Has O.J. Gone Too Far This Time?

Nov. 17, 2006 — -- What a week.

Brings me back a dozen years, when I was a trial reporter for a local TV station in Los Angeles, with one two-year-long assignment -- the trial of the century.

A divisive, even explosive courtroom drama in which O.J. Simpson, a once-beloved athlete, was seen as a victim of police misconduct by some -- including the jury -- and as a ruthless killer by others.

And now the case has exploded back into pop-culture consciousness with the media equivalent of a car crash -- hard to look at and, for those who covered it, especially hard to turn away from.

But has O.J. gone too far this time?

Outrage is at high alert over a book few have read, a book that promises new details about the Brentwood murders of Simpson's ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ron Goldman -- from a man the book's press release said "knows the facts better than anyone."

Advance orders put it at No. 29 on Amazon.com.

Late Thursday night, with anger over the book project growing, Simpson's publisher, Judith Regan, made a dramatic turnaround, releasing a statement in which she said that she set Simpson up in a bid to get a confession out of him on behalf of battered women everywhere, herself among them. Regan's statement also said she "contracted with a third party" who told her that the money from the book would go to Simpsons' children.

Along with the upcoming book, Fox Television is promoting a two-part interview with Simpson to be broadcast later this month.

Vanity Fair writer Dominick Dunne seemed to speak for many when he told ABC News, "I don't think it should be shown. I think people should boycott it, but they won't.

"I would love to say, 'I'm not going to look at it.' But I know I will look at it.

"He's got everybody talking about him again," Dunne went on to say, in an interview that airs on "20/20" Friday night. "Everybody. Wherever you go."

Dunne said he "went to get some milk this morning at the country store here," in rural Connecticut, "and … they're talking about it in there."

Dunne said he blames Regan -- a friend of his, he said --