Beginner Toobin

Right about here is where I'd use a metaphor such as throwing a pebble into a pond and watching the ripples flow outward to describe how a career unfolds, but I'm not got going to do that because it's too damn writerly and trite.

That said, one of the ripples from the pebble that was OJ Simpson killing his ex-wife and a waiter is the career of legal reporter and talking head Jeffrey Toobin. Sure, he was a lawyer investigating Iran-Contra prior to that night in Brentwood, and there's every reason to believe his would've been an august career without the murders, as evidenced by his continuing prosperity in spite of being caught masturbating on a Zoom call with New Yorker co-workers as well as impregnating his girlfriend, asking her to get an abortion, and when she turned down that modest request, refusing to pay sufficient child support until a judge threatened to garnish his wages. (And he, an officer of the court!) You must have talent to make even one employer forget about that stuff!

His OJ material is impressive nonetheless. He got the scoop about the Juice's defense team going after LAPD detective Mark Furhrman's loathsome racist rantings, which with other New Yorker material he parleyed into the bestseller The Run of His Life: The People vs OJ Simpson, the best of the two books I've read on the trial; the other being a number from Vincent Bugliosi, who established his bona fides prosecuting the carnage from LA's second most famous killer, Charles Manson. Run is thorough - I discovered I was acquainted with two people tangentially related to the whole circus - well-reported, and briskly written; just a solid piece of non-fiction work.

As good as Run is, I'm not sure Jeffrey Toobin would be a household name among people over 50 without OJ. Toobin could have a red cape with a giant R on it and not get 10 percent of the fame were his talents spent on, say, reporting about some guy in Cedar Rapids who thought he was the first husband on earth who could kill his estranged wife and get away with it.

As for the other stuff, I'll keep my opinion to res ipso loquitur. It is, however, positively cinematic that OJ lived long enough to twist the knife after Toobin's Zoom fiasco: "Damn, Jeffrey Toobin. At least Pee Wee Herman was in an X-rated movie theater... I'm just sayin'."