Bravery Under Fire: Jim Garrison

The are Liars, Damned Liars, and then Gerald Posner...

In "Case Closed," Posner's monomaniacal, pretentious tribute to a Warren Commission organized by the prime suspect himself, Johnson; he appeals to a common "attack the messenger" disinformation tactic that among other things-- implies Jim Garrison was actually insane for questioning the Warren Commission. (see page 432)

According to Posner,  in 1952, Jim Garrison was relieved of duty in the National Guard. He alleges that doctors at the Brooke Army Hospital in Texas diagnosed him as suffering from a "severe and disabling psychoneurosis" which "interfered with his social and professional adjustment to a marked degree." Posner alleges the evaluation further said that Garrison "is considered totally incapacitated from the standpoint of military duty and moderately and recommended long-term psychotherapy.   Fine. Let's entertain Posner and assume changing the subject  doesn't invalidate his stance, and that this particular messenger, Garrison, is totally insane.

Is Garrison the only one who ever questioned the Warren Commission? And what does Garrison's personal life have to do with the assassination and the evidence at hand?  Such as the pristine "stretcher bullet"--  the hopeless implausibility of the Magic Bullet Theory?  The very fact that Posner has to appeal to textbook disinformation tactics rather than argue the matter at hand, demonstrates a fear of the truth, not a willingness to find it.  Is he  projecting fears of his own insanity for buying into the notion that a bullet that strikes bone will emerge intact, and defy the laws of physics-- just because a fellow mason, Arlen Specter or Gerald Ford says so?

Some of the people who Posner sources in his footnotes deny ever talking to him. For instance, when Peter Scott phoned Carlos Bringuier in New Orleans to confirm that he told Posner what Posner quoted him as saying, Bringuier said he didn’t recall ever talking to the author. Gary Aguilar wrote a letter to the Federal Bar News & Journal noting this phenomenon (Vol. 41 #5):

I called [James] Tague on April 30, 1994, and he told me....that he has never spoken with Posner, though the implication of three references in Case Closed is that Posner did speak with him on two successive days...."

Then there is the possibility that Posner may have deceived Congress. To quote Aguilar’s letter again:

On November 17, 1993 before the House Committee on Government Operations, Posner reported that he had interviewed two of Kennedy’s pathologists, James Humes, M.D. and J. Thornton Boswell, M.D. Posner testified that they confirmed to him that they had changed their minds about the original location they had given for Kennedy’s skull wound....Posner informed the U.S. Congress that the pathologists told him that they had erred [in their original autopsy report]—the [head] wound was 10 centimeters higher, at the top rear of the skull. On March 30, 1994, I called both Drs. Humes and Boswell. Both physicians told me that they had not changed their minds about Kennedy’s wounds at all. They stood by their statements...which contradicted Posner. Startlingly, Dr. Boswell told me that he has never spoken with Posner.

Posner then slanders two of the Dallas doctors who continue to maintain that the large exit wound was in the back of the head, Dr. Robert McClelland and Dr. Charles Crenshaw, who recently wrote a book rejecting the autopsy findings. 

Posner's typically pathetic attack on Dr. Charles Crenshaw, a Clinical Professor of Surgery at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School,  was to imply he was insane.  This time he quotes some disparaging comments about Crenshaw made by an anonymous "close Crenshaw friend."  But isn't that convenient?  Hey, I know an anonymous close friend of Posner myself, and as such, journalistic professionalism demands it be noted that this source has seen Posner fornicate with chickens in front of schoolyards, or that he sucks the sweaty balls of Klan apologists.

This is the man praised by Anthony Lewis of the New York Times, Newsweek, the Washington Post, and Time. Had it been any other writer, he would never write for another paper again.  Other writers have been fired for less to defend the "integrity" of their publications.  But Posner only earns accolades.