OJ Simpson is back in the news...and that means the mass media is going to go crazy analyzing this guy and what makes him tick for months and months. He wasn't much of a celebrity before The Big Murder Trail...he was just fading away nicely. And then he became a symbol to a lot of people, representing for a lot of African-Americans some sort of symbolic vengeance on the legal system that for decades favored whites all too often.
OJ never deserved that in my estimation. He did almost nothing for civil rights or helping people in the poor neighborhood in San Francisco where he grew up. He turned down speaking out on racism to be as big a celebrity as he could. Only when he was literally looking at life in prison did he put his race into play and only to save his personal butt.
I'm not a big fan of Simpson, and I don't know if he was set up in this Las Vegas sting operation or if he is a wild man who needs to be behind bars. I had enough of cocky old O.J. back in the nineties (when his trial was an inescapable presence on CNN and the nightly network news shows) and I think the public has a lot more important issues to pay attention to. A lot of people think this ego- maniac murdered two people. Legally, however, that issue is over and done with.
Now he stands accused of robbing a pack of sports-memorabilia types in some sordid Vegas money scheme. America has two foreign wars going on and a housing crisis and health care reforms to debate and a Presidential election starting up . Do we need this fat wife-beater's mug all over the news? I'm afraid the media is going to let this case suck the oxygen out of what to do about those other important issues.
I ask those who keep up with current affairs to please consider tuning this guy's continuing saga out as much as possible. He's had his fame and his infamy. And then some.
Whatever the legal outcome in Nevada with this long-ago great football star, I hope they get it over with quickly so we do not have this jerk as a national distraction for a year or more. But I'm rather pessimistic the media mouthpieces and talking heads will be able to keep this one guy's criminal case in perspective.
I hope I'm wrong.
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