The Sideshow Has Left Town

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Michael Jackson

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The passage of time often makes us look back at certain cultural excesses with a wince, a groan, and a laugh. Black parachute pants. Pet Rocks and Garbage Pail Kids. Lava lamps. ''If it doesn't fit, you must acquit.'' David and Shaun Cassidy. I think that very few of us will be apt to laugh about the national Michael Jackson fixation 20 years from now. Most of us will probably say we barely paid attention to the damned thing, even if we still remember exactly where we were when the verdict came down.

Well, we wouldn't want people to know we just had to get in and ogle the 700-pound fat lady, either, would we? Or that we went out back to watch the geek bite the heads off live chickens?

No, we probably wouldn't want to own up to such low tastes, and in fact, circus sideshows are pretty much a thing of the past — except maybe on Court TV. People didn't flock to the Jackson trial to watch the American justice system at work; they came to watch the weirdity. And if Michael Jackson had been sent to jail? That would have been the ultimate freak show.

The media first turned the trial into a freak show by emphasizing Jackson's eccentricities, and stoked the ratings with constant, trivializing coverage while other, far more important stories went underreported or completely ignored in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, North Korea, and Washington, D.C.

The press might respond by saying ''We gave the people what they wanted.''

My response would be ''My job is to give them what they want. When he steps into a recording studio, it's Michael Jackson's job to give them what they want. Your job is to give the people what they need.''

Ah, but it doesn't matter now. The Pale Peculiarity has floated out of the courthouse to his black SUV for the last time. The sideshow has moved on. In Santa Maria the sweepers are cleaning up the mess and all the cameras have been turned off. There'll be another sideshow eventually, but probably not one this good for a while. The best comment might have been by a Jackson supporter, responding to a TV reporter after the verdict. Maybe I misheard it, maybe it was just a particularly apropos malapropism, but it sure sounded like ''You guys really hit the jackal-pot.''

Amen, brother.