RIC LANDERS [RL] SAID:
Nobody in criminology was familiar with the profile Bug [Vincent Bugliosi] used to describe Oswald which, of course, explains why Bug added the element of "insanity."
BUD SAID:
Worked against Manson. Don't care for that label myself. Oswald wasn't insane, he knew the consequences of his actions.
DAVID VON PEIN [DVP] SAID:
Which is why Bugliosi never ONCE used the word "insane" in his "prosecution" of LHO in 1986. VB was smarter than that. He knew if he had used that word ("insane"), it would only harm his case against Oswald. Because it could add the element of "sympathy for an insane person" into the jury's mind.
I've always thought Vince came a little TOO close to that very thing -- i.e., coming out and telling the jury that Oswald WAS "insane" -- but he stopped short of that word (and for very good reasons, IMO).
Vince called Oswald "nuts", "bonkers", "crazy", and "mentally unhinged" -- but he never said that Oz was "insane". At an actual trial, I think Vince might have not used some of these precise terms, for fear that the jury WOULD, indeed, equate "crazy" with "legally insane".
RL SAID:
What's the difference [between "crazy" and "insane"]?
DVP SAID:
Plenty (given the right context). "Crazy" can mean "insane", yes. But it can also mean.....
"Passionately preoccupied", "Obsessed", "Erratic", "Askew", "Impractical", or "Unusual".
Lots of different meanings....
http://Merriam-Webster.com/dictionary/crazy
RL SAID:
I saw the clip and thought he [Bugliosi] meant insane.
DVP SAID:
I didn't. Mainly because it would have been utterly STUPID for Vince to have come out and called Oswald "insane"....because Vince knows he wasn't LEGALLY INSANE (i.e., not being able to tell the difference between right and wrong).
RL SAID:
Oswald was not some guy living in a tool shed in the mountains.
DVP SAID:
Not far from it. He could barely support himself at a $7 or $8 a week boardinghouse. His family had to sponge off of friends for months at a time.
Might as well have been up in those mountains with Jed and Granny and livin' on possum innards.
RL SAID:
He had a family...
DVP SAID:
Which he could not support...
Next?....
RL SAID:
...plenty of co-workers he got along with swell.
DVP SAID:
LOL. "Swell"?
Yeah, I love "Leave It To Beaver" myself. It's one of my all-time favorite shows, in fact (plug, plug). :-)
But back to Oswald.....
Most of his co-workers thought he was a loner, who was distant, uncommunicative, standoffish, and who thought he was "a little better than everybody else around him".
Some of those things go beyond just his co-workers however. They were said by others who knew LHO. And not many people had very many good things to say about him, except maybe Wes Frazier.
Ruth Paine didn't like him at all. Nor did several of his fellow Marines. Oswald was a Communist, a wife-abuser, a liar, a schemer, and a murderer (times 2; with one "attempted murder" under his belt, to boot--General Walker).
Great stuff for a resume, huh? Maybe we can get Lee Harvey voted into office in '64.
RL SAID:
He had a landlady who thought he was a nice young man.
DVP SAID:
Gladys Johnson, you mean?
Okay, so maybe Frazier wasn't his only friend. Or did you really mean "housekeeper" Earlene Roberts here? Well, doesn't matter really.
RL SAID:
He was only a few years from the military and no one from his unit thought he was "nuts"; and they certainly would know this better than [Bugliosi].
DVP SAID:
Bull. Several former Marines who served with LHO have come forth with negative stories about this guy named Oswald.
RL SAID:
He had a top-shelf security clearance.
DVP SAID:
As did all radar operators at that MILITARY base at Atsugi.
Next?....
RL SAID:
He had no police record...
DVP SAID:
Unless you want to count that sidewalk skirmish in New Orleans in the summer of '63. That doesn't count?
Oh...and that little business where he took a rifle over to Walker's house on 04/10/63 and tried to end the ex-General's life. Luckily for him, he missed....so no "police record" on file for this act until December '63 when the cops put the pieces together.
You're doing great so far though. I'm wanting to buy my next used car from Oswald right now, in fact!
Next?....
RL SAID:
So where does Bug get "bonkers" from?
DVP SAID:
From the FACT that Oswald shot JFK and J.D. Tippit dead in November '63. That's where. Geez.
Plus, Mr. Bugliosi was merely doing what he does at every one of his trials -- he was "spoon-feeding" the jury there, quite obviously. He's hammering Oswald's obvious guilt down the jury's collective throat...as every good prosecutor WOULD do in such a case with this much "He's Guilty" evidence on the table!
Let's listen as Vince hammers and spoon feeds.....
"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, if Lee Harvey Oswald had nothing to do with President Kennedy's assassination and was framed....this otherwise independent and defiant would-be revolutionary, who disliked taking orders from anyone, turned out to be the most willing and cooperative frame-ee in the history of mankind!! Because the evidence of his guilt is so monumental, that he could have just as well gone around with a large sign on his back declaring in bold letters 'I Just Murdered President John F. Kennedy'!!! Anyone...ANYONE who would believe that Lee Harvey Oswald was innocent, would believe someone
who told them that they heard a cow speaking the Spanish language!!"
-- Vincent T. Bugliosi; July 1986
David Von Pein
March 16, 2007
March 16, 2007
