In a 2.1 Indiewire/Thompson on Hollywood review of American Crime Story: The People vs. O.J. Simpson, a ten-part miniseries which debuts tomorrow night, Matt Brennan offers one of the most absurd and wimpiest conclusions about the O.J. Simpson case ever published outside the African-American community, certainly in this century. In a sentence that calls the FX miniseries “brilliant”, Brennan states that “we may never know for certain what happened in Brentwood on the night of June 12, 1994.” In other words, Brennan is saying that a final, definitive determination of O.J. Simpson’s guilt in the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman is beyond the scope of the evidence.
I’m sorry but Brennan and his Indiewire editor[s] have, with the above clause, shown themselves to be gutless p.c. swine.
The phrase “we may never know for certain” is a bend-over-backwards allowance on Brennan’s part. He’s basically saying (a) there are many people in the African-American community who continue to believe that racist rogues within the L.A. police department (led by Mark Fuhrman) attempted to frame Simpson with planted evidence, and (b) “hey, who knows for sure?” By what logical or evidentiary basis could Brennan, a USC grad and a New Orleans resident who has also written for L.A. Weekly, Slant and Deadspin, have even thought about writing such a thing? The answer is “none.” There’s “on the other hand” and then there is flat-out delusion. Brennan wrote that line to appease the “O.J. may have been framed” crowd, plain and simple.
For over 20 years the pyhsical evidence showing that Simpson is/was guilty has been flat-out irrefutable. I’ve linked before to a legendary mid ’90s Spy piece called 1001 Reasons why the OJ Trial is the Most Absurd Event in the History of America“, but here are two relevant portions:
