Althouse: "Talking Points is just about fed up with all the [Michael Jackson] adulation."

July 8, 2009

"Talking Points is just about fed up with all the [Michael Jackson] adulation."

O'Reilly has had it.

68 comments:

Fred4Pres said...: But it has been so restrained.; 7/8/09, 9:21 AM
former law student said...: A few hours of meditation at the Reagan Presidential Library should put O'Reilly right again.; 7/8/09, 9:34 AM
rhhardin said...: It's those 40% of women, and the media business model that targets them, more than actual adulation at large.

The media only seems to take over all the terrain.

On Diana, there's always the forgotten NYT article link. Why would this be any different.; 7/8/09, 9:36 AM
Fred4Pres said...: former law student, you obviously do not know this but O'Reilly meditates in his trophy room. The sheer awesomeness of Bill's man cave, located in the hallowed ground of Long Island, makes everything alright.

But in a pinch, Bill can stare at his reflection in a mirror and get in the groove.; 7/8/09, 9:39 AM
Greybeard said...: As a fan of Sammy Davis Jr. I was boggled by all the claims of doors opened for blacks by MJ.
But then I remembered no one knows history anymore, even fairly recent history.; 7/8/09, 9:48 AM
Anonymous said...: I agree, Greybeard, WTF?

Of course liberals love O'Reilly--he is always column fodder. Oh that racist! Oh that conservative!

Notably absent in spirit as well as in person was Oprah. She was molested as a child, maybe that's why? I dunno, there's a story there.; 7/8/09, 9:55 AM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: But Althouse said unto them, Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.

I'm not as good as Meade but all I can do is try ;); 7/8/09, 10:00 AM
Hoosier Daddy said...: As a fan of Sammy Davis Jr. I was boggled by all the claims of doors opened for blacks by MJ.

Or Chubby Checker, Miles Davis, James Brown....Hell Motown opened more doors than MJ did.

And I really laughed when 'Reverend' Sharpton kept saying he was ourMichael. Yours? I find it ironic that Sharpton wants to celebrate MJs blackness when it sure seemed like MJ wanted to be anything but black.

Then again leave it to a race baiting charlaton like Sharpton to turn anything into a race issue.; 7/8/09, 10:08 AM
MadisonMan said...: There is such a nice punchline here, given that MJ's nose was falling off and that his service was in the Staples Center. I just can't articulate it.

I don't have problems with the service, although I think it was over the top. But why the press coverage? I think it's Lemmings Syndrome.; 7/8/09, 10:08 AM
Hoosier Daddy said...: And just as a follow up, Sammy Davis and those other Motown classic artists were a lot more talented IMO.; 7/8/09, 10:09 AM
Diamondhead said...: Michael Jackson was a trainwreck and a freakshow for the last fifteen years of his life. Now he's a hero? Now he's a black icon? Michael Jackson made it possible for Magic Johnson to be popular with white America? Where do people come up with this shit?; 7/8/09, 10:19 AM
Crimso said...: "But then I remembered no one knows history anymore, even fairly recent history."

And they are absolutely Hell-bent on repeating it. Naturally, some history should be repeated and is, but that which shouldn't be still seems to keep worming its way back into our civilization.; 7/8/09, 10:29 AM
former law student said...: Michael Jackson was a trainwreck and a freakshow for the last fifteen years of his life.

When you're dead, memories of the productive quarter-century of your life can outweigh the fifteen or so years of freak show.; 7/8/09, 10:31 AM
William said...: I read somewhere that "We Are the World" raised about fifty million dollars. That's about what Jackson paid to settle the legal fees and settlements for the various child molestation cases. Of course if you factor in the cost of maintaining kiddie magnets like Neverland, most of Jackson's time, money, and energy was spent in pursuing his vices than in ending world hunger. That said, it just as possible to go overboard in criticism of him as in adulation. It is edifying and instructive to compare the respective careers of Michael Jackson and Robert McNamara. McNamara sent thousands of young men to their deaths in a war that he did not think was winnable using tactics that he thought were grossly immoral. Jackson molested children. No comparison. Jackson was much more successful in his career as an entertainer than McNamara was as Secy of Defense. I would ask that conservatives take time from their demonization of Jackson to spare some moments to contemplate the evil that was McNamara.; 7/8/09, 10:35 AM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: On the other hand, maybe MJ death has not received enough coverage.

You would have thought that Ana Nicole Smith drug induced death might have reached the ears of people close to other celebrities like Michael Jackson.

But apparently there was not enough Ana Nicole coverage, not enough to chasten MJ handlers to protect the golden egg laying goose.; 7/8/09, 10:37 AM
ricpic said...: I realize it's verboten to criticize schvartzes, but white women too?; 7/8/09, 10:38 AM
raf said...: Way back when my kids were very young, MJ had some pretty good songs, but I think he was a better dancer/performer than a singer. He would have been one heckuva Pip, if only there were 2 more like him.; 7/8/09, 10:39 AM
Hoosier Daddy said...: I would ask that conservatives take time from their demonization of Jackson to spare some moments to contemplate the evil that was McNamara.

I suppose that would have more meaning if there was even a fraction of the adulation over McNamara than there is over Jackson.; 7/8/09, 10:40 AM
Diamondhead said...: "When you're dead, memories of the productive quarter-century of your life can outweigh the fifteen or so years of freak show."

If his actual achievements were recounted without the dishonest exaggeration and undue glorifications, there wouldn't be a problem.; 7/8/09, 10:40 AM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Forget Anna Nicole. there was even more recently, what's his name? the joker in Batman?; 7/8/09, 10:42 AM
raf said...: "contemplate the evil that was McNamara."

I must have missed all those conservatives who had a good opinion of McNamara at DoD.; 7/8/09, 10:43 AM
Jim said...: Lem -

"But apparently there was not enough Ana Nicole coverage, not enough to chasten MJ handlers to protect the golden egg laying goose."

The problem is that the celebrities who are most in need of that lesson are the ones who are secretly thinking "I hope that when I die, mine will be even bigger." That's the level of dysfunction that we're talking about here. Self-awareness is a truly rare commodity in such a rarified atmosphere.; 7/8/09, 10:43 AM
ricpic said...: All hail the crotch grabber. May his reign continue in Hades.; 7/8/09, 10:45 AM
former law student said...: maybe MJ death has not received enough coverage.

The other shoe will drop when the toxicology report comes out.

Which reminds me: I couldn't understand all the 25-50 year old women who were shattered when druggie Elvis died.; 7/8/09, 10:49 AM
Hoosier Daddy said...: The biggest tragedy of the whole thing is that Jackson, like so many of these celebrities are surrounded by an entourage of ‘friends’ who do nothing but slap them on the back and tell them how damn wonderful they are and that includes his own family. There was a point when Jackson needed someone close to him to pull him off to the side and say ‘what the fuck are you doing?’ At some point the plastic surgeons should have just said no we’re not going to further contribute to your physical deformaties and turning you into a white man. From day one someone should have said ‘Michael, it is not normal for a grown man to have sleepovers with 12 year old boys. Innocent or not, you are asking for trouble’. At some point someone should have been telling him that he is going broke because he’s pissing his money down a rat hole.

But no one did that. Instead his pathetic excuse for a father farmed him out from childhood and saw nothing in his own son but dollar signs and that goes for the rest of the parasites around him including the race baiting charlatans posing as reverends who eulogize him as a black icon when it was clear Jackson was having every surgical procedure in the book to be anything BUT that. I don’t demonize the guy as much as I pity him. I think he was talented but I think as was stated up thread, guys like Sammy Davis Jr., Miles Davis or James Brown had a greater impact on music than he did.; 7/8/09, 10:55 AM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: In some ways I see the funeral as another kind of drug.

A drug for the masses.

MJ daughter coming out party – the microfhone was a pipe and all the family surrounding her to make sure everything went smoothly when she took her first hit.; 7/8/09, 10:58 AM
SteveR said...: In this regard, criticism from EW about criticism of MJ and the coverage of his funeral (or whatever that was called) is far from objective, nor sincere.

These are the types of leeches who have made millions covering every slimy detail of the lives of MJ, etc, and are just as guilty as the race baiters like Sharpton, et. al. in mischaracterizing MJs impact.; 7/8/09, 11:01 AM
TitusIsBackFellowRepublicans said...: I agree with O'Reilly. Enough. I couldn't bother watching any of the crap.

I did catch one clip of Magic Johnson and thought he was cool though. He talked about going over the Jackson's house and the chef asked him what he wanted. He ordered grill chicken and Michael had a bucket of KFC.

What is it about KFC and blacks. Is it just because it's chicken or is there some magic in those herbs and spices?; 7/8/09, 11:02 AM
blogless said...: I need to get something off my chest - as a former sex crimes prosecutor - child molesters and rapists do not assault EVERY CHILD/WOMAN they meet. I am so tired of hearing people say that MJ wasn't a pedophile by naming the kids he didn't molest. That 1993 case was a solid strong case. He knew it, and that's why he paid the millions he did to quash it.

This whole thing has made me bonkers. I want to move to an island.; 7/8/09, 11:07 AM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Michael Jackson and Sarah Palin.

One overly praised and the other overly maligned.

It is the nature of an addict to overdose.; 7/8/09, 11:17 AM
jimspice said...: I had no interest in the memorial, and was amazed that ALL the news channels covered it live. Wasn't this a huge missed opportunity for someone? Fox or MSNBC would have attracted 100% of the non-Michael audience had they gone with their regular programming. I would think that reaching fresh, new viewers and perhaps making a few converts would outweigh following the crowd. Or perhaps I am just dense when it comes to oligopolistic economics.; 7/8/09, 11:21 AM
Anonymous said...: McNamara sent thousands of young men to their deaths in a war that he did not think was winnable using tactics that he thought were grossly immoral.

Don't get me wrong - I loathe McNamara. But I was under the apparently mistaken impression that Kennedy anad Johnson were Commanders-in-Chief for most of the 60s. Thanks for clearing that up for me.; 7/8/09, 11:22 AM
MadisonMan said...: ..and of course O'Reilly is pissed. People are paying attention to someone else!; 7/8/09, 11:41 AM
Geoff Matthews said...: What is it about KFC and blacks. Is it just because it's chicken or is there some magic in those herbs and spices?

Didn't you know? The Colnel puts in a secret ingredient that makes you crave it fortnightly.

That's why he had a seat at The Meadows.; 7/8/09, 11:46 AM
Hoosier Daddy said...: But I was under the apparently mistaken impression that Kennedy anad Johnson were Commanders-in-Chief for most of the 60s. Thanks for clearing that up for me.

Isn't it great how that works? I mean that's almost as good as when Kerry was talking to Chris Matthews about 'Nixon's' war.; 7/8/09, 11:51 AM
TitusIsBackFellowRepublicans said...: Just heard the city of LA paid between 1.5 and 4 million for the funeral. Hopefully they made that money back in hotels, tshirts, restaurants etc.

Lovely.; 7/8/09, 12:19 PM
TitusIsBackFellowRepublicans said...: I was Jeane Kirkpatrick a closeted dyke.

Just wandering.

She looked like one.; 7/8/09, 12:20 PM
Jim said...: Lem -

"A drug for the masses. "

The Romans had "bread and circuses," but it was the same thing. And we all know what happened to them.; 7/8/09, 12:34 PM
Hoosier Daddy said...: The Romans had "bread and circuses," but it was the same thing. And we all know what happened to them.

Open borders and amnesty to the Germanic tribes?

:-); 7/8/09, 1:10 PM
Jim said...: Hoosier -

LOL; 7/8/09, 1:17 PM
Hoosier Daddy said...: Well it was one of the main contributing factors :-)

There's that history repeats itself thing.; 7/8/09, 1:32 PM
former law student said...: The Romans had "bread and circuses," but it was the same thing. And we all know what happened to them.

Yeah,the Empire became officially Christian, and a century later, the whole thing collapsed.

Keep America Pagan!!! Don't let it happen to us.; 7/8/09, 1:37 PM
Hoosier Daddy said...: Yeah,the Empire became officially Christian, and a century later, the whole thing collapsed.

Keep America Pagan!!! Don't let it happen to us.

Actually it thrived well into the mid 13th century. Anyone with even a passing knowledge of the Roman empire knows there was an western and eastern portion. The Eastern empire which historians now refer to as the Byzantine Empire, was nonetheless the Eastern Roman Empire and flourised under the Christianists who ran it.; 7/8/09, 1:45 PM
Hoosier Daddy said...: Correction, make that the mid 15th century.; 7/8/09, 1:46 PM
Jim said...: Hoosier -

"Correction, make that the mid 15th century."

If you're going to keep using actual history to deflate the egos of Leftists, I'm going to have flag you for "Unsportsmanlike Conduct" and send you to the sidelines.

You know they don't have history on their side, so if you keep using it then I'm going to have to go the league office and ask for a ruling.; 7/8/09, 2:02 PM
Hoosier Daddy said...: That's not fair. I used an instant replay.; 7/8/09, 2:03 PM
Jim said...: Hoosier -

" I used an instant replay."

Oh...I didn't realize that the officials had already reviewed the play...Sorry...

::picks up the flag and walks off the field::; 7/8/09, 2:19 PM
Cedarford said...: McNamara sent thousands of young men to their deaths in a war that he did not think was winnable using tactics that he thought were grossly immoral. Jackson molested children. No comparison. Jackson was much more successful in his career as an entertainer than McNamara was as Secy of Defense. I would ask that conservatives take time from their demonization of Jackson to spare some moments to contemplate the evil that was McNamara.

DOD Secretaries take their marching orders from Presidents. They don't put us into wars. You really are bitching about "the evil that was JFK". Since Kennedy induced him to leave a high-paying job and enter public service.

Kennedy, and later LBJ, then Nixon as he adroitly wound down the war by turning the fight over to Vietnamese....did not just "send young men to their deaths" for the hell of it. They did it to communicate to the Soviets that if lines were crossed, Americans would be willing to take casualties to prevent a communist Asia, a communist Latin America, or the Red Army from putting the rest of Europe under Soviet rule.

That meant we wouldn't collapse in a blubbering Mournathon over our "precious little children in uniform" when the 1st Soviet tank fired, and immediately surrender. That we would risk our cities in a nuclear showdown.
Because we knew the Communists had killed more people, by far, than the Nazis or beastial Imperial Japanese forces had in China and SE Asia.

Like so much of history, people forget that. And forget, given the focus on anti-War 'Nam Vets - that polls of Vets show by far most who served in Vietnam were proud of their service, and most who were in combat were volunteers. That they believe the blood Americans shed in "useless" Korean, Vietnam, other smaller Cold War hotspots held the death-happy totalitarian form of communism in check long enough to have the form of it devised by the Jewish Bolsheviks collapse in its legacy of blood and dismal record of advancing the fortunes of it's subjects.

I think Kennedy was wrong, LBJ was even more wrong to escalate it. And McNamara was an arrogant, rotten tactician in implimenting what JFK and LBJ wanted.
But all McNamara was, was an executive who answered the call to service. And had he been slotted outside the war in a different national priority like say, PR or LBJ's great society, Democrats and the media would have kissed his backside for the next 40 years as they did with all the paragons of Camelot and LBJ hacks not associated with "baby-killing" posts in those Administrations.

Meanwhile, Michael Jackson is just a talented guy who became a sicko celebrity. No public service, just a life of perverted self-indulgence in his last years. Including acts of possible evil of the squalid sort that ensnared to likes of Fatty Arbuckle and Phil Spector.Or of the trainwreck kind like all the other drug ODs...

If blacks want to rally around him and make him an icon like they did OJ or the Jena 6 or Mumia - more power to them in their collective self-destructiveness and inability to succeed in America like other groups succeed.; 7/8/09, 2:30 PM
former law student said...: The Eastern empire which historians now refer to as the Byzantine Empire, was nonetheless the Eastern Roman Empire and flourised under the Christianists who ran it.

Until the Muslims defeated them. Roman Empire: 0 for 2.

Luckily for Western Europe, the barbarians under King John Sobieski were able to keep the Turks from taking over the whole continent.; 7/8/09, 3:23 PM
Anonymous said...: Until the Muslims defeated them. Roman Empire: 0 for 2.

I thought you were for the pagans and against the Christians, FLS, not against the Romans. Which was odd in another sense: Alaric was a Christian, too.

So with that in mind, what we really have is Alaric, Sobieski - and let me go ahead and add Don Juan de Austria.

Christianists: 3 for 3.; 7/8/09, 3:35 PM
AST said...: I was kind of hoping they'd preserve his body and keep it in a crystal coffin, like Lenin's in Moscow, and create a new tourist attraction in L.A.

Didn't I read somewhere that Elvis has made more money since he died than he did when he was alive?; 7/8/09, 4:21 PM
Hoosier Daddy said...: Luckily for Western Europe, the barbarians under King John Sobieski were able to keep the Turks from taking over the whole continent.

Barbarians indeed. Heh, I knew you were a bigot.

So with that in mind, what we really have is Alaric, Sobieski - and let me go ahead and add Don Juan de Austria.

Christianists: 3 for 3.

Hey lets not forget Charles Martel and the Battle of Poitiers (Tours) where the Muslims were sent packing out of France.

Christianists 4

Medieval Islamofascists 0; 7/8/09, 4:59 PM
A.W. said...: mmm, personally the tipping point was when someone called him the greatest entertainer of all time or something. Sheesh. my retort: "he wasn't even the greatest Jackson." (For me the greatest Jackson is Janet.)

and while it was moving to see his daughter up there, it was also screwed up. she should not have been paraded up there like that.

Dear God, please let those kids become something like normal.; 7/8/09, 5:22 PM
$9,000,000,000 Write Off said...: Bill would impress me if he could recite 15th century poetry:

Oh, grant him now eternal peace,
Lord, and everlasting light,
He wasn’t worth a candle bright,
Nor even a sprig of parsley.
Of eyebrows, hair, and beard he’s free,
A turnip scraped with a spade, all right:
Oh, grant him now eternal peace.

Exiled with strict severity,
Rapped behind with a spade, despite
It all he cried: ‘Appeal, for me!’
– Which wasn’t the height of subtlety.
Oh, grant him now eternal peace.

Francois Villon; 7/8/09, 7:05 PM
former law student said...: she should not have been paraded up there like that.

She should not have had to have heard her whole life that her daddy was a trainwreck freakshow child molester.

She knew what her daddy was: the best daddy in the whole world. Who else could have stood up for him?; 7/8/09, 8:03 PM
former law student said...: Barbarians indeed.

Hey I am a proud barbarian, in both the Roman Empire sense and the Chinese sense. I'd tell some ethnic Italian jokes if it would help.; 7/8/09, 8:05 PM
Hoosier Daddy said...: She should not have had to have heard her whole life that her daddy was a trainwreck freakshow child molester.

Then her daddy should have not had turned himself into a freakshow with multiple plastic surgeries and skin lightening procedures that changed him from an already good looking guy into a circus clown, having a strange fetish with dolls and as a grown man invited 12 year old boys over for sleepovers.

You know, some thing just go without sayin.; 7/8/09, 8:54 PM
Hoosier Daddy said...: She knew what her daddy was: the best daddy in the whole world. Who else could have stood up for him?

Lets see, Jackie, Randy, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon, Janet, Joe when he wasn't too busy trying to make a buck.

I mean just for starters.; 7/8/09, 8:58 PM
William said...: Jackson's life was its own punishment. He himself was exhibit A in why child abuse should be considered a heinous crime. He seems to have garnered no pleasure from his fame, talent, and wealth. Compare him to McNamara. McNamara died full of years and honors. McNamara admitted to feeling guilty about his role in the war. But there was something self congratulatory about his guilt. He seems to be saying that unlike Neanderthals like Curtis Lemay he realized that bombing civilians was an inherently immoral act. His guilt was not an expression of regret, just another expression of his moral smugness.....Jackson was sui generis. His death ranks with that of David Carradine in its complete asbsence of any larger meaning. We do not need the example of Michael Jackson and David Carradine to refrain from hiring personal anesthiologists and hanging ourselves in the closet. But the life and career of Robert McNamara is something that all politicians should ponder......Like Woodrow Wilson, McNamara seems to have been one of those people who thought that just because he was smarter than most people, he was smart enough to solve the problems of the world. And like Woodrow Wilson, he also thought that just because he wasn't as greedy as capitalists, he was high minded enough to fairly judge the problems of the world. I think we have another generation of Wilsons and McNamaras roaming the halls of power, but, of course, this time they will get it right.; 7/8/09, 9:03 PM
M. Simon said...: I prefer Louisa Lockhart adulation.

She is much prettier and you can find her on Facebook; 7/8/09, 9:11 PM
Ralph L said...: I thought Jackson went after 13-14 year olds, not 12, or was that just their age when they complained? I suspect his father did something to him during puberty to try to keep his voice high. The other male Jacksons don't sound like he does.

How long before someone publishes the coroner's photos, without makeup, wig, and nose?; 7/8/09, 9:52 PM
AllenS said...: I'm still wondering how he turned himself white.; 7/8/09, 10:06 PM
chuck b. said...: Bill O'Reilly's mad about something? Oooo! The world better watch out!; 7/9/09, 12:10 AM
A.W. said...: Former

> She should not have had to have heard her whole life that her daddy was a trainwreck freakshow child molester.

What? You think Jackson paid over $20 million to Jordi Chandler because he was innocent?

Let me tell you, if I was as rich as Jackson was at that point, and I was innocent I wouldn’t have settled in a million years precisely because I would know that everyone would think of it as a confession. So what does it say that Jacko settled?

I suppose you think Jackson was teaming up with OJ to find "the real child molesters.”; 7/9/09, 1:03 AM
former law student said...: You think Jackson paid over $20 million to Jordi Chandler because he was innocent?

I think Jackson settled out of court with the Chandlers to make them go away.

Chandler's dentist dad had extracted the story as he extracted a tooth from his son, under the influence of sodium amytal, according to the Taraborelli book.

If Jordan Chandler had really seen Jackson's genitalia, shouldn't he have noticed Jackson wasn't circumcised?; 7/9/09, 9:27 AM
blogless said...: "I think Jackson settled out of court with the Chandlers to make them go away."

Wrong. By agreeing to the settlement, he validated their claim, but he did so because he didn't want to go to prison. You don't pay over $20,000,000.00 to make someone "go away", when it's going to have just the opposite affect, and forever taint your reputation.

I was peripherally involved with that case, and you're dead wrong about your facts. It was a very strong case, and would have been filed had it not been for the settlement.; 7/9/09, 12:08 PM
A.W. said...: Former law student

you are a fool if you don't think most people think that a settlement is a confession of guilt. and you don't do what most people think is a confession of guilt, unless you are either 1) guilty, or 2) almost certain to actually lose.

btw, what do you say to the article on big hollywood recounting an eyewitness acount of jackson going into the restroom with jordi for half an hour--a one toilet restroom at the back of a comic book store?

As the author said, there are only two reasons that make sense: sex or drugs. so which is it?; 7/9/09, 12:14 PM
A.W. said...: Btw, if the kid really couldn't describe jackson naked, then why the hell did he settle?

Wouldn't that be a "if the gloves don't fit, you must acquit" moment? Something that a jury would consider objective evidence of innocence.

Again, the "just to make him go away" theory doesn't work. it encourages other people to sue, and it doesn't make the cloud over him go away. if you settle after it is clear that the kid has either seen you naked or not, you are confessing. its that simple.; 7/9/09, 5:20 PM