An Embarrassment of Amber Tapes

Trying to avoid hearing any part of the Amber Frey-Scott Peterson recordings of their conversations is futile; they've been played on every station today, almost always with the commentator saying how bright the mistress is in trying to elicit information from her lover, what a poor little victim she is.

But listen a little more, and the tapes tell you that Amber's been down this road before. She always seems to be the other woman - the easy bedmate and never the bride; the one who keeps conceiving children out of wedlock with men involved in other relationships. Amber is also the one who insists that evil men are at fault for all her problems.

All of this is most embarrassing, but it hardly proves that Scott killed his wife, Laci. From them, you learn that Scott's a liar and a skunk (quite different from being a killer), that Amber slept with him on the first date and seemed quite happy to assume this "wealthy businessman" would place her on his white steed and ride her off to a beautiful sunset.

These tapes are getting a lot of play because they're salacious. It's like peeking into someone's private drawers and discovering naughty little secrets.

Bull to those saying that these tapes will convict Scott. Sure, they might. Juries can do some really narrow-minded things. But proof of infidelity and lies just doesn't add up to conclusive proof of anything.

Scott deserves to be found guilty if real evidence indicates he did indeed murder his pregnant wife. But screwing around and "victimizing" a professional victim like Amber just isn't a death penalty offense.