The bizarre and hideous story of the BTK killer reached into the realm of rhetoric yesterday as Dennis Rader was allowed to make a statement before his sentencing that lasted more than 20 minutes.

I happened to catch it live on CNN yesterday. I watched with my mouth open.

To me, the strangest part of the speech wasn't Rader's one-by-one naming of his victims and his attempt to identify things he and they had in common.

"She liked to write poetry悠 liked to write poetry," he said of one of his victims, an 11-year-old girl. "She liked to draw, I liked to draw."

This seemed a transparent attempt to demonstrate to the judge and the world that, since he understood he had killed human beings, therefore he must be a human being.

I was more confounded by Rader's insistence on thanking people in his legal team, individual police officers, jail guards and other prison officials, one of whom he identified with a thumbs-up gesture as "my main man."

In his statement, he had the air of an aging Hollywood actor who had won his first Oscar after being diagnosed with terminal cancer.

It was his last chance to thank everybody who helped get him here揺is victims, his lawyers, the police and the jail guards.

I'm not an expert on court procedures, but I wondered why, if the Academy limits the amount of time Tom Hanks can stand and thank the little people, why a judge can't cut a rambling narcissist off after 10 minutes.

I figured he realized the weird speech was making good television預s had the victims' speeches, at least one of which was also bizarre, full of 19th century-sounding lines like, "If I were to sink to your level I would say that this world would have been much better off had your mother aborted your demon soul before you were unleashed on this world �."

After watching all this for more than an hour yesterday afternoon佑NN ran no commercials during the sentencing hearing悠 decided for myself, once and for all: We're stuck with TV cameras at awards ceremonies, weddings, State of the Union addresses and in Hulk Hogan's living room.

Let's keep them out of courtrooms on the grounds that they people into hams and that we don't want court sessions to become Showtime at the Apollo for every defendant, prosecutor, victim and judge.