Anything Goes! by Larry King & Pat Piper

Author:Larry King & Pat Piper [KING, LARRY]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: LIT012000
ISBN: 9780759520356
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2000-09-30T16:00:00+00:00

CLINTON: I would hope neither the American people nor our friends in the United Kingdom would judge the American justice system entirely on this trial because the facts are so unusual. First of all the trial was televised, which I think contributed to the circuslike atmosphere and some of the developments.

KING: You’re opposed to televising?

CLINTON: You run a serious risk when you do it in such a high-profile trial…

KING: And as attorney general in—

CLINTON: Arkansas

KING: —did you ever have a televised trial?

CLINTON: Never.

As he said this I thought about the O.J. Industry. I remember Lenny Bruce telling me thirty-plus years earlier that J. Edgar Hoover must have kissed the picture of John Dillinger every night before he went to bed. Otherwise, nobody would have known anything about the FBI director. And Lenny’s theory, like all of Lenny’s theories, held true today: If this trial wasn’t on television, a lot of people wouldn’t have jobs as pundits. I also thought Clinton was right. The question then becomes, So what do you do? Not cover it? Do you then say, no more televised trials? If you don’t say that, then how do you decide which one is on TV and which one isn’t?

We went to a commercial break and talked about his schedule and where he was headed next, and then he leaned in a little and asked, “Who you dating?”

“Nobody in particular,” I said. “I get together with a few nice women. Cindy Garvey and I have dinner and Jo-Ellan Dimitrious, who is a guest for the Simpson trial, is a good friend. I like Marcia Clark’s assistant Suzanne Chiles but the answer is nobody exclusive.”

He smiled and nodded. “I admire your flexibility,” he said.

I wanted to do some follow-up, but the clock was indicating I only had 4.365 seconds before we were back on the air. Still, I thought it was one of those comments all of us make from time to time that allow a momentary light into a usually dark area. I guess that’s a non-Brooklyn way of saying I wasn’t going to ask the question I wanted to ask.

The Trial of the Century came to a dramatic close a few days later. I was sitting with my producer, Wendy Walker Whitworth, and lifelong friend Asher Dan at Nate & Al’s for a quick breakfast before going to work. The streets were empty. The restaurant was empty. In Los Angeles, as in every other city across the country, people were gathered in front of their televisions and radios.

The jury didn’t spend a lot of time deliberating and, of course, each pundit on the air was drawing meaning into this fact. Now, had the jury spent nineteen days deliberating the pundits would have found meaning there as well. And we would have all listened. I had talked on the phone that day with Herb Cohen, who said, “I don’t know what I’m going to do without being able to watch Judge Ito every day. It was a nice routine because as soon as they broke for lunch at noon in L.

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