CHILD ABUSED

He's a victim

Now Comes The Best Part: Deconstructing "Balloon Boy"

By Elizabeth C.

While the media sifts through the detritus left by "Balloon Boy's" crash landing, the crazy mastermind behind the scheme continues to reveal himself to be out of touch.

In the most ironic twist to date, Richard Heene's lawyer goes on NBC's Today and says, "Do not do the perp walk for media consumption and arrest these people in full view of their children. That's child abuse. That's traumatic for kids."

Which provokes spit laughs from observers who think that might be just what the kids' need to reset their minds northward.

It's bad enough Heene hid his 6-year-old son "for the show"; what's worse is he took him on national TV and expected him to lie. No wonder the kid barfed, and it's proof that he has more conscience than wacko dad.

So far the best public flailing comes from AP's pop culture writer Ted Anthony who comments today: "Rarely are we given such an opportunity to press pause and take stock of the American experience as it is unfolding. …We have become so enamored with the spectacle that, sometimes, we risk confusing it with real life."

And just in time to prove Anthony right, Colorado officials say there's evidence that a media company had agreed to pay the Heenes.

EW confirms that the Heenes were "developing a reality show about their family with RDF Media USA, the same company that produces Wife Swap," on which the family appeared. But RDF says it passed on the show. Here's my question: was that before or after the Balloon Boy saga was carried live for hours on cable TV?

"If this was a hoax then the joke was on us,'' writes Chicago Tribune's Mark Russell. "The boy whose name is Falcon (get it?) was not in the balloon, but the rest of us were taken for a ride. Thus ending CNN's long afternoon seminar on aerodynamics."

And while Newsweek concludes that greed was Heene's undoing, Philly Daily News' Elmer Smith rightly points out that "the crowning irony … is that everybody but the Heenes is cashing in.

Ahh, America, home of the enterprising. Where in a news cycle, tragedy-turned-farce becomes an interactive web game.

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