Michael, a Foreign Affair

By GAIL COLLINS
NYT

“It has this sense of finality,” said a CNN reporter Tuesday at the end of the Michael Jackson memorial service.

Yes, pictures of a casket being lifted into a hearse and driven away will do that for you.

Yet the beat goes on. On Wednesday, there was Jackson’s skin doctor on ABC, announcing that he was not, “to the best of my knowledge,” the biological father of Jackson’s two oldest children. (Isn’t that the sort of question a person’s dermatologist should be able to answer without hedging?) The mayor of Los Angeles wondered if fans wouldn’t like to chip in to help the city pay for the cost of crowd control. And the coroner’s office is still working on the autopsy. (“They Saved Michael Jackson’s Brain!” announced E! Online.)

Meanwhile, in Washington the House Foreign Affairs Committee is weighing a 1,500-word resolution in Jackson’s honor.

(More here.)