It’s the great American pastime: Build up our heroes and pop icons and then dismantle them limb by limb.  If enough time passes after their fall from grace, the humiliated eventually have a shot at redemption (see Marv Albert, Woody Allen, Richard Nixon, etc).  Because when it comes to the powerful and famous, we have short memories and a forgiving nature.  Michael Jackson, however, goes to the grave minus that chance.  And it was MJ’s inability to talk his way back into our good graces that ultimately cemented his moniker of “Wacko Jacko.”

He didn’t speak often in public, but when he did (like with Ed Bradley of 60 Minutes) he didn’t do himself any favors.  On camera he seemed frail in every way: his psyche, his feelings, his body and his grasp on reality. The combination of global uber-fame and a tragic childhood under the stern rule of an allegedly abusive father, drove Jackson into his own quirky, bizarre reality that made him seem galaxies away from our perception of normalcy.  We should have felt pity for him.  Instead we were incredulous as to how such a cute talented kid could turn out so weird.

Watching Michael Jackson speak was like watching a child express himself from inside the body of a grown man.  His death at 50, as shocking as it first seemed, now makes sense in a strange way.  It’s as if that child, restricted from maturing and developing, had no other option than to wither and die.  He passes before the statute of limitations could expire on our collective scorn over the child molestation charges. And expire they would have.  Jackson would have perhaps reinvented himself in Las Vegas and maybe performed his way back into the public’s embrace.  The media would have welcomed the opportunity to run with the story of Michael Jackson’s new lease on life.  Instead, his obit runs in the morning papers.

Back in the 1960’s and 70’s there were only three network anchormen, and as a result, what they thought and said held tremendous sway.  In fact, when Walter Cronkite stopped concealing his disapproval of the Vietnam War,  President Lyndon Johnson grew concerned that public sentiment against the war would grow.  ”If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost the country,” was his now-famous quote.

One has to wonder if John McCain tonight is having similar concerns about David Letterman.  McCain was scheduled to be a guest on Late Night with David Letterman tonight, but canceled at the last minute.  He told Letterman that he had to race back to Washington to deal with the financial crisis.  Letterman, peeved to begin with, went over the edge when he learned that McCain had plenty of time to stop by the set of the CBS Evening News for a sit down with Katie Couric.  Thus began a prolonged harangue by Letterman about how John McCain is not the same man he once knew.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/24/john-mccain-cancels-lette_n_128998.html

Only historians will be able to judge whether McCain’s decision to suspend his campaign was a smart strategy that shifted momentum back to his side, or the equivalent of political suicide.  No doubt that analysis will begin on November 5th.  But perhaps he should have thought twice before blowing off Dave. After all, hell hath no fury like a talk show host scorned.  Infuriating someone who can get up on his loyally watched network soapbox and tear you a new one may not be a wise move in a close election.  That decision could ultimately end up in a future Top 10 list of reasons John McCain squandered the election.

The self-inflicted wound that results from making a verbal blunder these days seems so much deeper thanks to YouTube.  Before the days of gaffes-on-demand websites, two or three news cycles were usually enough to shove a person’s “regrettable choice of words” to the back of everyone’s mind.  If you happened to have the good fortune to time your dumb remark right before a bona fide banner headline event (international crises, domestic catastrophes and celebrities under arrest all qualify) chances are you were home free with little damage to your public image.  

Such was not the case back in January of 2007, when Delaware Senator Joe Biden launched into a stupefyingly stupid description of Barrack Obama that redefined the notion of a backhanded compliment, not to mention modern day racism.  In referring to his fellow Democrat (but at the time his rival in the primaries), Biden called Obama, “The first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.”  I guess that makes Jesse Jackson a dumb, dirty and ugly guy who can’t put a decent sentence together.  Poor Joe - no big news story came along to help him bury this gaseous excretion from his brain.  Ultimately it exacerbated his flailing candidacy and Joe went home to Delaware to ponder just how costly his blunder would be.

Well, a funny thing happened on the way to Denver.  Biden proved that there is indeed a shelf life for controversial remarks, even with the guy who should have been most offended by them.  Instead of holding a grudge, Obama wiped the slate clean this weekend with his fellow Foreign Relations Committee member, formally selecting him as his running mate.   Perhaps Obama overlooked the January remark after realizing that Biden had what his ticket desperately needed: experience, foreign policy chops, and a GPS system that is now singularly programmed for John McCain’s jugular.  Oh, outwardly Biden may look all starched and statesmanly, but inside he has a Paullie Walnuts instinct for striking a clean, lethal blow with his adversaries, verbally of course.  After all, this is the man who brilliantly dismantled Rudy Giuliani with one concise quip - a rarity for the chronically verbose Biden - “Every sentence of Rudy’s has a noun, a verb and a reference to 9/11.”  

So if Joe Biden can overcome his Obama gaffe, then there’s hope for everyone else.  Just make sure you make yourself indispensable to the people from whom you need forgiveness.

Finding just the right balance and intensity of media attention when you’re running for President can be a tricky thing.  Just ask Barack Obama.  His candidacy has received enormous media attention for a host of legitimate reasons: his youth, dynamic nature and oratory skills have captured the imagination of millions, he’s the first African-American candidate to win his/her party’s nomination, and he came out virtually nowhere to upset Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee.  Yet with all the billions of media impressions he has generated, a majority of Americans say they have no idea who this guy is or what he stands for.  Now if that isn’t a stinging condemnation of the superficiality of today’s media coverage, I don’t know what is.

Strangely enough, even though many Americans remain uncertain about what makes Obama tick, there’s a general sense that we’ve seen far too much of him.  The lopsided attention thus far in the campaign has allowed John McCain to fly somewhat under the radar and elude the scrutiny that any candidate should receive.  Gone somewhat unnoticed have been McCain’s gaffes and public speaking mistakes which make him seem confused, old and overwhelmed.  In light of the favorable affect this imbalance has for them, I doubt you’ll be hearing the McCain camp screaming about a lack of equal air time.

The conventional wisdom has always held that the more media attention a candidate gets, the better.  But the attention Obama continues to get is now turning problematic, virtually making McCain’s comparison of him to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton a self-fulfilling prophesy.  In an effort to celebrate his newness, his ability to stir and engage audiences and the promise he holds for breaking a GOP death grip on the Oval Office, the media may be killing Obama with kindness.  Its coverage of him does resemble what’s afforded a celebrity,  the kind of relentless bombardment of attention that eventually leaves us feeling like we’ve OD’ed on him.

Obama needs to help this shift away from him.  Between now and November, he should go on the offensive and point out the major inconsistencies in McCain’s publicly stated positions, the flagrant misspeaks, the secrecy surrounding his failed first marriage and his second wife’s business dealings.  John McCain, despite being smeared and backstabbed by George Bush in 2000, was one of W’s biggest cheerleaders.  Certainly that now has to be a huge Achilles Heel for him.  Rather than bask in the glow of excessive media focus, Barrack Obama needs to roll up the sleeves of his starched white shirt and shine the spotlight on his opponent.