America/Conor O'Clery: If the anti-Bush demonstrators in London were trying to get their message across to Americans on Thursday they were largely unsuccessful I'm afraid.
Just as Americans dropped everything a decade ago to watch O.J. Simpson in the white Ford Bronco driving along the LA freeway, US TV news channels scrapped their coverage of President Bush in London and the deadly bombings in Istanbul to spend the afternoon covering the arrival of Michael Jackson in Santa Barbara to face child molestation charges.
For the first hour they showed nothing but an empty runway, then for 20 minutes a Lear jet taxiing on the apron. This turned out to be the wrong plane. The megastar eventually landed in a Gulfstream executive jet which poked its nose into a hangar in a melodramatic attempt to prevent the media seeing Jackson getting out and being arrested by waiting police.
The eye-in-the-sky cameras then followed a black four-wheel drive in a police cortege all the way from the airport to the police station. This turned out to be the wrong car.
In about three hours of non-stop coverage of cars, buildings and policemen in sunglasses standing outside, there were about eight seconds when Jackson actually appeared on screen.
For another two hours the helicopters followed him as he did a two-hour crawl in a black four-wheel drive around Las Vegas where he returned to complete a music video.
Is this what viewers across America wanted to see on their screens all day? Apparently so. People crowded around television sets in airport terminals, shopping malls and the foyers of office buildings to watch. Morbid fascination with a megastar in trouble will dominate the news cycle any day in America's celebrity-driven news culture.
The stage is now set for a sensational celebrity trial, with the legal circus getting under way on January 9th. Just as when the US media was fixated on President Clinton's oral sex with "that woman", American parents are once again confronted with what to tell their children as the lurid details emerge. It has already started.
The Los Angeles Times reported yesterday that the charges stem from allegations by a 12-year-old that Jackson served him wine and molested him several times last winter. The boy's father, who lost custody of the child after being accused of physically abusing two of his three children, reportedly alleges that Jackson met the boy while he was being treated for cancer at Children's Hospital Los Angeles and invited him to share his bed.
The boy's mother was reportedly with him when he stayed at Jackson's Neverland Ranch. The child is said to appear in Martin Bashir's ITV documentary in February holding hands with the singer, and saying that the singer urged him to sleep in his bed but that he was reluctant to do so.
Jackson claimed that he slept on the floor on those occasions, and when questioned about the impropriety of a man in his 40s taking young boys to bed, replied: "I've slept in bed with many children. That's a beautiful thing."
The syndicated television programme Celebrity Justice claims, however, that the 12-year-old and his mother have been taped by Jackson's people saying that nothing untoward happened during their time at Neverland.
The singer's publicist e-mailed a message to supporters and media yesterday: "Lies run sprints but the truth runs marathons."
The press conference on Wednesday in Santa Barbara at which District Attorney Tom Sneddon announced that Jackson was to be charged with "lewd and lascivious" behaviour with a child under 14, was notable for its levity.
Sneddon, a 63-year-old Vietnam veteran and father of nine, has been after Jackson for years. He was the prosecutor in a child-molestation case against the entertainer 10 years ago, which collapsed after the alleged victim's family settled for a sum in the region of $15 million and withdrew their co-operation.
This led to a change in California law. Sneddon mistakenly told reporters that child victims in California can now be compelled to testify. They can't, but a statement made by a minor can now be used in evidence even if there is a later civil settlement and the child's lawyers try to withdraw it. This time there is not even a civil action.
The DA is quoted by legal colleagues as saying he believes Jackson was guilty in the earlier case.
He told Vanity Fair magazine that police photographs of Jackson's genitalia taken then matched the description given by boys to investigators, and on Wednesday made it clear that he believed Jackson had bought his way out of the 1993-1994 case.
Sneddon had an added reason to be ebullient when he announced the new charges. Jackson had used his music to attack him some years ago. The star's 1995 album, HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book 1, includes a song called DS. According to the official lyrics the chorus sings "Dom Sheldon is a cold man" but it sounds much more like "Tom Sneddon is a cold man".
Jackson sings: "They wanna get my ass/ Dead or alive/ You know he really tried to take me/ Down by surprise . . . / You think he brother with the KKK?/ I know his mother never taught him right anyway/ He want your vote just to remain DA."
According to the National District Attorneys' Association website, Sneddon, a former boxer once known as Mad Dog for his attack-style court behaviour, is the only DA in the nation "to have an angry song written about him by pop megastar Michael Jackson, a distinction that he could do without". Sneddon welcomed reporters to the press conference with the grinning observation: "I hope that you all stay long and spend lots of money because we need your sales tax to support our offices."
Asked if the timing of the charges was connected to this week's release of a new Jackson album, he snorted jovially and replied: "Like the sheriff and I are really into that kind of music!"
Reality catches up with Neverland carnival act - Brian Boyd, WeekendReview: page 3