It's time for another `` good news -- bad news'' column. I'll let you decide which is which.

So, which did you find creepier: Hearing the Michael Jackson verdict, or hearing it from Geraldo Rivera?

I mean, I understand that King of Pop and Geraldo have been pals for years. But Michael's career pretty much ended with `` Thriller,'' (or maybe that Pepsi commercial where his hair caught on fire) and Geraldo's ended with Al Capone's vault. Has just nobody bothered to tell either one of them yet?

And first runner up in the creepfest sweepstakes? The trailer for the new Johnny Depp film, `` Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.'' As Depp's character says in the promo: `` Eww!''

I'm not comfortable with the glib analogies about Iraq being the new Vietnam. For one thing, George Bush has actually been to Iraq. Still, there are some uncan ny similarities. It's just that everything seems to be going so much faster.

In Vietnam, American `` advisers'' were there for years before the rest of the country even noticed. And it was a decade or so before we found out that the Tonkin Gulf incident was a dubious premise for war. After the start of the war in Iraq it was, what, on the next headline news cycle that those pesky weapons of mass destruction were nowhere to be found.

And just last week, a U.S. senator started talking about a `` credibility gap.'' Let's see -- credibility gaps, bell bottom pants, bad pop music on the radio. Yep, it's the 1970s again.

Political puzzler

Massachusetts is supposed to be the bluest of the blue states, but we keep on putting Republicans in the governor's office. There is something fun damentally wrong with this. And I am not the only one who thinks so. The governors don't want to stay there either. Some of them will do anything to get out of the cor ner office of the Statehouse, including going to Canada. Unfortunately, we can't stop electing governors from the GOP. There are so few Repub licans on Beacon Hill and they have so little to do that we have to keep giving them a shot until they have all had a turn. (I don't know if this is actually in the state constitu tion but it probably should be.)

I have the feeling that tele vision news shows or at least the promos for them, have been getting more alarming. The voice- overs on the cred its of the prime time shows that say: `` Something in your kitchen could '85'' (pick one)

A. Threaten your children.

B. Cost you money.

C. Kill you.

`` Details tonight on Eyewit ness Action SkyCam News.'' And this deadly peril turns out to be drain cleaner, which really can kill you but only if you mistake it for a condi ment and eat it, something the manufacturer does not recommend.

But this is how news direc tors figure they can keep peo ple from switching over directly to reruns of `` The Simpsons'' at 11.

And that's the bad news.

Tom Reilly is a Sun Chronicle news editor. You can reach him with more bad news at 508-2360332 or at treilly(at)(at)thesunchronicle.com.