No more boys in bed with Jacko?

"JACKSON WON'T SHARE BED WITH KIDS AGAIN" is the headline in South Florida's Sun-Sentinel.

This is something on the order of "Be Thankful For Small Favors."

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The Associated Press in Santa Maria, Calif., quoted Jacko's successful defense counsel, Thomas Mesereau, as telling NBC: "He's not going to do that any more. He's not going to make himself vulnerable to this anymore."

"Any more" raises the question as to why Michael Jackson ever did take young boys to his bed in his estate called Neverland.

However, he has managed, through a jury, to beat the rap. But listen to what the AP quotes one member of that jury as saying:

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"He's just not guilty of the crimes he's been charged with," said Ray Hultman, who told the Associated Press he was one of three people on the 12-person panel who voted to acquit only after the other nine persuaded them there was reasonable doubt about the entertainer's guilt in this particular case.

Prosecutors presented testimony about Jackson's allegedly improper relationships with several boys in the early 1990s, including the son of a maid who testified that Jackson molested him during tickling sessions between 1987 and 1990. Another, Brett Barnes, took the stand to deny that he was molested during sleepovers at Neverland.

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But Hultman said he believed it was likely that both boys had been molested. He said he voted to acquit Jackson in the current case because he had doubts about his current accuser's credibility.

"That's not to say he's an innocent man," Hultman, 62, said of Jackson.

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Some jurors noted they were troubled by Jackson's admission that he allowed boys into his bed for what he characterized as innocent sleepovers.

The verdict means Jackson will be free to try to rebuild his blighted musical career. But his legal victory came at a terrible price to his image.

Prosecutors branded him a deviant who used his playland as the ultimate pervert's lair, plying boys with booze and porn. Prosecution witnesses described other bizarre behavior by Jackson: They said he licked his accuser's head, simulated a sex act with a mannequin, kept dolls in bondage outfits on his desk.

The case was set in motion by the 2003 broadcast of the British TV documentary "Living With Michael Jackson" that Jackson had hoped would actually improve his image. In the program, Jackson held hands with the boy who would later accuse him, and he acknowledged sharing his bed with children, a practice he described as sweet and not at all sexual.

Editor and Publisher magazine reported that an overnight Gallop Poll, released the morning after the Jackson acquittal, reported:

• 48 percent of Americans disagree with the verdict, while only 34 percent agree.

• 25 percent said they were "still a fan" of Jackson – but almost as many said they were "once fans, but no longer."

• Nearly half said they were "surprised" by the verdict, while 24 percent said they were "outraged."

• 62 percent believe Jackson's celebrity status was a major factor in the verdict.

There was also a racial differentiation:

• Whites disagreed with the verdicts: 54 percent to 28 percent.

• Non-whites approved: 56 percent to 26 percent.

This recalls the O.J. Simpson verdict in 1995, when whites disagreed with his first trial's acquittal 62 percent to 27 percent.

But non-whites supported Simpson's acquittal by 56 percent to 26 percent.

Will Wacko Jacko (as he is known in Britain's tabloids) ever be able to recover his crown as King of Pop?

Or will he be like O.J. Simpson, who vowed to dedicate his life to finding "the real murderer of Nicole" – for whom he has been searching, diligently, on numerous golf courses?