Saturday, October 4, 2008

Good for the Soul

A lot of folks, self included, are pleased that O.J. Simpson may very well spend the rest of his life in prison. It's the kind of good news that's put grins on many faces and spring into many steps. Today at the convention, I heard people greet their friends with, "Did you see the footage of him when the verdict was read?"

There's been a grey cloud since the day he was acquitted and it wasn't just that one murderer went free. It was that we had this jarring wake-up call that sometimes our criminal justice system just don't work so good. There's been a small but noticeable drop in support for the Death Penalty in this country over the last two decades. Some of it, I'm guessing, is because with DNA testing freeing so many people from Death Row — people found "guilty beyond a reasonable doubt" — we don't trust that system as much as we used to. The first O.J. verdict was also a big contributor to that decline in trust.

Here's a thought that occurred to me...

We all know O.J. killed Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman. This may be a futile wish but I'd still like to see him make a believable, credible confession. It would be good for our national equilibrium, I think. It might even force some people into a little more confrontation with the failings of our courts. Let's make it inarguable that the system got The Crime of the Century wrong. Also, as a buff who spent waaaay too much of his life watching that trial and reading all those damn books, I'd like to know a few things, starting with how close to the actual truth did all the criminologists — professional and armchair variety — get? Then there are details of the case: Did he really ditch the knife at the airport? Just what did happen to those bloody clothes he had on? Did he go to the house intending to kill her...or just to scare her and it got out of hand? Questions like that.

Some O.J. watchers believe he's been incrementally confessing over the years; that some perverse part of the guy is dying to brag that he's so smart that he got away with murder and from time to time, a bit of that leaks out. I'm wondering if it'll now explode in a gusher. Maybe he'll just go nuts and/or decide to go for broke...sell the confession as book or pay-per-view special and pour all the money into lawyers for his appeal. If a guy's sitting in prison for kidnapping, what good does it do his reputation to keep denying he's a murderer? We might still find out what happened to that knife.

• Posted at 9:11 PM · LINK

Survey Says!

It's been a while since I've reminded you (which I do, in part to remind myself) how polls can be way off. When several different ones are close to one another they usually — not always — are a good indicator. But sometimes, they're far enough off where you've gotta say, "At least one of these is not giving us an accurate portrait of these voters."

In the great state of Minnesota, challenger Al Franken is attempting to unseat incumbent Norm Coleman. The Survey USA poll now has Franken at 33% and Coleman at 43%. In the meantime, the Princeton Survey poll conducted for the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune currently has Franken at 43% and Coleman at 34%. At least one of these is not giving us an accurate portrait of these voters.

• Posted at 3:54 PM · LINK

Better Late Than Never

How nice to see the words, "A jury found Simpson guilty." Simpson plans to appeal on the grounds that the judge never let him try on any gloves.

• Posted at 6:27 AM · LINK

Today's Video Link

The clip I linked to yesterday of Flanders and Swann brought squeals of delight into my e-mailbox. So let's give you another one...

• Posted at 6:19 AM · LINK

Saturday Morning

An awful lot of my correspondents — including at least one who says they're voting the McCain-Palin ticket — have been trying to convince me I've been way too charitable towards Ms. Palin. Maybe so. All of them admonish me for not mentioning an obvious reason she did better in the debate than she did in one-on-ones with Charles Gibson or Katie Couric: No follow-up questions. Good point...and it's yet another reason why these "debate" formats don't serve the interests of the voting viewers. Anything a candidate says oughta be tested with at least a little cross-examination.

We have, of course, an example. In the debate and also in her recent speeches, Palin has criticized Obama for saying that U.S. troops in Afghanistan have killed civilians. Here she is yesterday, speaking from the safe haven of Fox News...

I wanted to talk about his proposal to increase government spending by another trillion dollars. (AUDIO GAP) that he's made about the war that I think make my world — disqualify someone from consideration as the next commander in chief. Some of the comments that he's made about Afghanistan, what we're doing there, supposably, just air raiding villages and killing civilians. That's reckless and I want to talk about things like that.

That's quite a charge. Obama is smearing our soldiers by making this questionable or even false assertion. It cries out for a follow-up question like, "But isn't Obama just saying the same thing that our Secretary of Defense has admitted?"

Defense Secretary Robert Gates offered the people of Afghanistan his "personal regrets" Wednesday for U.S. airstrikes that have killed civilians and said he would try to improve the accuracy of air warfare, the imperfect fallback for U.S. commanders who say they don't have enough ground forces for the deepening Afghanistan war. "As I told them, I offer all Afghans my sincere condolences and personal regrets for the recent loss of innocent life as a result of coalition airstrikes," Gates said after meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. "While no military has ever done more to prevent civilian casualties, it is clear that we have to work even harder."

One suspects that if civilian casualties have reached the level such that Gates felt it was necessary to apologize, they must be pretty bad. But even his words taken at face value validate everything Obama has claimed. So, Governor Palin, what's the deal here? Is our Secretary of Defense out there smearing the troops and offering apologies for deaths that didn't happen?

I can understand that no one at Fox News is likely to ask her that question. Let's see if anyone ever does.

• Posted at 6:15 AM · LINK