Shouldn't War Top Amanda Knox on Our Most-Read List?

But, since the weekend, I have realized it is impossible to ignore the unfolding saga of these two celebrities, even if it is simply to inform myself about the issues in the Knox case (Tiger's issues are much easier to understand and, frankly, to dismiss).

But, in the case of Knox, whose guilty verdict has raised a national outcry in this country, it seems worth investigating the substantive issues that may lie behind that verdict. Of course, it would be wrong to conclude that Knox is innocent just because the Italian court found her guilty. Nevertheless, it also is possible that the Italian justice system is flawed, as Melinda Henneberger suggests, because the "Italian authorities didn't want to back down and admit that their original theory of the case was bogus."

The possibility that Italian law enforcement authorities did not want to admit a mistake calls to mind similar cases in the United States in which an innocent person has been wrongly jailed to make it appear the case had been solved (and one reason why I oppose the death penalty). As Mary Curtis writes, history is filled with cases in which a defendant has pointed the finger at an innocent person -- often, a black person, as was the case with Knox -- to get themselves off the hook.

Meanwhile, Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington, which is Knox's home state, issued a press release on the day of the verdict raising serious questions about the Italian justice system and whether anti-Americanism tainted the trial. She indicated that she had been in contact with the Italian Embassy in Washington and with the U.S. ambassador to Italy and would be conveying her concerns to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Clinton, like me, did not have an opinion about the Knox case when the verdict came out. Asked by George Stephanopoulos of ABC on the day after the verdict whether she shared Cantwell's concern, Clinton said she had not had time to examine the matter since she was immersed in what's happening in Afghanistan, but that she "will meet with Senator Cantwell or anyone who has a concern."

Although I have no problem with her comment, my PD colleague Sally Denton finds Clinton's response unsatisfactory. In essence, Denton believes that the secretary of state should have had an opinion about Cantwell's concerns, regardless of how tied up she is in dealing with the president's decision to send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. After all, Knox's case had been in the news for years and the verdict was hardly a secret.

Personally, I'm with Hillary on this one. If in the past 24 hours she had not had time to study the Italian jury's decision, then the best response was to say so. Furthermore, unlike Tom Brokaw's brush off of PD colleague Emily Miller, Clinton did not dismiss the matter as unimportant. Given the lack of details on the verdict and the number of questions that surround the case, Clinton's measured response is preferable to a hasty one that potentially could have ignited an international row.

Moreover, while many of us may have been watching CNN on Dec. 4 when the Knox verdict came out, Clinton was not. As National Public Radio reported, Clinton, who was in Brussels at that time, thanked Italy for contributing 1,000 troops to the 7,000-strong contingent that NATO allies are sending to help America bring an end to the conflict in Afghanistan.
That's the kind of event I find important, the kind I expect to read about in a leading national news magazine. As fascinated as we are with Tiger's travails and Amanda's predicament, until the cases take on a greater substance than they have to date, less is more when it comes to their coverage in the media.