Memo to Washington Times: Get Real About Michael Jackson's Death

SUNDAY UPDATE
ANDREW BREITBART DISPENSES WITH PLATITUDES

LOOK, YOU HAVE TOO MANY SMART PEOPLE TO INSULT MY INTELLIGENCE

I MEAN, THE HEADLINE this morning is rather silly for a grown-up newspaper: World laments Michael Jackson, Awaits Answers (May take months to find exact cause). Who's writing your headlines these days? Eighth grade summer interns from Sidwell Friends?

A more reality based Webutante-type headline might read: DEAD MAN WALKING FINALLY DIES.

I'll it say again, you have too many smart people there---Pruden, Breitbart, Miniter just to name just a few---who can help figure this thing out and write a decent PAGE 1 story. It's not rocket science. You're not the National Enquirer or TMZ. So let me give you some clues and exact causes while I'm still buzzing on my softer early morning patience:

There are surely a few people and family members lamenting Michael's death in earnest (see Lisa Marie's touching quote, below, and my heart goes out to them). There are quite a few who aren't. I'm one of them. There may be millions, even billions who're awaiting answers (they already know) to satiate their morbid curiosities because they don't have anything else going on in their lives.

However, no person in your reading audience in their right minds and not completely bonked out on drugs---with all due respect to Elizabeth Taylor---should be surprised, let alone shocked at Michael's death. Nor should anyone with a modicum of sense act as if they don't know what caused it. In fact,if you ask me, instead of being shocked that he died "suddenly" on Thursday, I'm shocked that he miraculously lived as long as he did. (BTW, there were a few brave former associates of Michael who were brave enough to tell the truth.)

So let's here's the scoop, fellas: Michael Jackson died Thursday, not suddenly at all, but after decades of slowly dying from massive drug abuse, alcohol, spending more than he made--at last count, he was over $400 million in debt---untreated pedophilia and child abuse which he should have gone to prison for, and a group of family, friends and hired professionals and servants who enabled him to live outside the world of reality, responsibility and accountability.

In the end the laws of nature, if not of man, caught up with him. It's a cautionary tale. Amazing talent, fame and money does not conquer all. There are many inner-city kids in DC and their parents who need to hear the real story.

Questions?

Oh yes, who administered the last lethal injection---the doctor the entire city of LA is looking for to blame? How low can we go when we want to pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey of someone who has been paid years, maybe decades, to give Michael injections to mask his deep pain and paranoia. We need someone to blame, to take responsibility for Michael's choices over the past thirty years?

And none other than the Rev. Jesse Jackson is leading the charge towards this nonsense. Oh please. It's truly insane. The poor doc was just doing his job on another hum-drum day at the Ranch of insanity land. But now fans are working themselves up into a huge group victim lather: they're getting madder and madder about what others did to Michael to cut his life short. It was all their fault! The poor doctor has hired a lawyer and I'm sure preparing for the worst.

I hope you'll quit this front page nonsense, and write something about Michael's death that has a ring of reality to it. While you're at it, get some sober adults on this story with a little perspective. Again, this is a cautionary tale and lots of those inner city kids and parents in DC might benefit from a little dose of Michael reality. The sadness is how many young people look up to Michael and his famous lifestyle which, like Elvis, was a series of self-medications, indiscretions and refusals of help and advice from loved ones desperate to save him, up until the bitter end.

********

WSJ Photo taken at Madam Tussaud's Wax Museum outside the Venetian Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, a fan makes public her grief after the museum moved the figure outside, following Jackson's death Thursday in LA of cardiac arrest from a probable drug overdose.

Fading, but will be back in the morning with a few rambling thoughts on Michael's death.

Meanwhile: Heartfelt entry from Lisa Marie Presley's MySpace page:

Michael Jackson’s ex-wife Lisa Marie Presley blogged Friday on her MySpace page that while talking 14 years ago with Jackson about the death of her father, Elvis Presley, he paused and said, “‘I am afraid that I am going to end up like him, the way he did,’” referring to Elvis’s fatal overdose of prescription drugs. “I promptly tried to deter him from the idea,” Presley continues, “at which point he just shrugged his shoulders and nodded almost matter of fact as if to let me know, he knew what he knew and that was kind of that.” During her relationship with Jackson, Presley said, she grew exhausted from “her quest to save him from certain self-destructive behavior,” but she assures fans the marriage was not a sham, though it ended quickly in divorce. “His family and his loved ones also wanted to save him from this as well but didn’t know how and this was 14 years ago. We all worried that this would be the outcome then... I desperately hope that he can be relieved from his pain, pressure and turmoil now. He deserves to be free from all of that and I hope he is in a better place or will be. I also hope that anyone else who feels they have failed to help him can be set free because he hopefully finally is. The World is in shock but somehow he knew exactly how his fate would be played out some day more than anyone else knew, and he was right."

Read it at MySpace H/T The Daily Beast
Posted by Lisa Marie at 7:29 PM June 26, 2009