Prepping for Cirque du O.J.

Tomorrow, jury selection begins for the O.J. Simpson robbery case here in Las Vegas. I've already done two somewhat different previews, this one for Newsweek and this one a few days later for the Agence France Presse. They're kind of a case study in the differences in tone, style and substance demanded from different media outlets. So far I can't gauge whether the public even cares, but the Newsweek piece has been up for three days and there's been just one comment. That's saying -- or not saying -- something. I suspect the politics-obsessed nation will largely tune out until the verdict unless O.J. takes the stand.

Indeed, what did draw a ton of reaction for Newsweek, much of it irrelevant to the story itself, was my exclusive sit-in at a focus group in Las Vegas on Wednesday night as they viewed the Palin address. The two groups of swing-state undecided voters, one married women and one unmarried women, had a lot of interesting things to say about Palin and politics, much of which no man could possible get away with. I even heard New Yorker editor Dorothy Wickenden on the magazine's Campaign Trail podcast misrepresent the findings; she said that the participants overall had lower opinions of Palin after the speech when, in fact, even the most critical people had at least some improved view, improved in many cases from a zero rating. You can find my piece here. It's the second part of a women-react package, so scroll down a little bit. It's always nice to scoop the local media on a story of national significance in their own backyards.

So today I've got to read the papers, finish a travel story and get going on watching my DVD sets of Criss Angel's "Mindfreak." And that's all I'm gonna say about that.