Smooth Criminal?

Jonah Goldberg knows why Michael Jackson is bad:

At minimum, Michael Jackson's handlers knew he had a reputation for abusing children. Before that, they knew he behaved in ways with children that sane, normal, people do not. They saw how he surrounded himself with a giant playroom used to entice boys into his bed. Jackson's staff crafted elaborate electronic warning systems other safeguards to ensure that Jackson was not caught doing anything with children by people who might turn against him. What sort of person installs an electronic warning system for an accused pederast? What sort of person sees that system every day — or even every now and then — and does nothing? What sorts of parents send their kids to a rumored sex offender's house on the thin rationalization that he was never technically convicted of wrongdoing?

The Michael Jackson story is an extremely exaggerated microcosm of Hollywood's moral climate. Hollywood is ruled by a class of people who believe that money solves problems and that the worst sin in the world is to judge another person's behavior. "Comedian" Bill Maher, for example, recently explained that he thought the charges were no big deal, even if true. After all, Jackson didn't rape anyone, he's merely accused of "servicing" young boys — and that's not nearly as bad as getting beaten up by schoolyard bullies. Wrong. In normal America, if kids beat up your kid, you demand a reckoning. If a middle-aged freak "services" your kid, you call a hearse.

Obviously, there are lots of people in the entertainment industry who are horrified by the allegations and behavior of Michael Jackson. But only in Hollywood could such a thing happen in the first place.