Posted on 01/10/2005 6:20:19 PM PST by ml/nj
Wow! I cannot believe it. There are new Freepers who not only believe that Vince Foster committed suicide, but think that those who believe he was murdered are space cadets. (Link to post, I am reacting to.)
This prompts me to resurrect my Foster op-ed contest that I proposed years ago when I was posting to a closed list. (JimRob was also a poster there.) My problem with many of the things being posted then about Foster were that they were just to complicated to summarize briefly. I suggested that people post op-ed length articles that might cause casual readers to become interested enough to inquire further. This was my own (award winning) entry:
Who Killed Vince? - Ask Bill Clinton!
What can I say to convince you that you should at least ask questions about the death of White House Deputy Council, Vincent Foster?
What first aroused the suspicion of this former Clinton supporter?
In a word: Disinformation. Or what I perceived as disinformation.
In the initial days after the death everyone who knew Foster portrayed him as the "Rock of Gibraltar." Within days some started to ask why such an emotionally strong man would kill himself. Then, the official story switched abruptly to portray Foster as depressed, and the famous torn note mysteriously appeared as supposed evidence. It didn't ring true to me.
Why would disinformation exist at all? I'm not talking about honest errors made while gathering news. I'm speaking of deliberately presented false information. For example the torn note. It's a poor forgery according to leading British handwriting expert and Oxford scholar Reginald Alton. (see the London Times 10/26/95)
The obvious reason why disinformation exists is to obscure the truth.
What other disinformation is there? Well, let's start with when the President found out. The body and White House ID were found by 6:30PM. Hillary, in Little Rock, was called around 8:30. But we are told that the President, in the White House, didn't learn about the death until 9:55. I suspect he knew by 7PM. Yet two hours later he was on the Larry King Live show as if nothing unusual had happened. Why would he go on with the show in this manner? He certainly wouldn't have done so if he were surprised and stunned by his "lifelong friend's" death.
"Lifelong friend"? That's disinformation too. Foster grew up in Hope, Arkansas. Bill Clinton, 19 months younger, moved away from Hope to Hot Springs 75 miles away when he was six years old. They didn't grow up together. They didn't go to high school together. They didn't go to college together. They didn't go to law school together. What possible reason could there be for misrepresenting Bill Clinton's relationship with Foster?
There is a government publication that chronicles the words of the Presidents - speeches, remarks, news conferences, etc. It has not a single sentence in the 1993 Clinton volume in which the President speaks both the words =Foster= and =friend=. But then it doesn't have any sentences where the President connects the words =Foster= and =suicide= either. Instead it contains Clintonspeak like: "We'll never know what drew him away from us." Of course, Clintonspeak is just cleverly disguised disinformation.
What about the evidence? Surely there must be evidence that Foster committed suicide. Well, in fact, there is not. The official story is that he drove to Ft Marcy Park, walked into the woods, put a .38 in his mouth and pulled the trigger. But there was very little blood where his body was found. There were no bone fragments or brain matter on the ground; and the fatal bullet was never found. None of Foster's teeth were broken by the substantial recoil of the .38. The barrel of the gun had no blood on it. There really is no evidence for suicide - except for falsified evidence.
Why would the FBI falsify evidence? Who could direct them to do so? A man named Patrick Knowlton was in Ft Marcy Park that afternoon and witnessed suspicious activity by someone whom he now believes was acting as a lookout. The FBI report of the interview begins by misspelling Knowlton's name, obscuring his identity. It states that he did not see anything suspicious and would not be able to identify anyone he saw. But two years later a British reporter tracked Knowlton down and got the real story. Knolwton's memory of the lookout was sufficiently good that the London Telegraph commissioned and published (10/22/95) a police sketch of the man Knowlton saw. Furthermore, Knowlton is certain that Foster's car was not in the parking lot; which could be why someone falsified the Knowlton interview.
What about all the official investigations: Fiske, D'Amato, Starr? They each addressed the dubious production of the torn note, but none bothered to produce the opinion of a certified handwriting expert. Why should anyone think them more thorough or honest in their treatment of the other evidence?
What about the media? Why would they go along? The only US reporter who has attempted to investigate the Foster death was fired from his job at the New York Post. He had to take a job with a small paper in Pittsburgh. Every critic of this Administration is transformed into a liar. If you think that Clinton's defenders are at all vicious attacking those who point out sexual indiscretions of the President, it doesn't take much imagination to guess what might happen to those who ask questions about suspicious deaths.
If you're interested in what the news was during the immediate aftermath of Foster's death, check out my New York Times Index on Vincent Foster [Annotated].
And if you really want information (drawn only from government sources) check out Hugh Sprunt's Citizen's Independent Report (CIR).
"The thinking citizen who looks beyond your reports to review the medical, biographical and simply descriptive facts of the case will be left with the strongest impression this side of certainty that Foster was murdered." James Dale Davidson WSJ Letter 4/11/95
ML/NJ
Anniversary Bump
ML/NJ
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.