Readers React: Little sympathy for Kato Kaelin

Even those of us who weren’t riveted by the O.J. Simpson trial can appreciate Kato Kaelin’s retrospective. One might say he acquitted himself well. (“Kato Kaelin, 20 years later, on O.J., unwanted fame and media lies,” Opinion, June 6)

At trial, Kaelin managed to achieve fame (or notoriety), though he played only a bit part in the prosecution’s case. How? The presiding judge improvidently set the stage for Kaelin, then a struggling actor, by allowing the trial to be televised.

Kaelin proceeded to ham it up on the witness stand. His rambling inconsistencies and sarcasm hardly helped achieve justice; prosecutors had the court declare him a hostile witness.

Kaelin shouldn’t try to rewrite history. Fame wasn’t so much “thrust” upon him as he contrived to gain it.

Greg Gilbert

Cool, Calif.