The TV Zone

Peter King on "The Factor" last night. His first TV comments on the Youtube business since Sunday, I believe.

You missed? You've come to the right place.

PK was on remote from DC, and Bill O'Reilly brought up the business that the comments were "racist," to which King said, "absolute nonsense" - he called for Cardinal Law's resignation when sordid business surfaced too, and the first Catholic pol to do so, he claimed.

"I don't see how pointing out a person's horrible record, when someone is...abusing children. How is that racial?"

Well, says Bill. Why not wait a week then? The day before the guy's funeral?

And, says, King: "I spent the whole weekend with...as you'd say, been with the folks [and] they wanted to know, why is this guy getting all this adoration, getting this coverage...?

"I had to cut through this ten-day cacophony" - by this I presume he was talking about Newsday's coverage - "this onslaught where he was being made out to be a saint. So I wanted to cut through the psychobabble. He was a child molester. He slept with boys."

Bill O brought up the point that many have said it had nothing to do with deviancy and that the guy was sort of a Peter Pan figure - "he says he slept with them only because he loved them, involved no sexuality..."

And, Bill pressed, is it fair to hit the guy after he was acquitted?

I don't recall PK actually responding to the latter question; of the former point, he said this:

"I would say that an adult male who sleeps with young boys is a child molester. How are they going to grow up normal after spending nights in bed with Michael Jackson?

"It was a deviant lifestyle...

Of the coverage, "it went on and on, round the clock and at the same time with Americans dying in Iraq and Afghanistan...and you talk about a culture war, I think the media and elite class failed, defining deviancy down and it can't be much more down than what Michael did with young boys."

Rev. Al Sharpton was up next and - if you missed that part - Bill O pressed him on the line about MJ not being "strange;" Rev Al danced quickly away from that, and went straight to a rebuke, and relatively mild one at that, against PK:

"It's totally irresponsible for a lawmaker to disregard the law; charges were made against [MJ] and a jury of twelve said he's not guilty of child molesting...it's reckless and irresponsible..."

[Below, a clip of last night, but first, maybe you'd like to know MY thoughts on all this. As I said in this space and in an interview with News 12 Lea Tyrrell the other night, I think PK is genuinely off-base on this one for the simple and inescapable reason that the media HAS covered the molestation charges since Jackson's death. In fact, media coverage on this point has been unremitting, and I recall seeing a tick-tock on E! of all places that lasted for many minutes. Each of the major networks, cable and broadcast, has gone over the same ground pretty exhaustively too. Yes - TV has cited endlessly and at times hyperbolically his artistic achievements but also cited endlessly (at times hyperbolically) the pedophile charges too.]