In better times, Michael Jackson would simply be regarded as pathetic and kooky. But even among those who are not Jacksonphiles, his 10-hour appearance on four television channels in the last week provided America with a measure of well-needed diversion.

Whenever Jackson comes out of his self-imposed exile long enough to respond irrationally to an interviewer’s questions, his television ratings go through the roof. And you know what? This time he arrived just when we needed him.

Americans had been exhausted by the contest of rhetoric among the United States and France and other European allies. Europe’s stunning resistance to President Bush’s plan to disarm Iraq has tarnished the heretofore gleaming armor of Secretary of State Colin Powell. He looks good one day and much like a Bush puppet the next.

The nation has been confounded by meaningless color codes issued by Tom Ridge, secretary of homeland security. His logic alternately places us on low, medium and high alert, and nobody knows just what to do.

The nation is too often warned, intimidated and frustrated by an inconsistent and uncertain leadership. Meanwhile, the economic news is so bad that even Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan appears to be putting distance between himself and the president. And then, we on the East Coast were buried under mountains of snow that nearly brought us to a standstill.

To the rescue comes Jackson, strange man, talented performer and perhaps the nation’s greatest nonpolitical enigma. Despite his 35-plus years in show business, we truly don’t know what and who he is. If nothing else, Jackson’s timing was perfect. Just when we can’t stand life’s pressures, Jackson reappears to satisfy our craving for the bizarre and the unusual.

On Feb. 6, ABC’s “20/20” ran British journalist Martin Bashir’s documentary “Living With Michael Jackson.” The show drew 27 million viewers. On Monday, both ABC and NBC scheduled prime-time specials on him. Variety called it the “Night of the Jackos.”

NBC’s “Dateline” ran a two-hour show titled “Michael Jackson Unmasked.” His interviewer asked him questions that ranged from his marriages, his children, his nose, his chin and his sexual appetite.

“It’s not about sex,” Jackson chided his tormentor. “It’s about love. That’s what the world needs a lot more of.” This was in response to questions concerning his penchant for having 12-year-old boys sleep in his bed.

“Tonight Show” host Jay Leno gave his audience something to chew on: “Finally, finally, after all these years, 44-year-old Michael Jackson is dating someone his own age — four 11-year-old boys,” Leno quipped. The audience went wild.

Jackson is a child of the globe. There is scarcely a nation that does not recognize him or acknowledge his strange behavior. Right now, Germany considers him a homegrown oddball, since it was in Germany he inexplicably dangled his youngest of three children over a balcony.

His image as half-man/half-woman/half-white/half-black apparently has struck a worldwide chord. He has escaped every description that might categorize him save one: weird. He speaks with so much sincerity that people believe him even when his lies are blatantly transparent. Asked how many facial operations he’s undergone Jackson, bearing a prosthesis where his nose once sat, held up two fingers and answered lightly: “Two.” A plastic surgeon put the number closer to 50, at a minimum cost of $500,000.

Jackson, a wealthy man with strange appetites, serves a genuine purpose. He gives us a retreat we obviously need from the harsh reality we’re too often forced to endure. For that, we should all thank him.

Until some real leadership and sanity return to the world, Michael Jackson, strange as he is, will serve to keep us going.

Claude Lewis is a retired columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer.