If we're going to continue our conversation in public about Condit, we'd
better hurry.  I've seen signs that Conditmania is on the wane.  (And if
I've noticed something, it must have been on yesterday's front page.)  In DC
people are actually beginning to say that the only reason anyone's still
looking for Chandra Levy is because she was having an affair with a
Congressman -- yes, as if the scandal were the only thing keeping the police
on the case!  The Levy relatives still have sympathy from the public, but
the right is now going after them, for not warning Chandra that she was
being led astray by the Big Bad Wolf.  Richard Cohen broke ranks with other
journalists in his column in the Washington Post today.  He wrote,
essentially, "Of course Gary Condit lied about an extramarital affair!  What
difference did that make to the investigation?  The media doesn't care about
Congressmen, or lies, or missing young women -- the media wants an excuse to
talk and write about sex!"
 

I've copied my original arguments and your second set of replies, and I've
added my responses.   I think I used your second rebuttal -- better check.
Where I've cut some of my original arguments, I've substituted "BBB" (for
"Blah Blah Blah").  It's been fun!  Feel free to hammer away!

This is Bart speaking:
This may be confusing for you, because I'm having trouble following it.
Starting at the first line below, Margaret's original comments are in bold black.
My original rebuttal is in black
Margaret's rebuttal is in blue.
Today's rebuttal is in bold orange.

I know everybody says this -- but what "false leads" do you have in mind, exactly?
We can't know when the trail got cold until we find the trail.  If Condit didn't cause her
disappearance, he's the biggest false lead imaginable.

As an experience liar and slippery rascal, I have a huge problem with Condit's
self-given lie detector results.  I think the questions were:

 -Did you have anything at all to do with Levy's disappearance?
 -Did you harm her or cause anyone else to harm her in any way?
 -Do you know where she can be located?

 Now let's speculate (you have to in a murder/missing persons case).
 What if Condit knows, on her last day, that she went to meet the cocaine dealer
 that Condit introduced her to?

 As long as he's writing the questions he's willing to answer, he's guilty.
 If my speculation holds water, he knows something but he still gets to answer
 those 3 questions truthfully. Trust me, that's major guilt.
 

And if your "good friend" was alive and breathing when last you saw her, what's so important
about explaining to the police exactly what was so "good" about your friend?

Again, if he knows she was headed to his coke dealer's house, that's crucial information
that he's not volunteering because the public might accept an affair but no way he'd get
ten votes if she died at the hands of Condit's coke dealer.
 

If I had you on the witness stand, I would ask, "Do you admit that Condit willfully misled police
in a life-and-death situation in the critical hours and days after Chandra's disappearance?"
I suspect you'd be forced to answer, "yes."   That's the only issue I'm concerned with.
 

I'd say:  "I can't answer that, I have no way of knowing what he said to the police, or its relevance
to her disappearance or to the subsequent search for her."   (Well, if I were really on the stand,
I probably would just stammer, sputter, gape and stare,  but that would be what I'd wish I'd said.)

ha ha

We "know" -- from leaks -- that Condit did not acknowledge an affair until his third police interview.
Let's say the leaks are accurate.  If mere hours were "critical," then by the time Levy was reported
missing -- surely, no sooner than three days after she was last seen -- it was already too late to save her,
it was already just a death situation.

Odds are I'm wrong about the cocaine dealer, but it shows how a very simple explanation
could explain how he knew what happened to her, but doesn't know  who actually killed her
or where her body is. As long as Condit is only willing to answer LD questions he wrote,
that's PROOF he's afraid to let anyone else ask him questions.

If you were a more experienced liar and rascal, you'd see this more clearly.
(That's a compliment)
 

How could Condit be honest about an illicit affair?  Denial is to be expected,
and it's easily tested, because women talk.  If all the police needed to know was
"yes" or "no," and Condit wouldn't talk or said "no," they could have gotten a "yes"
from the Levy relatives.  At the first interview,  Condit could have told the police,
"This is no mere affair, Chandra is the love of my life!  We have so many interests
in common!  We are devoted to each other!  But I respect her independence!
We're planning to get married in five years and have children!  She understands the
need for secrecy, until we can be together!  No, we never argued!  Just last month
she asked me about another woman in my life, and I explained it all to her!"

If he had, would YOU regard such an account as the "truth" about their affair?
But the Levy relatives would have confirmed every word he said, because that's
the view of the affair that they had from Levy.  Levy's view of the affair -- her state
of mind -- was more significant than any truth Condit could tell, and the Levy relatives
were arguably as reliable as Condit as a source about Levy's view of the affair.

In my opinion, we have a   guarantee   that he's hiding something.
Koresh, at THIS point, whatever he's hiding must be a MONSTER of a secret.
Besides confessing to her murder, what could be worse that his current situation?
If he has nothing else to hide, why did he have to write his own questions?
 

Whenever someone says, "It's not the money, it's the principle," you can bet it's the money.
For "money," read "sex."  On the other hand, I think you've specified the charge most likely
to stick to Condit.  But let the DC police make the call as to whether Condit's evasion and/or
lack of candor misled the investigation.
 

I think I've made an air-tight case that Condit is guilty, guilty, guilty.
If he will only answer certain questions that he wrote that were framed a certain way,
that means he can't answer questions that he didn't write.
 

Condit has told police he doesn't have time to help them (lie detector)
because he's "too busy" representing his district.

I hadn't heard that excuse from Condit's spokesmen; I just assumed that he
was too smart to submit to a police-sponsored polygraph.

ha ha
I'm surprised you used the words "Condit" and "too smart," in the same sentence
 

Why should Democrats join the Republican mob demanding "sentence first, trial later"
for one who is at least nominally their own?  Can't Democrats at least wait for an indictment,
so they'll know exactly what offense they always suspected he committed?

Clinton's popularity went up when America saw the witchhunt.
Condit is dragging us towards the wrong end of a landslide in 17 months.
 

...and why should anybody stop asking, "Where's Chandra?"
 

Because she's not answering, and we don't know who can answer the question.
At some point, the investigation will be put on the back burner, and if Condit has resigned
under pressure from his own party, the Republicans will be able to say, "The Democrats ran
Condit out of town and got the whole thing hushed up."  It's entirely possible that Condit will
discover that DC is really too small to accommodate both him and Chandra's memory, or he
may decide that his feet are getting burned from being held too close to the fire.
Then he'll jump;  and when he does, he won't have Democrats' fingerprints on his back.

I like that "jump."
Let's hope he leaves a note behind.
 

[I OMIT TWO POINTS ON WHICH WE AGREE -- OR ARE YOU JUST BEING A GENTLEMAN?]

 ha ha - Moi? A gentleman?
 

If Chandra Levy is found to have been the victim of a serial killer,
Gary Condit will weep for her loss.
 

Which Gary Condit are you watching?
Do you know him?
Are you privy to some information about him?
You may live in Modesto, I don't know, but you seem to be giving him every
benefit of every doubt, but all I can see is his crooked smile as he
continues to mislead the police.
 

I'm not giving Condit anything I wouldn't want for myself.
How do you know Condit is lying now?

This is proving to be a clumsy way to debate, because my answers tend to be
"once sentence fits all questions," but if Gary can only answer G" questions and
refuses to answer questions the cops have, he's hiding guilt. You must admit.
 

Look, I don't recall that you made a very big deal about David Brock's recent confession,
so you're being consistent now if you're saying, "Once a liar, always a liar," or "If you start
by lying, when your lie serves your interests, then it doesn't matter if you start telling
the truth later, when the truth can no longer do you any harm."

There's something to be said for either position.  But let's not be like the
so-called liberal media, who look at Brock and say, "Well, since you admit
you were a liar for hire then, how do we know that you're not still lying now?"
What Brock is saying now about the VRWC fits in pretty well with its
well-established MO and any reasonable person's world view.

To me, Brock is just the poster boy for whore journalism.
"Pay me enough money and I'll write that black is white and down is up."
That's how we got Tim the Whore and Cokie the Whore and the others.
That's how we ended up with impeachment - lazy press whores.
Dittoes to your second point.

There are ways to test the validity of what Condit says, too, that don't involve
tossing him into the Potomac to see if the river rejects or accepts him.

I love that!
Can't we try that first?
ha ha
 

It's been what, 83 days?
Is he going to wait another 83 days before he levels with DC detectives?
They say they'll have a fourth interview with him this week.
Will he tell them the truth this time? Or will he need a fifth interview in September?

Well, you're a hard man to satisfy.  Reportedly Condit didn't immediately
tell the police about the affair, and that was a deception; I'll grant you that.
Later, he admitted to the extramarital affair that he tried to conceal
(perfectly consistent with the way he'd been living his life).  Why should we
treat his belated admission of the truth as evidence that he's still lying?
Lying about -- what?  Suppose he has nothing else to hide or to tell?

He took a "funny" lie detector test, but has refused a "real" one.
If it was a blow job, I'd say let him get on with his life.
But we got a dead girl here.
 

You have to admit the possibility, I think, that Condit no longer has a
reason to lie, because now everybody knows about his affair.  At first,
Condit might have thought that he was keeping his (or even their) secret.
It might have been his intention never to admit to the affair.  (That
resolve would be consistent with his alleged threat to drop any girlfriend
who talked about their affair.)  He might not have been able to imagine how
blowing his cover could save Levy from an unknown fate.  (I'm not sure I
can, either.)  But the secret was already out, because Levy had talked to
her aunt and her mother about the affair.  Fool that he is, Condit damaged
his reputation for truthfulness by failing to confirm a relationship known
to two other people who were also talking to the police about Levy.  Pretty
stupid -- but did Levy die because of his evasion?  If knowing about the
affair from "Day One" was so all-fired crucial to the police, then blame the
Levy relatives for failing to identify their daughter/niece to the police as
"Chandra Levy, former Bureau of Prisons intern and current lover of Gary
Condit" when they called in the missing person report.

I admit that's an excellent point, and I think you were the first one
to make that points weeks ago. Why didn't the family come forth sooner?
 

You won't be satisfied until Condit's shown us where her body's buried.
I accept the possibility that Condit -- liar and sneak that he is -- just doesn't
know what happened to Levy.
 

Well phrased, because you have forced me into a box.
I must declare that I, too, accept the possibility that he might be innocent.
So why can't he look the cops straight in the eye?
That's one you have failed to answer.

I think your "problem" is you don't have much scoundrel in you.
Everything I've ever read of yours was the truth.
I'll bet I've met more liars than you, and more Condits than you,
and I'm giving you the BartCop Guarantee - Condit is lying.
We just don't know about what, and we have a dead girl.
 

There are hundreds of maybes in this story, but "Was Condit honest with
police when it counted?" isn't one of them.
 

If we'll never know what his honesty might have meant, we'll never be able to tell whether
her life was hanging in the balance.  But it's safe to say that Condit's first thought was for himself.
The "poor man" scenario, I have to admit, is pretty close to pure fantasy.
 

Condit is in an OJ-type hole.
Even if Chandra shows up healthy and happy tomorrow (not gonna happen)
Condit is still the guy who fiddled while his girlfriend was burning.
 

  Claimer:
 I shortened this debate by about half.
 I hope Margaret doesn't feel like I took out her best points, but I had four colors or fonts
 trying to separate what was written by us over the last 2 weeks and I got a headache trying to
 make the colors and stuff match, so I took the easy way out and just hacked it up.