Good-bye Michael Jackson

Linda Stasi of the New York Post voices her opinion. I may not fully agree with her, but these are certainly things that need saying.

July 2, 2009 --

YOU'D have thought by the media lovefest that the pope had died a tragic death after a lifetime of caring for lepers.

But, no, it was the death of Michael Jackson, a drug-addled, creepy-beyond-words, accused pedophile who literally bought his children with the help of two brood mares and, apparently, his dermatologist -- a group of amoral savages who had no problem giving their kids to a man who looked like the Phantom of the Opera and who behaved like a depraved worm.

You can call it "adoption," but I call it child-trafficking.

OK, I said it -- and it's about time somebody had the nerve to say what millions of people must feel and believe about the once-talented black man who turned himself into a white woman before turning himself into a monster.

But you'd never know any of that if you'd listened for the past week to the endless prattle from the sickening, fawning media and all those Hollywood music phonies who were crying crocodile tears over someone they'd mostly avoided like, well, a pedophile.

Even the president of the United States felt compelled to issue a statement. Are you kidding me?

I say all this not just as some casual bystander to the Michael Jackson freak show -- though I was a Jacko freak back in 1993, when I was as in awe of him as the rest of the world. But then one day, a friend came to see me at my office at another newspaper and everything changed.

"My cousin's boy's been hijacked by Michael Jackson," he said. He pulled out two photos of the boy, Jordie Chandler, with Jackson. They were dressed alike -- in fedoras, little black suits, each wearing one freaking glove. They were on a roller-coaster -- in Europe.

Jordie's mother had remarried, and his stepfather had introduced her to Jackson. Within weeks, the sleepovers among Jackson and her gorgeous 13-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter began. The boy broke down and told his father that he'd been molested at Jackson's playground, Neverland Ranch, and in Europe.

The dad, a dentist-to-the-stars and screenwriter, contacted authorities, and shortly thereafter was jumped and beaten bloody in a garage. His home was broken into, and thugs menaced patients in his waiting room. The authorities told him it might be best if he and his son disappeared for a while. They settled for more than $20 million. The father took the boy underground, and he had plastic surgery and disguised himself for safety. Dental practice destroyed, screenwriting career over, family in tatters.

Jackson walked free -- or as free as a tortured soul can be -- to repeat over and over again his hideous tricks with children at Neverland, a place straight out of "Hansel and Gretel."

It is in this very spot where his family wanted to put on their grotesque public display of his sadly emaciated, needle-marked body, reportedly to be dressed "like a prince," as though he has become one of the garish statues upon which he loved to drop millions in Las Vegas hotel tchotchke shops. Another circus of the macabre to add to the horror that became Michael Jackson's life.

This is the kind of madness that's followed Jackson's death -- everyone is acting as though the world has lost one of its greatest men.

The King of Pop was a great entertainer -- innovative beyond anyone the world had ever seen -- but he turned into a disgustingly depraved man who hung an infant off a balcony and forced his kids to walk around with masks, veils, towels and even nets over their faces.

Great men don't pretend to be childlike to disguise their depravities. Shameful.

The king is dead, and I for one am not crying.