The Lone Scientist Fallacy

Previous Interview with PosnerOLBERMANN: This is our conspiracy nightmare come to full fruit. The FBI source says the White House pressured them to blame it on al Qaeda or somebody in the Middle East. Would there also have been other FBI sources who would have folded under that pressure? How much did the FBI actually drag its collective feet, revealing what they had to have already known about where that anthrax came from? POSNER: Oh, no question that there were sources and officials inside the FBI that would have caved to pressure from the White House. Look, I've been a critic of the FBI for years, from the time they did the Muir investigation and the Oklahoma bombings and other investigations that they've bungled. They are very, very sensitive to pressure coming in from the White House. Remember, put yourself back in the time. Keith, this is October, two weeks after the biggest attack on American soil ever. Largest loss of death from a terror attacks. They are under tremendous pressure. Everybody is worried about the next shoe dropping. Is there going to be another terror strike coming up? Anthrax is out there. And you've got the president of the United States saying, I want this tied to al Qaeda. There is little doubt that this pushed some people either down the wrong investigative path—it slowed up the real path from being found, who was responsible for it, and they did know, as you said a moment ago, that this was weapons-grade anthrax. They had not gone, the hijackers, from box cutters to weapons-grade anthrax that fast.But nobody, including Mueller, had the guts to stand up to the president and say, this is just wrong.OLBERMANN: From the "New York Daily News" story to the "New York Times" story that the evidence against this late Dr. Ivins is circumstantial at best. There is nobody easier to convict than a dead man. Are you sold on the idea that he was involved? Are you sold on the idea of the lone mad scientist theory? POSNER: I'm certainly not sold on the theory of the lone mad scientist. I'm not even sold right now on the fact he was involved. I'll tell you why. All we are hearing is one side of the evidence. We're getting it leaked out, as it always is by the government, bit by bit about what happened. And as you said, it's absolutely at best a circumstantial case. The big thing they're hanging their hat on right now is the fact that they have a new DNA type of evidence for bacteria that can isolate this form of anthrax back to a flask that was in the laboratory that he handled, as did at least ten other people and possibly dozens. They have them in New Jersey, supposedly, a time when mail was sent out with anthrax spores from places in Princeton. And they have him holding a P.O. Box at a postal office inside of Frederick, Maryland, where some of the envelopes were bought they think they can trace back to this. It's a case where any good defense attorney, a Mark Geragos, an F. Lee Bailey in his heyday a Roy Black, they would relish this type of case. They could knock it out of the ballpark. I have to say one thing, we cannot allow—I really believe this, on a case this important on the anthrax investigation, for a rush to judgment in a matter in which the prime suspect is dead of an apparent suicide. OLBERMANN: And the key witness against that prime suspect now seems to be the therapist who filed the restraining order against him, Dr. Ivins, Miss Dooley (ph). To put it kindly, her story doesn't seem to be particularly air tight. Among other things, she misspelled her own job title, therapist, in the paperwork. And this timeline is all screwy. Let's look at this graphically. She says Ivins was committed July 10th, signed himself out of the hospital on July 16th. Her restraining order was filed on July 24th. How does a biological weapons expert with fantasies supposedly of mass murder get to sign himself out of a psychiatric facility, and what's the deal with this woman? POSNER: Well, I tell you, the more I look into this, the more questions I have about her. You're right, she did spell therapist wrong on the application for a restraining order. She represented herself. But she did spell subpoena right, although she got the tense wrong. I must tell you something, go on—I suggest to any people watching tonight, go on, Maryland has a great public records file on the Internet. You can go on there and put in her name. You can find out that she has a somewhat unusual past. In '92, she was charged with her husband for battery on her husband. It was a civil complaint. She was picked up with drug paraphernalia at one point. She had a bankruptcy in '99. She is a counselor. She is not a psychiatrist. She is not a psychologist. She's a social worker, but really she is a counselor in a group setting for drug problems.

Channel: News & Politics
Uploaded: November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am
Author: roguegovt

Length: 04:28
Rating: 5.00
Views: 960

Tags: Anthrax  Attack  Fallacy  Lone  Scientist  The  

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