The People vs. O.J. Simpson

And now, we've had to endure another person with similar traits: Obama.

Hillary is on the clock.

 

Yes, Obama and Simpson are very comparable. I can't believe I didn't see it sooner.

 

http://adequateman.deadspin.com/i-m-too-old-to-enjoy-the-o-j-simpson-renaissance-1758528043

 

OJ Fatigue. Bingo.

I guess around here there's SJ Fatigue too.

 

Gee, maybe it's just me, but if I had a son, and this son was a violent whack job, and then this son stabbed two people to death, including his own mom, I guess I might be all "Sorry, son, but you just bought yourself a cage."

Also, seems like OJ valued his celebrity too much to take a fall like that.

And then there was his own violent temper, too ...

 

Oops, yeah. Stepmother.

 

First, I'm really enjoying the show. The Kardashian-kids touches are cheesy, but overall I've been sucked in and find it mostly quite compelling, especially Sarah Paulson as Marcia Clark.

Second, I wanted to relate a second-hand (maybe third-hand) story about the case. A few years back I sat next to an African-American woman from Compton on a plane. We started talking and it came out that her kids had gone to the public HS in Pacific Palisades (a pretty swanky town along the coast) in a kind of busing deal, and among their classmates were OJ's two kids with Nicole. So naturally the case came up, and she explained that at the time, like many African-Americans from her neighborhood especially, she didn't believe that OJ did it.

However she said her mind was eventually changed by a friend/neighbor who was a police officer, and also African-American. The friend told her, Sorry, but as much as I hate to admit it, OJ definitely did it. And here's what he told her to convince her. Let's recall that when Nicole and Ron Goldman were killed at her house, the kids were living at Nicole's, and in fact slept through it all. Yet when the police first told OJ that Nicole had been killed, and even during a long discussion with him about what happened, he (supposedly) never once inquired as to the safety of his kids. Presumably if you're told that your ex-wife and another man were brutally murdered at night at the home where your kids also lived, you might be curious as to whether anything bad happened to them as well. Unless, of course, you knew nothing bad happened to the kids, because you only killed Nicole and the other dude and then took off.

I'm not sure exactly how accurate this entire story is, especially if OJ was told about the murders when he was in Chicago. But it certainly made a very lasting impression on this woman since it seems hard to believe that (an innocent) parent wouldn't be worried about his kids's safety when presented with the news of their mother's murder at her home. It also made for unusually interesting plane chatter, which is even more important -- to me.

 

OJ also never asked the cops how Nicole died (presumable because he already knew), which is detailed in the miniseries.

Al Michaels, who was close friends and tennis buddies with OJ, was on Bill Simmons' podcast earlier this week. Simmons asks him when he knew OJ did it, and Michaels said it was when he realized OJ never said "I didn't do it," but that he always said "I can't believe they blamed me for it."

 

This is what removed all doubt for me:

 

I think it's the best thing Ryan Murphy has done in years. Particularly tough because so much of the case was a television staple.

 

Good lord, that Kardashian opening scene this week was awful.