I am completely baffled trying to figure out how this little white girl is related to a black family.

have been following Glenn Greenwald's blog, which you obviously haven't while implying that you're too intellectual to read about MJ's memorial service. Glenn is there for the super-cerebral such as yourself. Just a reminder!

There is no doubt in my mind that that little girl loved her daddy and misses him very, very much.

A funeral is hardly the time to set history straight, it is for friends and family to remember, and in the case of someone like Jackson, for fans to remember the good. A moment for reflecting on his talent, his accomplishments and good deeds can be forgiven can't it? Because everyone with a story to tell will be peddling it now that he is gone.

And Jackson wasn't one of them. So why are we wasting time on him? Sick sad world, friends!

Was that faking it?

You ahd a girl who had just seen many,many people speak about her father and she wanted to speak about him too.

IS THAT SIMPLE ENOUGH FOR YOU?

Or get Wingnut, or Camille, or Horowitz on this PRONTO!!

with masks.

I don't like to judge people when they're in that kind of extreme emotional state.

Grief is a fog. People are never at their clearest. Weaknesses are going to come out.

In the name of healing, people tend to be forgiving, and so will I.

And now you're piously worrying about exploiting this child while plastering her grief-twisted face at the top of the front page. Nice.

"Paris' words summed up the underlying thesis of Tuesday's memorial: Michael Jackson was a hero, not a pedophile. (Never mind that he may have been both.)"

Yes, it's true, one can be both. Like John Wayne Gacy. Sure, he was a bad person, a serial killer and all of that. But have we forgotten that he was also a beloved clown who made thousands of children laugh? Furthermore, he's dead now, but people still villify him. That's so disrespectful! Let the man rest in peace!

And as for Michael Jackson, maybe he was a serial child molester, but he never killed anyone! And he sold more albums than anyone ever has and left behind more Grammys than you can even imagine! Did Gandhi ever win a Grammy? Ha! I didn't think so!

Finally, we'll never know for sure if Michael Jackson was really a pedophile, but we know for a fact, without even having to look it up, that he gave away hundreds of millions of dollars to charity and that his father beat him and his brothers like circus monkeys.

Cheers to all of you Salon readers for standing up for Michael! The nerve of this Judy Berman to offer timid, tepid criticism of our beloved MJ! All of us who loved him must remain vigilant against the slightest hint of negativity about his remarkable life and indisputable genius.

I have no doubt Michael is smiling down from heaven at all you fans, joyfully fluttering his enormous glittering silver wings as he moonwalks hand-in-hand with Tupac and John Wayne Gacy. God bless you, Michael, and thanks for the memories.

okay dude - we get it. u thought michael was scum.

so why do you keep posting? don't you have better things to do?

and although you may believe he was a molester - you really should do some homework on all of the humanitarian acts of kidness that MJ did. i think you would be surprised.

The one thing I've learned in the past week or so is how many individuala have never encountered even a handfull of biracial people in their lives.

I have been reading Greenwald, but most of the time his stuff is "below the fold," so to speak, rather than at the top of the home page.

Please, just please, please please shut the fuck up with your insufferable sanctimoniousness. The pettiness is unbearable.

Exactly! You said it!

First, it doesn't appear that anyone forced her to get up there and speak.

Second, the only thing off about the whole thing is that WE were watching. If a kid wants to say something nice about her daddy at his funeral, the only thing that would POSSIBLY make that wrong is that the world is watching and can rant and call it a "spectacle".

When my brother in law passed away he had two kids, the youngest was 8. He said something about his dad at the funeral. No one was exploiting him.

What if Paris wanted to say something and because of the media presence, they didn't let her? Wouldn't that be WORSE?

Let them grieve as they want. Paris included.

of the time and that's why Paris thought he was "the best daddy". Who could she compare him to when the three children were like nomads going around the world with Daddy after his career crashed in ruins. This young girl, 12 days after witnessing the death of Michael Jackson, was then brought on to the world stage with every TV camera on her to advance the ambitions of a lot of unscrupulous adults, in particular the big wheels at AEG. Sickening.

She spoke at the funeral of her father, as many children do. Most children, however, do not have to cope with the indignity of having their grief used to generate page views.

Shame on you and GET HER OFF OF THERE.

Really sickening.

Quit exploiting the crying little girl.

As someone who was molested for many years, I can say that it is possible that Michael Jackson was both creepy, scary and abusive, yet loved by his children. My former stepfather abused me, and yet, he was a father figure, and I can even say that I loved him. I also hated him, to be sure. But yeah, I loved him.

Is it really beyond the pale to imagine that an 11-year-old girl might have her own feelings about the death of her father and the inescapable media coverage of her very personal loss, and also, to want to express those feelings publicly, and to make her own choice to do exactly that in what is almost certainly the most appropriate setting possible - her dad's funeral - surrounded by the loving support of her extended family.

In any other family, I wouldn't think Paris's words were abnormal, or driven by some outside agenda. Is it out of the realm of possibility that while both of her brothers (one older and one younger) opted not to speak publicly, Paris actually wanted to speak, and chose, of her own volition, for her own purposes, to speak, at her Dad's funeral? I hope not. And sitting here, having never met Michael or his kids or his extended family, having never seen them or known them up close and personal, I can hardly put myself in the position to question that the agenda behind an 11-year-old girl's speech at her Dad's funeral was nothing more or less than to express her love and grieve her loss.