Vinson’s Variety: Presidential vote still up for grabs
First, let me say when it comes to political party affiliation, I am, as the country folk put it, a fence-straddler, or, to quote Thomas B. Vaughn, a “fierce independent.” In short, I have not yet decided for whom I will cast my vote, Kerry or Bush. As of this writing, I have qualms and quibbles with both.
Recently, there has been much media ado concerning author/historian/Eisenhower Center director Douglas Brinkley’s book, titled “Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War,” in which Brinkley praises Kerry for heroic duty as a swift boat commander in Vietnam. Swift Boat Veterans for Truth chairman Roy Hoffman, a retired naval rear admiral, alleges Brinkley’s bio on Kerry is “replete with gross exaggerations, distortions of fact and outright lies.” Again, I will not take a side here simply because I have not been afforded the opportunity to access and assess all facts pertinent to both sides. However, this much I am certain of:
As most already know, since 1997 I have spent a great deal of time researching and writing about the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King in Memphis, Tenn., April 4, 1968, and the guilt/innocence of James Earl Ray in that historically pivotal event. Personally, I am convinced Ray, though a career criminal, was not the actual triggerman. However, my posture on Ray’s guilt/innocence is secondary, and this is primary:
In the May 1, 2002 edition of Atlantic Monthly magazine, Douglas Brinkley and his wife, Ann Brinkley, co-authored an article titled, “Lawyers and Lizard-Heads.” This was the Brinkleys’ review (for Boston University’s Mugar Library) of a number of letters authored by James Earl Ray while serving time in prison. (If you wish to review this piece, go to Yahoo search engine, type in “Lawyers and Lizard-Heads,” and click on the first availability.) Concerning their review, the Brinkleys give a slanted portrayal of Ray, along with other members of Ray’s family, using such modifiers as “blinking ignorance, pathetic bigotry, and cramped horizons” in describing them.
My intended point here is not to knock the Brinkleys for their personal take on James Earl Ray and his family. Rather, it is to point out they did not conduct thorough and unbiased research. How do I know? Because Jerry Ray, brother of James Earl Ray, is a neighbor, and we talk almost daily, and have been doing so since spring 1997.
When Brinkley and wife were researching for “Lawyers and Lizard-Heads,” they did, in fact, call up Jerry Ray and asked him a few minutely important, near-irrelevant questions. From the get-go, it was blatantly obvious the Brinkleys’ call to Jerry Ray was little more than a cursory ruse: They could claim they talked to both sides in coming about their assessment of Ray’s prison letters.
Instead, they gave lavish kudos to author/attorney Gerald Posner’s book, “Killing the Dream,” published in 1998, where Posner gives an ultra-slanted, no-questions-asked view of James Earl Ray as MLK’s assassin. Posner essentially did the same thing with the JFK assassination in the early ’90s with a book called “Case Closed,” again, portraying Oswald as the lone assassin of JFK – no questions asked! As I mentioned in a related piece, “Case Closed” and “Killing the Dream” are metaphorically comparable to two houses built from the same blueprint – except one was painted white and the other one black. Anyone with a thread of brain, logic, and objectivity can deduce Posner, at best, is a government shill.
I’ll close with this: It looms obvious that Douglas Brinkley is capable of less-than-thorough research when writing on subjects relevant to his personal and professional agendas. I know such to be the case in his handling of the MLK assassination and James Earl Ray’s alleged involvement.
Mike Vinson is a Warren County columnist who can be reached by e-mail at [email protected].