Re: A Better Way to Think About Conspiracy Theories

On Thursday, March 4, 2021 at 12:33:27 PM UTC-5, Steve M. Galbraith wrote:
> On Wednesday, March 3, 2021 at 11:46:04 PM UTC-5, John Corbett wrote: 
> > On Wednesday, March 3, 2021 at 9:18:15 PM UTC-5, Steve M. Galbraith wrote: 
> > > On Tuesday, March 2, 2021 at 11:41:54 PM UTC-5, John Corbett wrote: 
> > > > On Tuesday, March 2, 2021 at 4:14:04 PM UTC-5, Steve M. Galbraith wrote: 
> > > > > One of the best columnists in America, Ross Douthat, on conspiracy 
> > > > > thinking and how to distinguish between legitimate conspiracy views - 
> > > > > since conspiacies do occur - and illegitimate ones. 
> > > > > 
> > > > > A key point about questioning the "official story": 
> > > > > 
> > > > > "And this points to an excellent rule for anyone who looks at an official 
> > > > > narrative and thinks that something seems suspicious: In following your 
> > > > > suspicions, never leap to a malignant conspiracy to explain something that 
> > > > > can be explained by incompetence and self-protection first." 
> > > > > 
> > > > > The rest here: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/02/opinion/misinformation-conspiracy-theories.html 
> > > > I couldn't agree more. I believe the biggest error in the entire 
> > > > handling of the investigation was allowing Jackie to select who would 
> > > > do the autopsy. The result was it was conducted by pathologists who 
> > > > were used to doing autopsies on people who died of cancer or heart 
> > > > disease, not gunshot wounds. They had no experience doing medico-legal 
> > > > autopsies which require a special type of expertise. I don't blame 
> > > > those who decided to take the body back to Washington because that was 
> > > > a prudent move from a security standpoint. Once they got to 
> > > > Washington, there were plenty of qualified forensic medical examiners 
> > > > in the DC area to do the job right. Had that been done, it would have 
> > > > quashed some of the nonsense. Not all of it of course, but it would 
> > > > have given the conspiracy hobbyists one less thing to talk about. 
> > > Well, Finck was very well qualified in the area of "wound ballistics." 
> > > He testified that he had done hundreds of autopsies including ones where 
> > > the victim died of gunshots. Granted, he assisted the autopsy and maybe 
> > > should have been put in charge. Or had a larger role. But Jackie's wish 
> > > to have the autopsy done at Bethesda Naval Hospital meant that any 
> > > autopsy doctor would likely have little acquaintance with gunshot 
> > > wounds. 
> > Finck studied battlefield wounds which is not the same as a medico-legal 
> > autopsy. The latter is a requirement for legally establishing cause of 
> > death. That wasn't what Finck was doing in the autopsies he performed. 
> > While the two are related, there are different requirements. 
> > 
> > https://www.homeopathy360.com/2020/02/27/medico-legal-autopsy/#:~:text=Medico-legal%20autopsy:%20It%20is%20done%20in%20cases%20of,on%20embalmed%20dead%20bodies%20to%20enhance%20medical%20knowledge. 
> > > 
> > > Their biggest mistake was not dissecting that back wound. And Humes should 
> > > have called Perry during the autopsy and not the next day. Take away those 
> > > two errors and a lot of this nonsense would have been avoided. 
> > The problem was that since none of them had done a medico-legal autopsy, 
> > they didn't know how important that was. A forensic medical examiner would 
> > have known the importance of that and insisted it had to be done so as not 
> > to jeopardize the prosecution because of a botched autopsy. 
> > > 
> > > Manchester has a great section on the chaos and confusion that ensued the 
> > > assassination. Nobody was thinking clearly, everyone was panicking and 
> > > confused and didn't know what was going on. Of course conspiracists will 
> > > just say they were all acting; they knew what happened - they were just 
> > > pretending to be confused. You know the routine. 
> > Even though it was an extraordinary circumstance, that was all the more 
> > reason to follow well established proven procedures. When you make it up 
> > as you go, you are more prone to make mistakes. JFK should have gotten the 
> > same kind of autopsy that a John Doe shooting victim would have gotten.
> As you know, for lots of reasons the Kennedys simply didn't want and 
> wouldn't permit a full autopsy. 

It shouldn't have been their call. As AG, RFK should have known why a full 
autopsy was necessary and if he wasn't thinking correctly, somebody needed 
to explain it to him. The justice of the peace in Dallas released the body 
to the SS on the condition that Admiral Burkley stay with the body until a 
full autopsy was completed to maintain chain of possession. I'm sure the 
expectation was that a qualified medical examiner do a complete autopsy. 
Had it been known they would do a half assed job of it, I'm betting the 
Dallas authorities would have thought twice about letting the body go 
under those circumstances. The autopsy that was done would probably have 
been accepted by the court had the case gone to trial but it would have 
opened up an avenue for the defense to challenge the legitimacy of the 
autopsy and if the were successful in getting the autopsy thrown out, 
prosecution would have been problematic.

> Who was going to overrule them? 

Somebody with some courage.

> Who had 
> the authority to do so? Kennedy was attorney general. LBJ? Katzenbach? 
> McNamara?

RFK was head of the Justice Department. At that point, DOJ had no 
jurisdiction. LBJ hadn't ordered the FBI to take over the investigation at 
that point. It was still a state murder case and the body was released on 
the condition that a proper medico-legal autopsy be performed.

> I doubt that any military hospital - Bethesda or Walter Reed - 
> had the type of autopsy team that would have been best. 

There were plenty of qualified medical examiners in the DC area. Nothing 
said it had to be done at a military hospital and in fact it shouldn't 
have been.

> There were no 
> established procedures to follow in such a situation. Not for a president.

From a legal standpoint, it didn't matter who the victim was. It was a 
state murder case and everything that would be done for a John Doe murder 
should have been done for JFK. Had people just followed normal procedures 
instead of thinking they needed to do something extraordinary, a much 
better autopsy would have been performed.

> They needed several days to go over things. Talk to the ER physicians, 
> view the films, talk to witnesses. But they were going to bury JFK in a 
> day. None of that could be done.

They weren't going to bury him until Monday. Yes they wanted the body 
available for the ceremonies, lying in state first at the White House for 
dignataries and then the Capitol for the public but they had plenty of 
time to do a proper autopsy. They just had the wrong people doing it.