Perhaps Charles Krauthammer was just playing the contrarian for attention (we all do), but considering his background as a psychiatrist, I was surprised at the columnist’s latest piece “Why We Should Let O.J. Speak.” He thinks letting Simpson on the air would have “put this matter to rest.” Au contraire, Doctor Krauthammer, it would have reawakened it. In fact it already did to some extent.
Let’s start here: Almost anyone who would think OJ is guilty already does. Those who are racist or just plain nuts enough to believe him innocent are hardly likely to change because of a television show or book. They are thinking with their limbic systems. Rationality will not get through. After all, it is now years since the crime and not the slightest hint of an alternative theory or culprit has been brought forward either by OJ – who was supposedly devoting himself to “solving” the murders – or anyone else. [You mean Faye Resnick is still walking around free???-ed. So it seems.]
No, rationality is not at play here and is unlikely to appear suddenly from a television show. Very few people will change their minds. As one who attended the trial (and attended many other trials during my crime writing days) I cannot imagine a more open-and-shut case short of someone shooting the judge in cold blood in front of the jury. And other than the jury at the OJ trial, almost everyone in the room knew Simpson was guilty, including his own defense team, several of whom, like Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld were willing to distort the very things they stood for for a few moments in the sun. (I have noticed neither of these two gentlemen on TV during this recent incarnation of the case. Small wonder.) Johnnie Cochran must have thought he was getting some kind of “racial justice” by getting his man off. Actually, Johnnie was making a large contribution to racism in America.
So Krauthammer is way off base here. He seems to forget his McLuhan (”The Medium is the Message”). Simply putting OJ on the tube renders the murderer more powerful. The former shrink also, oddly, forgets his Freud. OJ would be even more of a sexualized celebrity (He already is to some. He has girlfriends!). But most of all the columnist displays a serious lack of compassion for the Goldman and Brown families. That is out of character for Krauthammer and I wonder if he already regrets what he has written. If he had a blog, he could correct himself.
MEANWHILE: The Ghost Writer has been outed (talk about “Six Degrees of Separation”).
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16 Comments
1. jedrury:Below the faÁ°§e of American society lies the ugliest of American beasts, racism. It rears its despicable face every once in awhile; on television in some comedian?s joke, in ourtrooms, in Democratic administrations at the of appointments when the party panders to its racial extremes, or when the Jesse Jacksons of the world have not received enough media attention or corporate payola.
The OJ verdict was the rawest of racist verdicts which threw this country into a tailspin, separating our society and exposing a serious racial abyss. Let the Lance Etos [what a horrid joke as a jurist], Marcia Clarks, F. Lee Baileys, Johnnie Cochrans of the world recede into anonymity. Let OJ remain the human ebola virus he deserves as his fate. We need not revisit those dark times in America.
Nov 24, 2006 - 11:11 am 2. Bob_R:I’m not so sure that Krauthammer is wrong. He doesn’t seem to argue that the show would really change any minds. There are a lot of people out there who know in their hearts that he is guilty, but cheered the verdict as a thumb in the eye of the LAPD and the rest of the justice system. CK is arguing that it would be good for them to hear Simpson describe how he slit his wifes throat almost to the point of decapitation. A disturbing argument, but worth a thought.
Nov 24, 2006 - 11:52 am 3. Roger:You may be right, Bob_R, but I assumed by implication that Krauthammer believed OJ’s descriptions (decapitation,etc.) would change people’s minds. I differ on that one, obviously.
Nov 24, 2006 - 1:50 pm 4. Fausta:I agree 100% with you, Roger.
Nov 24, 2006 - 2:05 pm 5. ricpic:The only way I would even begin to entertain the thought of OJS talking would be if he was locked up in death row and all proceedings from the “talk” would go to the Goldman family. And even then I’d have to think it over.
Blacks could hardly contain their glee. What does OJ prove? For the overwhelming majority of blacks race trumps everything.
Nov 24, 2006 - 4:46 pm 6. David Thomson:Obscene as that is it is even more obscene that elite opinion professes itself shocked! shocked! when a white granny is mugged, raped and murdered by a black thug. He was just expressing his legitimate rage, don’t ya know?
Millions of ordinary whites, at immense cost, both financial and emotional, have fled for their very lives and their children’s future lives to escape that legitimate rage. But, of course, they’ve done it silently. Mustn’t upset their betters delicate sensibilities by talking about it. Why, that would get them labeled…racist. Phooey!
ìFor the overwhelming majority of blacks race trumps everything.î
Overwhelming majority? I am not quite willing to go that far. Still, a lot of them certainly do. The recent disgraceful behavior of the Congressional Black Caucus in persistently supporting Alcee Hastings is solid evidence of this mindset.
Nov 24, 2006 - 8:07 pm 7. jedrury:David:
I agree with you on Alcee Hastings.
The Alcee issue is off point to OJ which for most Americans is a settled matter [disgraceful racist acquittal], Alcee is more important now and politicially charged since it involves national security. Once Pelosi commits to the corruptible Hastings in December or January, it is probably the perogative of the Speaker to appoint the committee chairs. So there may be no vote.
The GOP and the president should make it a major issue by challenging his top secret clearance.
Nov 25, 2006 - 9:21 am 8. AskMom:Or, the president and Negroponte should simply refuse to turn over classified information to Alcee.
They should, but they won’t because I am not convinced that the administration is committed to confrontation. It is only through an intense media generating confrontation pitting Alcee’s utter lack of probity against the national security interests of the nation can the GOP take the issue of national security to a higher level. The key to take back the Congress starts now and everyday for the next two years and while the media may focus on the presidential race, the real long term interest lies in trench warfare in the Congres with Pelosi.
At a health club in Florida, a friend’s daughter met a woman who had been asked out by Simpson. A slap and the threat of a restraining order if he ever came into her vision again was her response.
Too bad every woman isn’t as sensible. But there will always be those who are willing to gamble their lives for publicity. Selling oneself may be the oldest profession, it can also so easily be the last one a person ever practices.
Nov 25, 2006 - 5:38 pm 9. Steven Den Beste:Roger, you misunderstand what Cochran’s job is. A defense attorney in our criminal justice system performs the same job as a QA engineer in product development. His job is to find and bring to light all of the problems in the prosecution case.
It’s the prosecution’s job to prove that the defendant is guilty. The defense attorney’s job is to demonstrate that the prosecution failed to do so.
Justice isn’t the job of the defense attorney. That’s the job of the judge and jury. The system depends on the fact that the defense attorney does his best to get his client off even if the client is guilty. If he doesn’t, then the system fails.
If defense attorneys acted otherwise, they’d be substituting their own judgment for that of the judge and jury. I don’t want a criminal justice system in which defense attorneys decide who should be convicted, before any trials take place.
Nov 25, 2006 - 6:25 pm 10. Luther McLeod:Steven, just a small defense of Roger here. I think we all understand what Cochran did. He pulled out all stops to cast aspersions and discredit upon the prosecution. He won. So in a very focused and distinct way, laurels upon him. He successfully defended his client. IOW’s justice won out. But do you really believe that?
Nov 25, 2006 - 7:29 pm 11. Anthony (Los Angeles):One other thing to consider: what must OJ’s children have thought at the prospect of Dad writing a book on how he would have murdered their mother? The mind just boggles.
Nov 26, 2006 - 8:08 am 12. Mike in Oregon:Steven, let’s not use the term “justice” when talking about what defense attorneys are doing in instances where they get a client off the hook when they KNOW the client is guilty. Cochran did what he’s supposed to do, but it wasn’t justice. Ours is not really a justice system, it’s an adversary system where most often the best lawyer wins. When the premise is that it’s better to let 1,000 guilty go free than convict one person “unjustly” you get what we got in the O.J. verdict.
Nov 26, 2006 - 8:12 am 13. Lem:If someone wants to speak he can buy the air time. Of course, I would like to see how, should he be able to afford it and still have a number of unfulfilled adjudicated claims against him.
If what somebody has to say is of so little value and so contemptuous, why should we act as if we fear it?
On Letterman, Jerry Seinfeld was put in the unenviable position of asking people not to laugh. It’s similarly strange when a writer asks that someone not speak.
Then again that someone did kill two people. The least we can summon from each other is for him not to be allowed to continue in the limelight he so brazenly craves.
Decency still matters. I think I’m with Roger on this one.
Nov 26, 2006 - 2:42 pm 14. Steven Den Beste:Justice was not done, but it is not Cochran’s fault. Justice was not done because the LA police and the LA district attorney’s office botched the case. If they had done their job correctly, even Cochran wouldn’t have been able to get OJ off.
Don’t blame Cochran because of the injustice of this particular case.
Nov 26, 2006 - 10:01 pm 15. Lem:From David Horowitz.
“If it is true, as Robert Shapiro says, that the race card was dealt from the bottom of the deck all during the proceedings that freed his client, it is also clear that the race card was played long before the trial began and Mark Fuhrman became the shadow defendant. From the outset, white officials in the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office behaved like the character in The Manchurian Candidate who enters a state of mesmerized suggestibility whenever a Soviet control agent gets out a deck of cards. In the movie it was the Queen of Hearts that triggers this response, but in the Simpson trial it was the race card.”
For the entire article go here.
Nov 27, 2006 - 9:18 am 16. Twill00:http://tinyurl.com/yy7e89
I think in both cases the OJ verdicts were accurate.
OJ was found criminally “not guilty”, not necessarily because he deserved to win, but because the police had so badly screwed up the case that they deserved to lose. On the standard of “beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty”, OJ was not guilty in that particular trial.
On the other hand, in the civil trial, OJ was shown by a preponderance of the evidence to have done the crime. Which is also quite correct.
Nov 28, 2006 - 7:51 pm