I know there's a thread going, but it's got over 500 comments and my computer can't even handle that many, and I'm sure others' can't as well.
I just have to share this: This bizarre case is getting even MORE bizarre as the government displays more and more desperation in trying to make their case.
Get a load of this headline from the AP:
Sorority may link anthrax suspect to NJ letters
Sounds promising, no? A lonely scientist obsessed with sorority girls? Right?
Wrong. This is such a desperately smelly red herring tossed our way once again all I can think of is "they must think we're really stupid".
I've had a real problem with the AP for a long long time. They've been schilling for Bush and the neo-cons for years now, and it finally caught up with them with the recent revelations as to the cozy relationship between their Washington head, Karl Rove, and John McCain.
And what gets me is that they seem to realize that most people just sorta graze the headlines, and check out the first coupla paragraphs of a story.
Which in this case:
WASHINGTON - His decades-long obsession with a college sorority may link a former Army biowarfare scientist to four anthrax-laced letters dropped off at a New Jersey mailbox in 2001, authorities said Monday in the latest twist of one of the most bizarre unsolved crimes in FBI history.
U.S. officials said Bruce Ivins' fixation with Kappa Kappa Gamma could explain one of the biggest mysteries in the case: why the anthrax was mailed from Princeton, N.J., 195 miles from the lab it's believed to have been smuggled from.
I bolded the juicy bits. Now there's a big word they've left out here, and that word is: ALLEGED.
Check out what's REALLY said in the story:
Multiple U.S. officials told The Associated Press that Ivins was obsessed with Kappa Kappa Gamma, going back as far as his own college days at the University of Cincinnati when he apparently was rebuffed by a woman in the sorority. The officials all spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case publicly.
WTF? Are these the same "U.S. Officials" who said that the anthrax was probably from Saddam Hussein, back in 2001 when the Patriot Act was up for a vote, along with the Iraq War Resolution looming? Why should we believe any "U.S. officials" especially ones too chickenshit to identify themselves?
And how many guys in college were rebuffed by sorority girls? Gosh, a few MILLION? That counts as a "decades-long obsession"?
Now, check this out. The supposed "sorority" near the mailbox was just an office. It didn't house any co-eds, didn't throw any parties, in fact it doesn't have any of the normal attributes that would normally attract a man to it:
The mailbox just off the campus of Princeton University where the letters were mailed sits about 100 yards away from where the college's Kappa Kappa Gamma chapter stores its rush materials, initiation robes and other property. Sorority members do not live there, and the Kappa chapter at Princeton does not provide a house for the women.
But they're saying that's perfectly good motivation for Ivins to make a seven-hour drive after work to this "special" mailbox because it's 100 yards away from a building that houses an office for a sorority.
That's 100 yards, folks. Not 100 feet. 100 yards, in a city. A football field. That is, literally, a stretch.
Now here's my favorite part of the article, buried quite a ways down:
Even the government officials acknowledged the sorority connection is a strange one, and it's not likely to ease concerns by Ivins' friends and former co-workers who are skeptical about the case against him.
Yeah, no shit Sherlock.
Keep in mind the only person speaking ill of the dead is his "therapist", a woman who's got a longer rap sheet than he does:
Duley, 45, also has a minor criminal record, according to court records. She pleaded guilty in April to driving under the influence and was fined $500 and placed on probation for nearly a year. In October 2006, she pleaded guilty to reckless driving and was fined $580. A 1992 charge of possessing drug paraphernalia was dismissed.
Yeah, that sounds like a real trustworthy source.
I just can't help thinking: What if Stephen Hatfill had committed suicide a year ago? Would it be just like this -- "case closed"?
This whole thing is getting stinkier and stinkier.
UPDATE: I didn't realize till after I wrote this how much Bradblog has been all over this case. What's new there right now is:
Exclusive: Bruce Ivins Was a Registered Democrat
Which is a story that the AP and the rest of the Dinosaur Media might be interested in covering, seeing as how the targets of the actual Anthrax Killer were "liberal" and Democratic. Just sorta doesn't fit now, does it? No it doesn't.
This also dovetails with another story at Bradblog:
Media Fails to Note 'Anthrax Killer' Targeting of 'Liberals'
Gee, what a surprise, the media has been completely silent on the FACT that the targets of the Anthrax attacks back in 2001 were Liberal Democratic Senators and members of the media viewed (especially in the right wing) as "liberal". Yet the article points out that most of these media sources are telling us how "random" the victims were. Yeah, right.
So why the lack of focus --- and in many cases, any mention at all --- of who the Anthrax Killer's actual targets were? If the attacks had been against, say, Tom Delay, Karl Rove and Bill O'Reilly, would the media have noted, in summarizing them upon Ivins' death, that the attacks were sent to "prominent conservatives"?
Of course they would have.
Just when I think I can't be any more amazed at the depths to which our media can sink .....