Yes it is.
She recently said in an interview here in Houston that upon hearing the first shot she turned to look at the president and further stated that the look in his eyes was chilling or something to that effect. Then her husband was hit with a second shot and she immediately focused her attention on him. Nellie hunted with her husband on more than one occasion and is familiar with the sound of rifle fire, most women her age in Texas are. Her story hasnt changed in over 40 years now.
All well and good, but the Zapruder film contradicts her memory. I'll go with the instant replay, thanks.
I've just rewatched my copy of the Zapruder film for confirmation, and her description is inconsistent with what the visual record shows.
Up until about frame 223, JFK shows no signs of distress, and is smiling at the crowd, although he does show a few moments of hesitation as he turns and looks to his right after frame 157, consistent with reaction to the sound of the missed shot at or before frame 157. (Frame 157 also shows a major "jerk" by Zapruder's hold on the camera, so much so that the frame is double-exposed from two different viewing angles, also consistent with his reflexively jumping at the sound of a shot.) Connally also looks in that direction, and Mrs. Connally turns the same direction at the same time.
It also accords with Connally's own testimony:
"I heard this noise which I immediately took to be a rifle shot. I instinctively turned to my right because the sound appeared to come from over my right shoulder, so I turned to look back over my right shoulder, and I saw nothing unusual except just people in the crowd..." (4H132-33)Unfortunately for Mrs. Connally's memory of the event, not only is JFK not showing any physical reaction to an injury at this point, but he is facing *AWAY* from Mrs. Connally, making it impossible for her to see any sort of look "in his eyes".
At frames 223/224, both JFK and Connally unmistakably show their first signs of trauma.
The 3D computer animation above (from the excellent Secrets of a Homicide website, which would be a large education for the conspiracy folks here) doesn't do it justice -- in the actual film the traumatic reaction of both JFK and Connally are sudden, extreme, and unmistakable. This is clearly the moment when a) either man is first injured, and b) both men are injured simultaneously, or at the very most within a split second of each other.
Connally's right jacket lapel can even be clearly seen flipping out at the time of the presumed shot. This is shown in the 3D recreation above, and is even more obvious in the actual film:
(The above flip-flops between frames 223 and 224.)
Additionally, Connally's wrist of the hand holding his hat had been injured by the shot, and this is why his hat is seen doing a very rapid "lift and flip and drop" which takes place over a mere 1/3 of a second -- in that time it rotates 180 degrees, from being brim down to brim up. There is no other plausible explanation for this rapid a movement except the momenum imparted to Connally's wrist (and thus also hand) by the shot that struck him.
This too is consistent with Connally's testimony:
"So I looked, failing to see him, I was turning to look back over my left shoulder into the back seat, but I never got that far in my turn. I got about in the position I am now facing you, looking a little bit to the left of center, and then I felt like someone had hit me in the back." (4H133)This is the movement/position that Connally can be seen in at frames 223/224 of the Zapruder film. By Connally's own testimony, *that's* when he was shot. And that's clearly the same frame/time that JFK was first hit. QED.
*Now* Mrs. Connally may have seen a scary look in JFK's eyes, but since her husband is now also wounded, it is inconsistent with her claim that first she saw JFK's wounded eyes, *then* her husband was later hit.
Her memory is incorrect.
More likely, she first noticed JFK's injury when JFK turned back towards her and was simultaneously hit by the second shot, and she thus incorrectly ascribed it to the first shot she had heard, not realizing he had been uninjured while facing away from her. Then she turned and saw that her husband was injured and ascribed it (correctly in this case) to the second shot.
Posner is full of shit.
Then how odd it is that his analysis is entirely consistent with the facts, and the theories of the conspiracy theorists whom he debunks are not.
And why the ad hominem against Posner? He's hardly the only person to have arrived at the same conclusion from examining the evidence. Are you hoping that by calling Posner names you can obscure the fact that countless other people hold the same conclusions?