SAY GOODNIGHT, O.J.

By Jack E. White

WITH APOLOGIES TO THE LATE DR. SEUSS, who surely would have been wise enough to steer clear of this whole affair: "The time has come/ The time is now/ Just go, Go, GO!/ I don't care how/ You can go by foot/ Or by Bron-co/ O.J. Simpson, will you please now go!"

I hereby solemnly swear that these are the last words I will ever write about O.J. Simpson, even if he runs naked down Rockingham Avenue shouting, "I did it! I did it!" Like many other Americans, I am heartily sick of his case and all the portentous analysis, including my own, that it has inspired. There are U.S. troops in Bosnia and a presidential election. It's time to get on with our lives.

That may be easier to do now that the Black Entertainment Network has broadcast what amounted to an hour-long infomercial for O.J. This was Simpson doing what he does best--selling himself--and it flopped. BET, which promised a "no-holds-barred" interview, was trying to polish its reputation as a news operation. Simpson's goal was to hawk the $29.95 home video in which he gives his own version of the night when Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman were butchered. Simpson reached out to BET because none of the networks or major cable operations would air ads for the tape--never mind that these same outlets scored some of their highest ratings by thumping the Trial of the Century.

Simpson, who could earn as much as $3 million from the tape if sales are hot, still owes his criminal-defense team hundreds of thousands of dollars and has not paid the lawyers in his civil trial one thin dime. Three weeks ago, when some of Simpson's friends came to his home to look at the video, he complained that "these white folks ain't gonna let me do anything. I've got to try to do something with blacks." So alarmed were Simpson's lawyers by the prospect of a public appearance the same week he was being deposed in the wrongful death suit that some of them put their objections in writing. But Simpson would not be deflected. After complex negotiations with BET, it was agreed that the network could ask whatever it wished, but Simpson didn't have to answer--and BET sold him $200,000 worth of ad time to hawk the tape.

The broadcast shed no new light on the killings, but it did provide considerable insight into Simpson's dream world, which is as out of touch with the black community as it is with the white one. He seems to think most white people like him, despite polls that show they believe he got away with murder. Nor does he understand that ostracism is an age-old way of showing disapproval; Fatty Arbunkle, a much bigger star, saw his career collapse after he was acquitted of murdering a starlet. Some of Simpson's lawyers advised him to quietly reach out to black churches and ghetto youth programs to thank African Americans for supporting him during his trial. Instead, Simpson has chosen to treat blacks as suckers: asking them to pony up for his videotape.

Toward the end of the broadcast Simpson stared into the camera, clenched his jaw and implored the audience, "If you don't like me, leave me alone." It's a deal.