The congressman said in a telephone interview this afternoon that when he typically sets up a news conference, "maybe one radio station shows up." Of the frenzied reaction over his Jackson video, he said, "I didn't get expect it would get this response...My God."

In the video, which King posted on YouTube, the tough-talking, blue-collar Long Island pol calls Jackson a "pervert," a "child molester" and a "pedophile" and says the media has "disgraced itself" with its relentless coverage of the pop superstar's passing.

King's video, which as of this afternoon had more than 22,600 viewsand had generated a spate of news stories, has infuriated die-hard Jackson fans. They have mobilized online to dethrone King, so to speak.

King tells the Sleuth that just as his stance has won him detractors, he also has plenty of supporters. "A professional wrestler from Long Island who weighs 500 pounds has offered to be my bodyguard," King told the Sleuth, chuckling.

The wrestler is known as Boss Hog Calhoun, the grandson of legendary wrestler Haystack Calhoun.

King says he has gotten so much attention for his Jackson video that he has had to turn down TV appearances, which, as anyone familiar with the camera-loving Long Island congressman knows, is very rare.

King was asked to debate Al Sharpton on CNN this afternoon but said no. "It could get out of control," King told us, adding, as if to show he has a touch of sensitivity, "Someone did die here. And the funeral is tomorrow."

Never mind that Jackson was acquitted in 2005 of charges he molested a 13-year-old boy. "He still admitted sleeping with young boys," King said. The congressman also mentioned the "holding the kid over the ledge" incident in which Jackson famously dangled his infant son over a hotel balcony in Berlin in 2002.

"He's a guy who put young children at risk," said King, who describes himself as "50-50" on whether he'll seek his party's nomination to challenge Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) in 2010.

"Let's knock out the psychobabble," King said in his video about Jackson. "This guy was a pervert, he was a child molester, he was a pedophile. And to be giving this much coverage to him day in and day out, what does it say about us as a country? I just think we're too politically correct."

In his interview with the Sleuth, King called the media's coverage of Jackson's death "an orgy. That's what it is."