I think the verdict is pretty much in.

If the kid-in-the-balloon fiasco in Colorado yesterday wasn’t an outright hoax, most of America believes something else to be true: The father of six-year-old Falcon Heene is a certified a-hole.

Check out the Wolf Blitzer interview with the family that aired last night on CNN. Here’s a sampling of online comments.

“These people are STRAIGHT-UP freaks! I saw the “Wife Swap” episode that featured them. They let their kids? do everything and ANYTHING. I have no DOUBT this was set-up by them for publicity. Idiots.”
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“This is so uncomfortable to watch, this man is so in a delusional world that he should be put into custody at the nearest nut house so he doesn’t end up hurting those poor innocent children after he realizes what an utter laughingstock he? has made himself to the world.”

As we all know now, the kid was never in the balloon. It turned out he was hiding in the garage for four hours. But for a good part of Thursday afternoon, no one knew that.

Most assumed Falcon (There’s a new-agey name for you) was hurtling through the atmosphere in the balloon, possibly freezing to death at 10,000 feet. Then at one point it was thought that he may have fallen out.

Emergency workers, including personnel in a helicopter, were dispatched. Anyone who watched the live drama on CNN did so with horror and a sense of helplessness.

In the TV interview with the Heenes afterwards, Blitzer got the kid to say on the air that he didn’t come out of hiding because ” you guys said… we did this for the show.”  Oops, was the cat out of the bag?

When Blitzer  pressed the father, Richard Heene, to ask his son what he meant by “for the show,” Heene had a deer-in-the-headlight  moment. Then he scolded Blitzer. He said he was “appalled” by the question. One can easily presume he was huffy because the question implied that the whole thing might have been one big publicity stunt.

Gee, how could anybody be so insensitive? How could anybody think a guy like Richard Heene would use his own kid to pull a hoax? Here’s man who appeared as a babbling maniac on a reality TV show whose wholesome  theme is wife swapping. Here’s a man who chases storms and takes his family along for the ride.

Come on. Heene is as close to being a foolhardy exhibitionist as it gets. And what the hell was he doing with a giant helium-filled party balloon that was capable of dragging a child up, up and away and into a Wizard of Oz nightmare?

And not once did this clown thank the emergency crews that came to his son’s rescue. Not once. Nor did he make an offer to reimburse at least some of the cost of the rescue effort, which amounted to thousands and thousands of dollars.

I’m reminded of a more innocent story from about 20 years ago when a five-year-old boy from Port Chester drove off in his mother’s car, with his baby sister in the back seat.  It was a sensation and earned the kid a shot on David Letterman. All in all,  a cute tale with a happy ending.

The saga of “Balloon boy” has a disturbing feel to it.

I really hope Letterman and the other late-night hucksters resist the  temptation to book Falcon Heene. But nothing surprises me anymore.