of explosions tore through the British consulate in Turkey today, killing scores of people. George W. Bush is in England, surrounded on all sides by enraged British citizens whose massive protests have required nearly every police officer in London to be put on the line of defense."

"It is 3:16 p.m. on Thursday afternoon as I write this. CNN has been covering, with total exclusivity, a parking lot outside a police station for the last hour. "

and behind the scenes, everyone's staring at a spider at neverland.