Jonah Goldberg, "The Corner" @ National Review
...Calling Michael Jackson an icon doesnt let him off the hook for anything. But to listen to the news anchors youd think it absolves him of everything.
I say: Who cares who his famous friends were? Who cares what a fascinating person he was? If you want to talk about his death as an end of an era, have at it. But thats not what the Barbara Walters set is doing.
I know that Michael Jackson wasnt convicted of the despicable crimes he was accused of. And thats why he never went to jail. Three cheers for the majesty of the American legal system. But in my own personal view he wasnt exonerated either. Nor was he absolved of his crimes because he could sing, moonwalk or sell 10 million records. (Though many of us suspect the money and fame he made from those things is precisely what kept him out of jail).
And, while I merely think he was a pedophile, I know he was not someone responsible parents should applaud, healthy children emulate nor society celebrate.
And while were at it, his relatively early death wasnt tragic. He was one of the richest people in the world. He spent his money on perpetual childhood and he was perpetually with children not his own.
Meanwhile, in the last ten days, weve seen or heard of remarkable people whove given their lives for freedom in Iran. Weve heard of innocents killed because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. In the last decade, America has lost thousands of heroes in noble causes and thousands of innocent bystanders who were denied the simple joys of life through no fault of their own. Those deaths are tragic, and we're hard pressed to think of more than a handful of names to put with the long line of the dead.
If anything, Michael Jacksons life, not his death, was tragic.... 
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