O.J. gets scolded

What happened

A Las Vegas judge on Wednesday freed O.J. Simpson after doubling his bond to $250,000 and sternly warning him that he was not getting a “get out of jail free” card. The former football star was locked up for violating the terms of a court order not to contact his co-defendants in an April robbery trial by leaving a profanity-laced message for one of the men on an answering machine. Clark County District Judge Jackie Glass said Simpson violated the order out of “arrogance or ignorance or both.” (AP in the San Jose Mercury-News)

What the commentators said

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“We love any hint of legal karma that comes O.J. Simpson's way,” said Jennifer Cady in E! Online’s The Hum blog. Clark County District Judge Jackie Glass scolded O.J. in “a way we haven’t seen since second grade,” saying he violated the court order out of “arrogance or ignorance or both.” O.J. looked either unhappy or confused as he left the courthouse. “Either way, we love it.”

“That was quick!” said the blog Hollyscoop. O.J. spent less time in jail than Paris Hilton this time. But he had to put up his Florida home as collateral to make bail, and he’ll be back in court on April 7. But stay tuned—that leaves him plenty of time to get arrested again before the trial.

“Before you start throwing peanuts at your screen,” said Ashleigh Banfield in The Huffington Post, “let me tell you why I, for one, am NOT sick of O.J. Simpson.” It’s not the way he boosts TV ratings, and it’s not purely Schadenfraude. “It's how every move he makes delivers one more ounce of justice to the people who have suffered the most by his actions”—“the families of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson have lived with pictures of a carefree O.J. Simpson golfing his way around America” after he somehow was found not guilty of murder.