One of my gurus is Nancy Horn, a therapist who lives in Central Pennsylvania and understands Israel/Palestine as well as anyone. She didn't like what I said today about Bruce Ivins (where I basically convicted him ex posthumo of the anthrax crimes). I'm going to provide our dialogue below. Nancy gets the last word. One comment ahead of time. The left wing blogosphere seems to have seized on this case as an American David Kelly–the British scientist who killed himself after being grilled by a parliamentary committee about whether he'd leaked the "sexed-up" intelligence stuff to the BBC right after the Iraq war began in '03. Kelly was a great man, I believe, and a martyr of the antiwar movement (though he lied about his actions). Glenn Greenwald is surely right that the anthrax was used to gin up the Iraq disaster. But I see more good faith here than my fellow travelers.
NANCY HORN:
Ivins had psychiatric problems, no question about it. But he'd sought
therapy; not his fault his psychiatrist filled him like a cocktail shaker
w/God knows what. And wacko does not mean killer.
OK, [husband] Lyle is a biophysicist and I'm a clinical psychologist so our
discussions about this case are probably not garden variety but there is
*nothing* in the FBI docu-dump to indicate he made the stuff or mailed
the letters. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Not one stinking thing. Jean Duley,
as I suspected, is a substance abuse "counselor" w/a history of DUI's
and a two-year degree in social work, not even counseling! The
"forensic psychiatrist" who "diagnosed" Ivins used 30-year-old language
that would have been inappropriate even then and it is not even certain
he saw the guy! That protective order was wrong in the language used,
reasons cited, when it was filled out vis-a-vis what *allegedly*
happened in the group, and when and where it was and was not served.
No facts, just smears. Yeah, he was f^&*d up, and perhaps — perhaps —
should not have been doing that work but the guy was working w/wet
anthrax on a vaccine, not dry/dangerous/weapons-grade stuff. For pete's
sake, Philip — do you mean to tell me you actually believe anything
these creeps do? It's not even a good cover-up, but was CLEARLY
designed by idiots under orders to attract attention elsewhere. I well
remember being stunned by the FBI's weirdness in this case right from
the beginning — they didn't even seek the advice of regular scientists,
let alone experts, and probably knew less about the stuff than I do, and
believe me, that's not much.
The man was hounded to death (admittedly a short trip), and the real
killers are still out there.
P.S. When I told
Lyle one of the allegations against the guy was that he worked late, he
spewed just about a full mouth of coffee. THEY ALL WORK LATE, and this
guy lived close enough to the lab to walk there. Also, he worked late
BEFORE 9/11, trying to save the Bioport vaccine.
NO EVIDENCE WHATEVER placing him near that mailbox when the letters were
mailed. None.
NO EVIDENCE WHATEVER he actually made the anthrax that was sent. None.
So their case is, um, what again?
Last-ditch efforts to save Cheney.
WEISS:
your claim that the real killers are out there is just as suspect as
someone else's claim that ivins is the guy.
ivins was a nut and a mad scientist. im using my common sense on that.
i dont think he should have been in this job if he was stalking kappa
kappa gamma. im not saying he sent the anthrax. im saying that this guy
should never have been in the job.
though yes: i believe he did send it, on the basis of this stuff.
there's a twisted component to his thinking, from this evidence.
NANCY HORN:
My point is that we know no more than we did three weeks ago. Yes, the
guy creeps me out, too — for gosh sakes, my first husband post-doc'd
in Chapel Hill just a couple of years before this guy did, and that's
where he (allegedly — emails can be tampered with and were only
obtained afterwards) broke into the Kappa house. So yeah, his
creepiness is a little too close for comfort for me, too. BUT…
1. Assuming the "evidence" they just dumped is what they believed
would convict him, uh, well, there ISN'T ANY. Just creepiness. No
evidence, much less proof, he made it. No evidence, much less proof,
he mailed it.
2. They tried to portray him as a rightwing Christian DEMOCRAT.
Uh??? However, there is a letter he wrote to that local paper about
Christianity which certainly IS NOT rightwing Christian — in fact, it
directly criticizes that.
3. They tried to portray him as more angry at Bin Laden for those
statements about Jews and Americans than anyone else was. However,
even the AP neglected to use the first part of his quote; it starts,
"They say that…" and you and I both remember "them" "saying" just
that.
4. That Duley woman was certified to work under direct supervision,
which happened apparently only by the FBI. But I am sure they got her
because w/her DUI's she should have lost her certification.
5. I don't know how much you know about FBI security clearances but
they're either perfunctory/pro-forma or outrageously and irrelevantly
intrusive (depending, I think, on the IQ and mood of the agent as well
as how good-looking the person being questioned ). And ditto for the
background-checks they do prior to employment (I actually received a
couple back for employees that hadn't even been filled out). So yes,
there is a need for better work on clearances across the board. But
the FBI apparently does very good work in kiddie stuff( porn,
kidnappings, etc.) — and not much of anything else even halfway well.
And this investigation was political from start to finish.
Sure he could be guilty. But the investigation stunk from start to
finish and as a scientist's wife, a shrink who specialized in substance
abuse and finally as an attorney's daughter, I'm still waiting for just
ONE SOLID PIECE of evidence. ONE, Phil, Just One.
Innocent or guilty, the
guy was framed, driven to death, and now smeared. How could his family
be anything right now besides terrified and in shock. His colleagues,
btw, showed up in droves at his funeral, and spoke quite highly about
him — they are also on the record as being very, very skeptical. And
unless everyone there was in on the plot, they'd know the man, wouldn't
they?
WEISS:
I havent looked into the case as closely as
you have, and I won't, because I have never found it that interesting.
The anthrax stuff never really interested me, though I like Glenn Greenwald's
work on this.
But my chief response to this guy is, This could be the guy. He's
plainly twisted enough, and it would take a twisted guy. I am always
down with characterological analysis. It's why I didn't want Bill
Clinton to be president or Clarence Thomas to be on the Supreme Court.
Yes there's a big difference between depriving someone of a high office
and depriving him of life and liberty, but who deprived Ivins of life–Ivins did. He was hounded, yes; and he should have been given the
circumstantial evidence connecting him. His own attorney said on the
front page of the Times today, the evidence might make him a suspect,
it doesn't convict him. A suspect. This is what happens to a suspect:
he's hounded by authorities, as he should be if he is suspected of
killing five people and starting a national hysteria. And apparently he
never gave a good answer on his activities on the days in question and
submitted false samples to the feds.
If this guy is innocent and being smeared, I want people to start
making the case. Again, where is the family? What do they think?
I speak as someone who lost work in the mainstream media because I
didn't believe the facts as offered in the Vince Foster case or the TWA
800 case. I went out on a limb; I still think I'm right on those cases. I don't get
that feeling of funny investigation here.
I feel that you are motivated here by Christian compassion for a
troubled guy, which I admire but is not really consonant with law
enforcement intensity, which I want investigators to have. And also
some anti-Bush rage, which god knows I share.
I admit my main engagement on
this case is literary. I think it's a great story, and I think, this is the kind of character who would
do this. And I like Occam's razor; this is the simple obvious Hitchcockian
explanation.
NANCY HORN:
My main concern is that the facts as presented might work fine in the
court of public opinion, but they're just not enough to convict him.
Yes, I'm a big champion of the underdog but I chose to work w/junkies
[in Philadelphia] rather than nutcakes (not that you can necessarily separate them out
that cleanly!) precisely because I'm really not crazy about crazies.
And like you, I'm pretty into the literary and psychological dimensions
of a story. But here, the psychological stuff may make for great drama
but his weirdness just does not appear skewed in the direction of a
killer. Even the self-description in his emails — while certainly
sick — was just not twisted enough. And making his
already-hospitalized-for-depression daughter view pictures of the
victims, or offering his son 25K and a sportscar to turn him in is,
well, redolent of the USSR. Why push him if you've got the goods —
why not just arrest him and bring him to trial? And if they HAD the
goods on this guy in 2004, why'd they go after Hatfill instead? It
just doesn't add up.
This guy was more of a mini- Walter Mitty than Dr.
Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde. Majorly screwed up but just not in the right
direction. I'm not saying he's innocent, mind you — I'm just saying I
haven't seen ONE SINGLE PIECE OF EVIDENCE that says otherwise. And
like everyone else, I'd rest a whole lot better if this case was solved.
While there isn't a thing I'd put past Dick Cheney, I'm more inclined
to think the FBI is just exhibiting its usual incompetence. Given the
politicization of the Justice Department, they've probably been under
orders to solve this by fall, to give McSame a much-needed boost in the
polls.
