Janet Jackson: less than revealing

Twinkly, gamine 59-year-old Diane Sawyer was as giddy as a schoolgirl Wednesday morning in anticipation of Janet Jackson’s “Good Morning America” Battery Park concert in Manhattan. Who knew Diane Sawyer was such a Janet Jackson fan? She could barely contain her excitement.

Breathlessly chronicling her excellent downtown adventure -- the anchorwoman was shown jumping up from her perch on the “GMA” set, tossing her coat jauntily over one Amazonian shoulder and strutting out the door, all in exciting real time! Sawyer, who traveled to Battery Park by way of water taxi, greeted the throng of Jackson fans with what sounded strangely like a tortured justification. (Especially for someone impersonating a fan of Janet since way back before she attacked our nation’s children with her breast.)

The concert, Sawyer explained, was planned “months and months and months ago, for the event of [Jackson’s] new album, ‘Damita Jo.’ ” Nobody at “GMA” figured it would be the first concert since the Super Bowl, “but it is!”

Go figure. They were just lucky, I guess.

But first, back to Charlie Gibson in the studio. “We’ll have a chance to talk to Janet and ask her the questions that are on everybody’s mind,” he says.

(But not before giving former Bush aide Karen Hughes a chance to promote her book, “Ten Minutes from Normal” (Folksy!), though, or probing into the disturbing case of the fast-food restaurant crank caller who made managers strip-search underage female employees. “Do you feel any sort of responsibility?” “GMA” news anchor Robin Roberts demanded of the quivering manager.)

“I wonder what questions are on people’s minds?” mused the sparky Gibson, turning the conversation back to Jackson. And for a pregnant moment it seemed as if he might say something honest and sincere.

Instead, he wondered “how she’s dealt with the enormous controversy involving what happened at the Super Bowl and how she plans to move on.”

Whatever Jackson’s plans for “moving on,” they’re going to be thwarted for at least another week by the likes of Sawyer and Gibson. And the next stops on her public excoriation/publicity tour: a visit this afternoon on Ryan Seacrest’s show, and a hosting-performing gig April 10 on “Saturday Night Live.” The whole extravaganza kicked off Monday night on David Letterman’s show, where Jackson squirmed in her chair and mumbled like a first-grader.

“Dave, you’re going to make me relive this. I want to put all that behind me.”

“Well, not me. Look, just indulge me here, and I’ll make this as painless as possible.”

Further nationwide child-trauma was narrowly averted, though, when the five-second delay enabled CBS to excise the word “Jesus” from her natterings.

Who says the federal government is asleep at the wheel when it comes to anticipating terror?

The five-second delay seems to be affecting more than Jackson’s naughty eruptions. Even her sense of humor seemed slow, as it routinely took her five seconds to respond to questions and laugh at jokes.

(Has anyone ever noticed there’s something kind of weird about those Jackson kids? Is their dad still orchestrating their every move like some great media puppet master? “Michael’s in trouble again -- Janet, get down there and act weird!”)

In Battery Park, Diane Sawyer braved the frigid morning air and the hostile, booing crowd to try to suck the last few drops of scandal from the vacant-eyed, remote pop star. It was, after all, just the complementary “get” to go with her Mel Gibson interview earlier this year: the perfect “hers”-scandal to match her “his.” Will the exciting, pundit-friendly “controversy” do for Jackson what it did for Gibson? Only time and album sales will tell.

“I’m so glad you put something around you,” said a motherly Sawyer, after Jackson had covered her cantilevered decolletage with a wrap. “I was feeling guilty that I had a coat on!”

“I gotta ask,” she went on, “if you could go back two months, to those seconds, how much would you pay to do it differently and what would you do?”

Alas, the introverted Jackson didn’t have much to say about that, nor about “the serious issue of how to protect our kids,” nor about her “secret wedding plans.”

Diane was reduced to trying to read her lips over the roar of the crowd and the squeak of the diva. In the end, Charlie Gibson had to come to her rescue.

“So I’m backstage while you were talking to Diane, and I couldn’t hear.... Did you say you were getting married or not?”

It was a little sad, seeing the diminutive Jackson, who was hunched in a chair, flanked by the terrifyingly friendly “GMA” hosts, who hovered over her like a pair of stooped vampires -- trying desperately to extract the last drops of bad-sexy-naughty while simultaneously saving kids.

But at least what they call closure may be in sight.

“Janet Jackson is a real great sport,” Charlie concluded, after the keeper of the breast had shuffled off to her trailer, complaining about the rain-slick stage. “It’s not easy when a whirlwind comes into your life. She’s a great sport. And her terrific musicians will see us off as we head back to the boat, head back to the studio.”

Hear that, kids? She’s a great sport. All is well. Charlie and Diane are headed back uptown. It’s safe to buy the album now.