Sensing opportunity, Michael Jackson wore pajamas to court the day a teenage boy was scheduled to testify. The pubescent witness recalled that Jackson “had his left hand in my brother’s underwears,” and that on another occasion the pop star approached them while completely nude and in a state of full tumescence. The youngsters, demonstratively horrified at the sight of “Little Tito,” were less than reassured when Jackson sat down on their bed and told them it was “natural.” Taking Michael at his word, one can only conclude that the plastic surgeons are still busy with his face.

While the American press has conspired to not divulge the names of the alleged victim and his brother, the two have already appeared in an ABC documentary on MJ and his Santa Barbara vivarium. In fact, their monikers are splashed all across the British tabloids. Let’s be honest, kids even younger that the ones processed at Neverland can get the scoop off the Internet faster than you can say Pete Townshend. So don’t paint me as some kind of KY-wielding Bob Novak when I tell you their names are… “Blow-Hole” and “DooDoo Face.”

Not to be confused with the similarly labeled DooDoo Head who lives in the White House. Unfortunately, it’s taken ‘till now for the denizens of red states to figure out that voting for the gays-guns-God candidate meant the end of farm subsidies and social security. And the dismantling of veterans’ benefits and bankruptcy protection for families stricken with catastrophic medical bills and… well… you get the picture. There are, for the nonce, a lot of fat, pasty, erstwhile unaware Midwesterners lining up for slaughter. Yet some of them are actually beginning to bleat out a protest or two. But do they, after anointing this venal bumbler, possess the moral authority to complain? I think not. As they say in all those prison-flick rape scenes: “Shut up and take it like a man.”

So what is the administration doing with their unfettered power? For starters, they shot Italian journalist Guiliana Sgrena on her way to the Baghdad airport after a month in captivity. Upon learning that an Italian Secret Service agent died in the attack, the President issued a formal apology and tried to pawn off the blunder as an isolated incident. Which is quite brazen because on the same day, U.S. forces “mistakenly” killed Bulgarian Jr. Sgt. Gurdi Gurdev. Needless to say, Rome isn’t buying what Washington is shoveling. Sgrena’s partner, Pierre Scolari, suspects treachery: “I hope the Italian government does something because either this was an ambush, as I think, or we are dealing with imbeciles or terrorized kids who will shoot at anything.” Or both. Because how else can you explain a roster of friendly fire episodes as lengthy as it is notable. We have, to date, blown up one British tank, shot down two coalition aircraft, murdered a bevy of international cameramen and correspondents, taken out Arizona Cardinal defensive back Pat Tillman, and innumerable Iraqi civilians. All in the name of finding those pesky Weapons of Mass Destruction. Check that. All in the name of establishing justice and democracy in the mid-East.

Which our opponents (insurgents, Syrians, etc.) are determined to suppress. 136 Iraqi Army recruits were killed during a large-scale suicide attack, while two other bombs claimed another 13 soldiers. Since the election, dozens of police officers and trainees have been executed in an effort to thwart the rule of law. The evildoers also found time to gun down Judge Barwize Mohammed, who sat on the tribunal slated to try Saddam Hussein. Clearly, nothing we are doing in Iraq is having the intended effect. We are, at the moment, running neck and neck with Al Qaeda for designation as our own worst enemy. The American reaction to this phenomenon is stark, if unsettling. No, there aren’t any riots at Kent State or Berkeley. But there is, in contrast to deploying an American-style criminal justice system in Baghdad, a concerted effort to establish the Iraqi exemplar here at home.

Federal Judge Joan Lefkow was targeted by not one, but two disgruntled courtroom participants. White supremacist Matt Hale, already behind bars for soliciting a hit man to ice her honor, was at first suspected in the fatal shooting of Lefkow’s husband and mother. The real killer turned out to be a loner whose malpractice suit was tossed out “for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted.” I guess the plaintiff saw things differently and lay in wait for the judge, but assassinated her relatives instead. To be fair, Bart Ross did kill himself yesterday, but not before sending WMAQ-TV the following missive: “Judge Lefkow was No. 1 to kill because she finished me off and deprived me to live my life through outrageous abuse of judicial power.”

In Atlanta, defendant Brian Nichols simply couldn’t wait for a verdict to be rendered, so he stole a deputy’s handgun and slew Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes along with two others. Nichols was facing charges of rape, sodomy, burglary and false imprisonment, and had been caught earlier smuggling metal shanks into court. Both cases engendered an outcry for tighter security. Fellow Judge Craig Schwall decried, “This is a profound shock. It’s so unthinkable; it’s like a 9/11 at the courthouse.” Damn fuckin’ straight.