No Closer To Cracking The Case? Let Me Help You Out
The WaPo has the story of yet another conference of obsessed losers who still can’t accept reality…no, I’m not talking about the New York Times‘ employee Thanksgiving meal (ba-dum-ching!), but a group of JFK conspiracy theorists, who still are working on solving the assassination.
Let me help you catch a Clue (registered trademark of Parker Bros.): Lee Harvey Oswald – in the School Book Depository – with a Mannlicher-Carcano rifle. Case closed!…
On my first trip to Dallas a few years ago, I had to go to an appointment downtown, and recognized the grassy knoll instantly when I rounded a corner, complete with the Greyhound station nearby.
When you’re up close, you realize that no way could anyone with even a marginal efficiency with a rifle could’ve missed the Presidential motorcade at that distance. I had no idea Oswald was that close to the road, since all the images from that day really don’t demonstrate the spatial relationship between the two points of view.
dmac, I had a similar experience. I visited the museum in the schoolbook depository and stood at the window next to the one Oswald fired from. (They have a partition preventing you from standing at Oswald’s window.) The distance is not all that remarkable. The way the conspiracy guys talk, they make it sound as if Oswald had to thread the needle from a million miles away.
I’ve always thought the conspiracy has an unstated guiding presumption – that President Kennedy was worth a conspiracy, that he was such a powerful force that only through murder could (insert shadowy bad guys here)manage to stop him. This strikes me as an extension of the Camelot fantasy, which becomes remarkably less romantic if the king is slain by a lone nutjob.
Dennis – true enough, you or I could’ve easily blasted away until we hit someone, that’s how close you really are when you stand in the same location. For some reason, our country has a long and sordid history regarding conspiracy theorists. Wait until Oliver Stone comes out with his film about 9/11 – it will probably make his Kennedy tome look tame by comparison.