I never anticipated getting caught in the Casey Anthony trial. I don't watch courtroom shows. Justice matters to me, but most trials move with lead-footed slowness. This time, for the Casey Anthony trial, I got my own foot caught in the courtroom door, thanks to HLN's prime-time lineup. "Dr. Drew Pinsky" is coming at it as physician, an addiction specialist, and a father who's shaken that someone murdered Caylee Anthony, age two. "Joy Behar" may be a comedian by trade, but she has the tough bulldog instincts of an exceptional courtoom-and-crime journalist. Even "Showbiz Tonight", which drives me a little crazy with its hyperbolic scriptwriting, pulls me in if the Anthony trial takes a sizable chunk of their hour. Finally there's "Nancy Grace", well-intentioned and smart and more melodramatic than all the "Real Housewives" episodes combined: she's wall-to-wall Anthony coverage, however, so I watch for a least the first fifteen minutes. How did HLN hijack the ear and one eye I keep on the tube? How is it dragging me over to the TV to sit down and pay full attention so often?
First, Pinsky and Behar usually provide worthwhile television, no matter what their topics of the night center on. Second, I am baffled by this trial. It twists my mind in a knot that mothers kill their children, mothers who are not suffering from post-partum psychosis. Casey Anthony makes no sense to me. If she killed her child, which seems likely at this point, I want to understand why, as well as I can. I've always been driven to comprehend the human psyche, both its darkest hours and its brightest lights. This trial and the blank-faced young woman at its center hold lessons for me, if I can watch long enough to learn them.
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