Transterrestrial Musings

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Clinton was an associate of Kennedy, are you going to
implicate him in this killing too?

Posted by at November 22, 2007 11:23 AM

I believe that's the stupidest question I've been asked on this blog all fall, which is a pretty high bar. I'm never surprised that such idiocy comes from someone too cowardly to attach their name to it.

Posted by Rand Simberg at November 22, 2007 12:37 PM

I once blogged the complete text of the Texas historical marker at the former Texas Schoolbook Depository:

This site was originally owned by John Neely Bryan, the founder of Dallas. During the 1880s French native Maxime Guillot operated a wagon shop here. In 1894 the land was purchased by Phil L. Mitchell, president and director of the Rock Island Plow Company of Illinois. An office building for the firm's Texas division, known as the Southern Rock Island Plow Company, was completed here four years later. In 1901 the five-story structure was destroyed by fire. That same year, under supervision of the company vice president and general manager F. B. Jones, work was completed on this structure. Built to resemble the earlier edifice, it features characteristics of the commercial Romanesque Revival style.

In 1937 the Carraway Byrd Corporation purchased the property. Later, under the direction of D. H. Byrd, the building was leased to a variety of businesses, including the Texas School Book Depository.

On November 22, 1963, the building gained national notoriety when Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly shot and killed President John F. Kennedy from a sixth floor window as the presidential motorcade passed the site.

Recorded Texas Historical Landmark - 1980

Emphasis added by some anonymous vandal who took an abrasive to that one word. I believe that this unauthorized editing has since been fixed.

If meeting a famous person briefly makes one an associate, I guess I'm an associate of Virginia Postrel and George Takei :-)

Posted by Alan K. Henderson at November 22, 2007 12:52 PM

IIRC, "allegedly" is the legally correct term. Mr. Oswald died before being tried.

And a conspiracy industry to end all conspiracy industries was born....

Personal favorite: the "Conspiracy a Go-Go" scene in "Slacker".

Posted by MG at November 22, 2007 12:57 PM

re: allegedly

Why does it matter if there was a trial or not? Has it come to the point wehere everything in our lives and our society and our history must to be described in legal terms?

And weasely words at that. Can't offend the obsessive nutbars by simply stating that a Communist loser did it, no matter how much damage that may do to their elaborate fantasy Occam's Razor-less universes. (The same universe inhabited by Bushitler McChimpy, by the way.)

Posted by Raoul Ortega at November 22, 2007 01:07 PM

given the bizarre theories that rand floats about kathleen willey
itt's reasonable to ask about JFK.

Posted by at November 22, 2007 02:21 PM

"Clinton was an associate of Kennedy, are you going to
implicate him in this killing too?

Posted by at November 22, 2007 11:23 AM"

Clinton was in high school then anonymous shit-for-brains!

Posted by Mike Puckett at November 22, 2007 02:22 PM

The big Bugliosi book on the assassination, "Reclaiming History" is well worth it, if one is interested.

I'd read a couple of feet of assassination books in the past and been 80-20 sure it was a conspiracy, but Bugliosi really nails all the loose ends and I'm now convinced that Oswald did the shooting and no one else was involved.

Posted by huxley at November 22, 2007 02:28 PM

given the bizarre theories that rand floats about kathleen willey itt's reasonable to ask about JFK.

I have floated no "bizarre theories" about Kathleen Willey, anonymous ungrammatical idiot. And any theories I have about Kathleen Willey, or the Clintons, are completely irrelevant to JFK.

Posted by Rand Simberg at November 22, 2007 02:37 PM

"Clinton was an associate of Kennedy, are you going to
implicate him in this killing too?:

When JFK was assassinated, Clinton was 16. In what capacity was he functioning, as an associate of JFK's?

Geez, I'll second the motion for this being the dumbest post ever on this blog.

Posted by Norm at November 23, 2007 01:15 AM

The fact that Jacqueline Kennedy accepted the Warren Commission always struck me as important. I don’t know if she would have rolled for B.S. And trying to bribe her to accept it would take more than a couple twenties. At some point she would have to deal with her kids, and I don’t see Jackie lying to John Jr. and Caroline about what really happened to Dad. Of course, another reason she would have accepted Warren was because she was trying to cover up something worse. What would be worse? That would be interesting. I doubt it would be related to “bimbo eruptions”. It would be more likely related to JFK’s entire reputation. On the order of treason. This is NOT an attempt to use that label. It is to point out what the level of personal damage would need to be in order to get Jackie in on a cover-up.

Posted by Craig at November 23, 2007 01:26 AM

For speculation only, a couple of scenerios would warrent a cover up.

If it was definate that the USSR had ordered a hit, and the consequences of full disclosure were nuclear war, I could understand some sort of realpolitic cover up.

If a black person were implicated in that particular time period, civil war and ethnic cleansing on a major scale could have resulted.
A cover up could be the morally right choice at that time.

This is in the spirit of good reasons for a cover up, not what I think happened.

Posted by john hare at November 23, 2007 03:32 AM

I have no argument with the wording of the marker. But someone who takes a Brillo pad to "enhance" a Texas historical marker strikes me as unbalanced.

Posted by Alan K. Henderson at November 23, 2007 04:45 AM

"I have floated no "bizarre theories" about Kathleen Willey"

Let's see

The Clintons had her house burglarized

The Clintons seem involved in her husband's suicide

The Clintons seem involved in threats against her.

how bizarre is that?

Posted by at November 23, 2007 08:39 AM

how bizarre is that?

Not bizarre at all, for anyone familiar with the facts of the case, and the history of the Clintons and their hired goons, anonymous ungrammatical idiot.

In fact, it's par for the course. Lacking all of the facts of the matter, I'm not claiming that it's true--only that it would be completely unsurprising if it were. The only thing "bizarre" is that so many people haven't caught on to them yet, and that their mindless minions, like you, continue to defend them. And this continues to have nothing at all to do with Oswald assassinating Kennedy.

Posted by Rand Simberg at November 23, 2007 08:51 AM

I'm surprised no troofers have made an appearance although anonidiot might qualify. I can't imagine the chaos that would have resulted if the internet in its present state existed at that time.

Posted by Bill Maron at November 23, 2007 09:39 AM

Dealey Plaza is a perfect theater for the assassination. It's very hard to understand that until you actually stand there looking at it.

Posted by Billy Beck at November 23, 2007 04:46 PM

"I can't imagine the chaos that would have resulted if the internet in its present state existed at that time."

Usenet: alt.current-events.clinton.whitewater, c. 1996.

Mike Rivero called it "the first war in cyberspace," and that's exactly what it was.

Believe me: you wouldn't believe it.

Posted by Billy Beck at November 23, 2007 04:48 PM

Rand said "The only thing "bizarre" is that so many people haven't caught on to them yet"

Do you have a theory for why this is? If you've already posted about this on this blog, do you have a link (or can you suggest some keywords to help us quickly find the posting?) If the answer to both questions is "no", that's fine, I'm just asking.

If I was a reporter or editor at the New York Times or the Washington Post and had evidence that either of the Clintons were involved in, for example, a suspicious death, I would see it as a career-maker, not something to be quiet about.

Posted by at November 23, 2007 08:33 PM

Sorry, that last post was from "Hillary-Supporter" (and the rest of the posts in this thread were assuredly not!)

Posted by Hillary-Supporter at November 23, 2007 08:35 PM

If you really believe that, then you are unfamiliar with both history, and the culture of the WaPo and the New York Times, and the MSM in general (hint: why did Newsweek spike the Isakoff story about Lewinsky, and why did it have to be broken by Drudge?).

Posted by Rand Simberg at November 23, 2007 08:41 PM

Truly, I'm clueless. (Feel free to take cheap shots everyone, but please recognize that they are just cheap shots.) I googled Isakoff & Lewinsky & Newsweek, and then I tried googling Isakoff & Newsweek & suppressed, but each time, I seemed to pull up a rat's nest of sources with unknown credibility rather than an authoritative story.

I did stumble onto stuff about Commerce Secretary Ron Brown's death in Bosnia (USAF crash) that made me laugh.

Rand, I've appreciated your past comments about Journalism majors (paraphrasing, in part: people ought to major in/ work in a substantive specialty first, and then later allow that specialty to inform their reporting, if they ever become journalists). But I have no clue on why a bunch of uneducated reporters would the Clintons to get away with murder - figuratively or literally. I also have no clue why you think this. I'm sure you've covered these subjects before.
If you have no links to your past writings, maybe, as the election draws closer, you could write about this subject again?

Posted by Hillary-Supporter at November 23, 2007 10:00 PM

But I have no clue on why a bunch of uneducated reporters would the Clintons to get away with murder - figuratively or literally. I also have no clue why you think this. I'm sure you've covered these subjects before.

Educated or otherwise, the vast majority of reporters (and editors) loved and voted for Bill Clinton, and took a "see no evil" attitude toward their behavior. I think this because I observed it first hand, from 1992 on. Had their past in Arkansas been properly reported in the first election, he'd never have won the nomination, let alone the presidency.

Posted by Rand Simberg at November 24, 2007 06:02 AM

By the way, H-S, regardless of your opinions of the sources, it is an established historical fact that Matt Drudge made his reputation on the basis of his breaking the Lewinsky story after Isakoff put it together, and it was spiked by Newsweek. All that is in dispute in the journalism community is whether or not he should have, not whether or not this happened.

Posted by Rand Simberg at November 24, 2007 06:17 AM

I have no facts involving The Clintons in the murder of
Mr Willey, but I will float bizarre theories and make
suspicious noises and urge special prosecutors on this
matter.

Is that a fair summary of your opinions, Rand?

Posted by at November 24, 2007 10:00 AM

Is that a fair summary of your opinions, Rand?

No, I'd say it's yet another idiotic one. I have no idea whether or not the Clintons were involved with Ed Willey's death. I simply said that I wouldn't be shocked to discover that they were, given their history.

Posted by Rand Simberg at November 24, 2007 10:25 AM

Rand, it was clear from even a quick google search that everything you said about Newsweek, Isakoff, and Drudge were true, and I'm not disputing them. What I couldn't figure out, from admittedly just a quick search, was _why_ Newsweek "spiked" the story, I assume by "spiked" you mean "suppressed".
I saw lots of sources that suggested that they did because they were still building the story.

The bigger more interesting picture: I'm just a vanilla Hillary-Supporter, and my support Hillary is probably only of interest to you in that I'm similar to the vast majority of voters who simply aren't knowledgeable about this stuff. Maybe unlike most voters, I read the NYT every day, and lately I've been reading politico.com obsessively. But I never hear about this stuff. I respect your opinion (this blog isn't in the rat's nest), and when you have time and interest, I would like to hear more about a) the worst things you suspect eithor of the Clintons did and why, and b) why in the world the NYT and the Washington Post (and Tim Russert, Chris Matthews, etc), don't cover the evidence for these deeds. No hurry, although I hope you write about it (or link to it) before I vote on Feb 5th.

Posted by Hillary-Supporter at November 24, 2007 10:45 AM

Let me tell you a story, H-S. You can take it for what you think it's worth.

About early 1997, a person -- a private individual -- chanced to meet briefly with George Will. This person asked him what he thought of the strange death of Vince Foster. Just exactly that fast, Will said, "I don't want to discuss it," and turned on a heel and walked away.

Now, according to what appears to be your theory of these matters (I'll happily take your correction if I'm wrong), a man like Will might have been expected to run a ball like that straight to the goal-line.

I'll tell you "why in the world": it is, in great measure, because the whole thing scared the living shit out of everybody in sight, for lots of reasons. The Republicans were terrified of vicious catatonic skeptics on the left who were only too ready to make big-time political hay by sneering at "conspiracy theorists", which has long been a term-of-art with nearly Soviet connotations of drastic mental instability. People experienced at things like this have long understood what I've called "tactical rhetoric" which, in this case, is about summarily dismissing facts by simply laughing at them. We're talking about the parable of The Emperor's New Clothes in reverse. And the Republicans were not going to be laughed at. They couldn't afford it.

This is why Senator Al D'Amato stuffed a sock in his own committee's chief counsel's (Michael Chertoff's) mouth when he asked Webster Hubbell about receiving money from the Lippo Group during the Banking Committee hearings. (This happened on February 7, 1996.)

As for people like Russert or Matthews, there was simply never a chance in the world that they were going to see their own personal political investments discounted in a market like that. Look: they -- and lots more like them -- never needed a story like this to make their names in their work. They were already made men, and it was the easiest thing in the world to completely stiff all kinds of horrifying rot during the Clinton years.

The easiest thing in the world. After all: you believed that they were on top of things, didn't you?

Posted by Billy Beck at November 24, 2007 11:06 PM

Ps. --

I wrote: "And the Republicans were not going to be laughed at. They couldn't afford it."

This is also, at its deepest essence, why we were brought the spectacle in 1998. The Republicans thought that the Lewinsky matter was something that they could actually sell to most Americans.

After everything that had gone before it, that was one of the most despicably cynical things I ever saw in more than three decades (to date) of watching American politics.

Posted by Billy Beck at November 24, 2007 11:23 PM

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