everyone seems to love and respect michael jackson now. i'd imagine if obama kicked the bucket, a week later everyone would be praising how great of a person he was.
You're analogy is apt, but the answer to your question is in the degree of difference between your examples.
Barry threatened the Amiga brand in the minds of some -- I certainly would have preferred he leave it alone -- but what was hurt, really? He was selling the name of a dead brand, that is all. Micheal Jackson was a mixed up goofball. If you accept that he was a child-molester, then he hurt a handful of people. President Obama, OTOH, if he continues down his current path and ends up bankrupting the USA -- and as a consequence, hurting the World's economy as well -- will hurt a WHOLE bunch of people.
The swiftness by which people forgive any of them is always proportional to the damage they caused. In the grand scheme of things, Barry's "damage" was nothing.
My two cents.
