Saturday, February 06, 2010

Well, what did you expect?

Gerald Posner, of Case Closed infamy, is now the chief investigative correspondent for the Daily Beast. He has just been caught plagiarizing from a Miami Herald story:
He said he had no memory of having seen the Herald story, describing himself as "absolutely sure" he did not see it before sending his own story to Beast editors. But that memory must be wrong, he said, because the similarities between the two pieces are too great, and the Herald's story was posted before he e-mailed his to his editors at 2:03 a.m. on Feb. 2.
I'm not sure how one can lose memory of an act of plagiarism committed so recently. But what should we have expected? Gerry is also the fellow who falsely "gave the impression" that he had interviewed James Tague, Carlos Bringuier and JFK pathologist J. Thornton Boswell. In fact, he seems to have lied about Boswell to Congress:
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.
Actually, I think Posner may not be lying in the present instance. It is possible that he does not have any recollection of plagiarizing the Miami Herald story because he may not, in fact, have done the actual copying.

Does he actually write about his own stuff, or does he merely sign his name to it? Some people have wondered about that for years. Suspicions were aroused, in part, by the odd lack of an authorial voice -- by his plywood-flat, "manufactured by committee" writing style. (If you ran his books through one of those programs designed to identify an author by style, what would you get?) During the CC brouhaha, he was a strangely ubiquitous media presence, and in some of his interviews he said things (about Jack Ruby, for example) that indicated an unfamiliarity with his own book.

(I would never be so churlish as to suggest that the same unknown party wrote both the Miami Herald story and the Posner piece. Both concerned the murder of the heir to the Fontainebleau Hotel fortune. An interesting topic.)

On a more substantive level: Before Case Closed, he wrote a work on Josef Mengele. A surprisingly short time before that book appeared, he gave testimony before Congress giving -- in detail -- a completely different (and much more persuasive) story about Mengele's post-war career. Given the long lead times for publication and the amount of time it takes to write any substantive book, this striking about-face was astounding.

The explanation? You may want to look here.

Posner has always denied being a "spooked up" journalist. It's just a coincidence that he managed to secure an interview with defector Yuri Nosenko even though the CIA always kept everyone else away from him. And then there's Why America Slept, which is filled with behind-the-scenes CIA and FBI material. Time claimed it to be an "indictment" of the agencies, but it clearly was part of a faction fight within the intelligence community:
The stuff that is going to spark hot debate is Chapter 19, an account—based on Zubaydah's claims as told to Posner by "two government sources" who are unnamed but "in a position to know"...
Posner elaborates in startling detail how U.S. interrogators used drugs—an unnamed "quick-on, quick-off" painkiller and Sodium Pentothal, the old movie truth serum—in a chemical version of reward and punishment to make Zubaydah talk. When questioning stalled, according to Posner, cia men flew Zubaydah to an Afghan complex fitted out as a fake Saudi jail chamber, where "two Arab-Americans, now with Special Forces," pretending to be Saudi inquisitors, used drugs and threats to scare him into more confessions.
This was published in the summer of 2003. Think about it: At that moment, Gerry Posner was getting "methods and operations" stuff from the CIA that no-one else could ever hope to get -- inside info about the interrogations of Al Qaeda suspects, the touchiest of touchy subjects. Do you need any further evidence to understand what Case Closed was all about?

On the lighter side, I direct your attention to the photo of Posner published above. Note the hair color. Keep in mind that the Mr. Honesty was born in 1954 -- in other words, he's older than I am, yet there's not a touch of gray -- and his hair used to be brushy. If you type "Gerald Posner" into Google, one of the more prominent auto-completions includes the words "plastic surgery."

This may explain Posner's attraction to the Michael Jackson story. Last July, he wrote about Jackson killing himself accidentally. Well, accidents happen. Even plagiarism, we're told, happens by accident. (He also says that scientist Mary Sherman was killed in an "accidental fire" despite the multiple stab wounds.) I must confess that, previously, I never gave Jackson's death too much thought -- but now that I find that Gerry has interjected himself into the story, I'll have to take a look at it. His byline sets off my spook alarm.

(Maybe Gerry had accidental plastic surgery...?)

Plagiarism and giving false testimony to Congress would normally destroy the reputation of a journalist. For Posner, these things always seem to be mere bumps in the road. That fact alone tells you that the fix is in.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

That was a great read. Thank you for doing all that research. And you're just a youngster too.

When I first saw Posner's latest photo, I thought maybe he was the son of the guy who wrote Case Closed. He has definitely had a lot of work done.

-- Boston Boomer

wxyz said...

In view of what you say about Posner what do you make of his claim that Zubaydah was "relieved" to be interviewed by two US agents posing as "Saudis"? How do you assess Zubaydah's reported claim that two of four Saudis named by him had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks? Any thoughts?

Nibbles McGee said...

You have NO IDEA (or maybe you do) how many times I've tried to tell people that Mr. Posner is spookier than the Bell Witch. What the hell is wrong with Americans?

Joseph Cannon said...

I love that phrase: Spookier than the Bell Witch. I plan to steal it one of these days.

I would like to take this opportunity to squash the rumor that Gerry Posner dies his hair with the blood of sacrificed virgins. But his smile looks a lot stranger -- broader -- than it used to.

You know, if he changes to green hair dye and paints his face white, he could step into the shoes of the late Heath Ledger...

Mr Mike said...

Ya think he wore/wears leisure suits? Pastel ones with white slip-on shoes and a white belt?
Isn't that the uniform for most conspiracy book authors?
I know the guys that write all those Bermuda Triangle books would appear on TV wearing them.

Unknown said...

Posner is u g l y. He should sue his plastic surgeons and then copy a book about it!

gary said...

My spook alarm went off in the Michael Jackson case when Gordon Novel's name came up.

G said...

I have too much work on my plate to do an actual authorship analysis right now.

However, I found six additional passages/sentences in Posner's article that had been lifted verbatim from the Miami Herald article.

And with minimal effort (20 minutes), I found a second article of Posner's with plagiarized content.

I e-mailed the info to the writer at Slate.

Joseph Cannon said...

G: Now THAT is interesting. And it could really change things if a pattern develops. I'm going to look for old Gerry stories -- best to capture them now before they can be changed. (Go for the Google cache versions.)

Now it would be very very VERY interesting if Posner cribbed from the same author in multiple instances.

Joseph Cannon said...

G, can you tell me the other cribbed story? I will give all credit for the catch to "reader G."

Anonymous said...

Isn't Zubydah a woman's name in Arabic, at least that what I though.

Anonymous said...

I have had my own (Robert) Kennedy assassination moments while investigating the
Stanford University connected Endovasc biotech fraud whose worthless penny stock
shares,besides turning up in a CIA connected boiler room called Bellador Group that
also promoted shares of the CIA'S SRA International - (the U.S. government's 'IT' for
the White House that 'lost' Clinton email and maybe W's).The SEC,GAO and all sorts
of military contracts are given to them and the CIA's In-Q-Tel is or was the major share holder.
An attorney from Santa Monica named Francis Pizzulli,(famous for his role in sueing a tabloid
in the California Supreme court because it alledged his Pakistani client was part of Robert Kennedy
assassination ),was given at least $125,000 of worthless shares by Endovasc's CEO David P Summers
around 2003.As it turned out attorney Francis Pizzulli was soon to be known as American torturer Jack or Jonathan
Idema's attorney in Afghanistan as well and I believe Endovasc shares were used for that purpose.
- Tony Ryals

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2008/03/373930.shtml

California Attorney Francis Pizzulli,Robert F Kennedy Assassination,Afghhan Torture,Fraud
author: Tony Ryals e-mail: wolfblitzzer0@gmail.com
And now I discover that Santa Monica,California attorney Pizzulli,the penny stock scoundrel and defender of torturer and Middle East money launderer Jack Idema,(through Moslem 'hawala channels and possibly through attorney Pizzulli's own underworld U.S. penny stock connections),- was also instrumental in using the California Supreme Court to suppress investigation into the assassination of Robert F Kennedy as well !

................................

Also if anyone here is good at identifying plagiarism or the origen of obscure terms,what about the term 'naked shorting' or 'naked short selling' that was first used by Clinton money launderer James Dale Davidson to distract from illegal but SEC protected pumps and dumps of Genemax,Endovasc and later by Chris Cox and SEC itself to 'explain' the collapse in share price of Fannie Mae,Freddie Mac and even Goldman Sachs shares !? For some reason the Zionistas Carl Levin and Arlen 'Magic Bullet' Specter joined Utah Moron Senators Bob Bennett and Orin Hatch in promoting this fraudulent term.Who first used it ? Am I correct in attributing it to James Dale Davidson who also started the Clinton killed Vince Foster rumor ?
I sure wish someone like Joseph Cannon would investigate this outrageous 'naked short selling' claim being made by U.S.Senators as well as the SEC itself.

http://www.phillyimc.org/en/senator-carl-levinsarlen-specters-naked-short-fannie-mae-theory-vs-jfk-magic-bullet-assassination-th


I wonder if Carl Levin and Arlen 'Magic Bullet'Specter can tell us how to say 'naked shorting' or 'naked short selling' in Hebrew and how long it has been a problem on the Israeli TASE stock market or is this fraudulent term used by right wing Beltway protected scum like Steve Forbes National Taxpayers Union founder James Dale Davidson only used by Israelis in the U.S. to take attention from their illegal pump and dump money laundering scams against Americans !?

lambert strether said...

Anonymous at 12:13 PM:

I'm guessing no.

Nibbles said...

"I love that phrase: Spookier than the Bell Witch. I plan to steal it one of these days."

I stole it from you, hon. From a post about Judith Miller you made during the first Fitzmas.

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