It’s Going To Take O.J. Much Longer Than Four Hours To Restore His Image

If any of these O.J. Simpson jurors who keep popping up on TV wind up writing a book that takes longer to read than the four hours they spent deliberating, they ought to be sequestered for another nine months.

And this time, there will be no trips to see “Miss Saigon,” Jay Leno or Mr. Blackwell.

Everyone already is sick of the Simpson story.

We can’t stop watching and listening and talking about it, but we’re sick of it, and by the time the ink is dry on “12 Hasty Jurors” or whatever these pointless tomes are going to be called, the mere mention of O.J. or Simpson or trial will be enough to cause a skin rash.

Anybody notice that when the TV interviewers ask these O.J. jurors, “So how do you suppose the blood got there?” they all respond the same way?

“That’s a good question,” they say, as if that were an answer.

Unfortunately, this O.J. story is going to stick around as long as O.J. sticks around and, while we would all love to chip in for a one-way plane ticket, the exodus of the Juice is a long way off.

He honestly seems to think he can rehabilitate his image by just being his charming old self. Amazing. Some people just think there’s nothing they can’t do.

That’s why the former NBC sportscaster originally agreed to do the “Dateline NBC” interview with Tom Brokaw and Katie Couric.

The show would have been like the Indianapolis 500. Millions of us would have sat through a lot of loud droning and going around in circles in the hopes of seeing a spectacular accident.

It didn’t happen ostensibly because Simpson’s lawyers, unlike Simpson himself, recognized just how bumpy the road ahead would be.

Only a guy who used to make his living by doing interviews that consisted of three basic questions - “How do you feel?” “What’s going through your mind?” and “Tough one, huh?” - would fail to anticipate the interrogation he faced.

So, Simpson called The New York Times for a surprise Q&A largely on his own terms. While never a wordsmith, Simpson’s choice of metaphors was, at best, unfortunate for someone trying to convince a nation that his days of pushing women around were over and that he never could have slashed the throats of his ex-wife and a bystander.

He called himself “a fighter.”

He said, “I’d like to knock that chip off Marcia’s shoulder.”

He said, “Tom Brokaw was sharpening knives for the interview.”

Hmmm.

And, you know, when trying to win the empathy of the American people, it’s best not to talk about your Ferrari and Bentley and homes in Brentwood and New York. Not everyone can relate.

But, then, as sick as we are of the Simpson story, there’s one thing that makes us more sick: O.J. himself, though he doesn’t seem to know it.

If he thinks his public image is going to be restored overnight - or at all, for that matter - he is in for a huge shock.

It might take just 12 people to clear one’s name in Superior Court.

It takes millions more to do that in the court of public opinion, and it takes a lot longer than four hours.

Lizzie Borden was tried and acquitted of a bloody double murder more than 100 years ago. She’s still waiting.