New Bugliosi Book

[Duke Lane]

Mr. Super Prosecutor has done it again: put forth the proposition that someone he thinks is "guilty of murder" therefore must be so.

Vincent Bugliosi's recent The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder is not finding the same receptive audience as did his earlier work that we might subtitle similarly, "The Prosecution of Lee Harvey Oswald for Murder" (interestingly, I note his publishers have already re-titled -- and condensed -- it into an almost readable trade paperback called Four Days in November, which the cover says is "derived from" his lengthier masterpiece).

A review on Bloomberg.com by Scott McLemee characterizes The Prosecution of Bush as "one of the most unoriginal, repetitious and self-indulgent books to reach the market in living memory." Woe that he hadn't read that book first before the Post reviewed the much more acclaimed Rewriting History. McLemee goes on to note:

The author, who has also written books on the Supreme Court, O.J. Simpson and the assassination of John F. Kennedy, offers an extensive dossier of evidence that Iraq was invaded on spurious and falsified grounds -- all of it based on recent books and newspaper articles. For anyone who has been living in a bunker for the past five years, "The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder" is a good way to catch up. Otherwise, it reads like a blog in disguise.

... The author exhibits a pronounced tendency to ramble. ... He also finds himself reminiscing (apropos [of] not much in particular) about the electrifying closing speech he made during the Manson trial. ...

The author -- a lawyer best known for putting away Charles Manson -- states in his first paragraph that major publishers "did not want to have their name connected with'' it [and that] two liberal law professors "were afraid to even look at the book."

Why, McLemee asks, "did publishers and lawyers look away when Bugliosi presented them with his manuscript? Not from fear, necessarily. At times," he says, "embarrassment is a decent feeling."

I couldn't help but post a comment:

It is gratifying to see a man so recently a "media darling" for his tome

Reclaiming History

hoisted upon his own petard for utilizing the same techniques - in sum, ego glorification - in "prosecuting" a popular president for murder as he did in "prosecuting" the ever-unpopular Lee Oswald for the same thing.

Apparently, the great Vinnie Bugliosi, the man who "is most famous for putting away Charles Manson"

over 30 years ago

, believes that that long-ago victory bestows infallability upon him and all he pronounces now.

One should perhaps read his "Prosecution of Lee Harvey Oswald for Murder" AFTER reading "The Prosecution of Bush" to determine for oneself whether his arguments in the former have any more validity than they do in the latter. It is difficult to imagine that, on inhaling, Bugliosi can be lionized for assuring us that "we were told the truth," and upon exhaling, vilified for trying to tell us "we've been lied to."

One would think that either his arguments and tactics are equally as valid between the two books, or equally as invalid. Or can legal literary man be both genius and fool all in one year?

(Couldn't help myself.)