posted on August 24, 2001 07:11:49 PM new
Even if he had nothing to do with Levy's disappearance he sure made it clear to everyone that he has SOMETHING to hide.
Probably quite a few things.
I wonder if he realizes at all what a self centered snake he showed himself to be on TV?
He may really think it was beneficial.
It would not surprise me if she was killed just to put him in exactly the position he is in. Or perhaps she went into hiding for that reason. I assign it a lower probability, but she did want to work in the CIA or the NSA so maybe she could think that way.
posted on August 24, 2001 07:23:16 PM new
I just feel awful. I really didn't (don't) want to offend anyone with my statement(s) and I'm truly sorry. Especially you 3 - Shosh, Femme, toke....my face is completely red.
It's hard to understand how Condit can be found guilty based only on the fact that he was having an affair with Chandra. He may be withholding information about this affair from the media based on legal advice and a sense of decency in consideration of his and her family but I doubt that he would withold from the police any facts that might lead to
an understanding of why she disappeared.
posted on August 24, 2001 09:43:22 PM new
So many keep screaming "he lied! He lied!" Well, duh. Of course he did. Now be honest, if you were having an affair and reporters asked you about it, would you admit it? Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, whatever--it's not realistic to expect a person, merely because they hold public office-- to say "why, yes, I *am* having an affair" in response to such a question.
I'm a bit concerned...first we had political correctness sweep the nation, with "PC police" as self-appointed watchdogs...now we are seeing self-righteous MPs (morals police) doing the same thing.
posted on August 24, 2001 10:38:36 PM new
OK Helen.....now I feel like Queen of the Pod People. I thought "they" (a triad, of sorts) were being sarcastic.....
I feel a LOT better now and thank-you for saying what you did. I feel the same about you all too
posted on August 25, 2001 04:18:26 AM new
bunnicula - How silly of me to think he would not lie. I mean I should just grow up and realize that is the norm and just expect to be lied to. In fact why ask anything since I can just expect as a normal course of events to be lied to.
An while we are being modern why get up set that he is cheating on his wife when obviosly that is also the norm in congress - really among the minor criminal activities that body embraces.
All my silly midwestern values are starting to embarress me. I mean I have not had an affair in - wow - 32 years! I just have no social life at all. Something wrong with me!
posted on August 25, 2001 05:11:15 AM newcheating on his wife when obviosly that is also the norm in congress - really among the minor criminal activities
What State(s) still have laws on the books making in a criminal activity to cheat on ones spouse?
Not that it's Moral, but also, not something to but one in jail over.
posted on August 25, 2001 05:38:41 AM new
A married woman I was 'involved' with in Mississippi told me it was illegal. I rarely worried about the legal aspects, but her Harley riding husband did concern me. Nothing could interrupt the throws of passion like the sound of a motorcycle.
posted on August 25, 2001 05:48:20 AM new
Condit legal problems might come in the way of 'obstruction of justice'. I know it will be simplified to a 'private sex matter' by some but I don't think the justice department will be thinking that way.
posted on August 25, 2001 05:53:06 AM new
The laws are way out of date. In Michigan it is considered prostitution legally just to be notorious for having casual sex even if no money changes hands.
A lot of states still have morals laws but they are not enforced unless someone is looking for something to nail someone and can't find anything else.
I care what he does not because he is a congressman or because it is illegal but because it is wrong and hurtfull and the sort of behavior that cheapens marraige and makes the society we live in of less value. My brother -in-law acts the same way and I am equally angered. Being a public figure just makes the impact of his actions weightier than joe - smoe the appliance repair man.
I care enough that if a person has no morals I will refuse to do business with them. If I could I would force them right out of the community and down the road. If we could still dual I would put a ball right between my brother-in-laws beady little eyes.
You've got to realize that it's a big and competitive game amongst all of the young floozies, err, interns, in Washington. They keep score and obtain status by the number of and most especially the level of their seductions. That game is played for their own personal achievement.
Additionally, very few of the women working in Washington at the made up jobs called various things do not accept side employment working for favors pursuant the interests of one or more of the continual lobbying efforts by special interests.
Also, it's obligatory to accept the favors of all or any of the young women offered as and used as trading material in the you scratch my back I'll scratch yours game of legislative sponsorship and passage.
Call it whatever you will, but it's what makes the wheels of Washington turn. Not to play is a sure way for any member of congress to enjoy only a brief and unsuccessful tenure.
posted on August 25, 2001 03:51:51 PM new
Nope no letters - no laws - just if enough people would not sell to them or buy from them they would get the idea they were not welcome. We have a stalker like that in our town. Forced a lady to close up her business and move away while he was in prison for stalking her. Busted in her house - vandalized her car and boat. Now he is out of prison and a lot of people in town say he treats me OK so what does it matter if he stalked this lady - but I won't work for him or sell to him. He is a nut case and I am just waiting for the next case were he gets fixated on someone.
posted on August 26, 2001 09:33:17 AM new
Condit Spoke, but Said Zilch
Ellis Henican
August 26, 2001
Give Gary Condit credit. He packed an extraordinary number of miscalculations, mistakes and misjudgments into a single half-hour of TV. Here are 25 ways the cornered congressman blew his big chance to explain himself.
1. Clearly, he should have copped to the affair. Repeatedly dodging the question gave him absolutely nothing - except the indelible image of a man who will not come clean.
2. He should have delivered a direct, unstinting apology to the people who deserve it most - his constituents, his wife and the suffering Levy family. That might have bought him some sympathy. A little bit. Boilerplate lines like "I'm not perfect" aren't nearly good enough. What's wrong with "I'm sorry?"
3. He should have completely rethought the helmet hair-do. In Condit's case, the sins of the heart reveal themselves in the hair. It's contrived. It's slippery. It looks so fake. It's a microcosm of everything people hate about him. Never has a man's own hair looked so much like a toupee. It is his own, right?
4. If he was going to ape the Clinton style of obfuscation, he should have added a dollop of the Clinton charm. Obviously, Condit is no Bill Clinton.
5. Then, how about a little emotion at least? A tear? A quake in the voice? Something - anything - to show he cared one bit about this "very close" friend who has strangely disappeared.
6. He shouldn't have underestimated Connie Chung. No, she's not a pit bull like Mike Wallace or Bill O'Reilly. But her questions were blunt, persistent and to the point. If Condit could only handle softballs, he should have done the interview with Larry King.
7. He should have remembered he was appearing on TV. The words alone were bad enough. Once the tone of voice and the nervous facial expressions were mixed in, Condit's dismal fate was sealed.
8. He should have conceded he'd done something wrong. Anything! Admit the moral misdemeanor of the affair. That way, people are more likely to believe your denials of the real felony here, involvement in whatever it is that happened to Chandra Levy.
9. He should have listened to his lawyer. It is impossible to believe that Abbe Lowell - or any half-competent lawyer - would have told Condit to handle the interview this way.
10. He should not have blamed the Levys for his refusal to admit the affair to Chung. They never asked him to dodge this central question, contrary to what he repeatedly claimed. That single insistent deception poisoned the whole interview.
11. He should not have answered like a robot, without a trace of emotion or feeling in his voice, when Connie Chung asked point-blank if he had killed Chandra Levy. "I did not," the mechanized Condit said.
12. He shouldn't have fallen back on so many other, unresponsive responses. One example of many: When Chung asked if he and Chandra had spoken of the future, he snapped: "We didn't have cross words."
13. He should not have let so much anger creep into his voice, however he felt about Chung.
14. He should have given up the broken-record act. "I've been married 34 years. I have not been a perfect man. I have made mistakes in my life. But out of respect for my family, out of a specific request by the Levy family, it is best that I not get into the details of the relationship." How many times to say those words, in precisely that order, in exactly the same tone of voice? Too many to remember.
15. He shouldn't have tried to blame the media. More defensiveness. He put himself in this position. No one else did.
16. He should have acknowledged he was slow to reveal the affair to Washington police, if not outright deceptive. Had he, Deputy Police Chief Terrance Gainer wouldn't have been blasting him again as the week drew to a close. "It took us three interviews and a lot of effort to get as far as we got," the frustrated chief said. Ouch!
17. He shouldn't have limited the interview to half an hour, live on tape. Such tight restrictions made him seem like he had something to hide - even before the interview began.
18. At some point he needed to say, "I blame myself." Why didn't he?
19. He should have avoided condescending expressions like "that aunt" for the chatty Linda Zamsky and "that woman" for his own wife. Didn't he learn anything from "that woman, Miss Lewinsky?"
20. He should never have called Mrs. Levy "confused." The woman's daughter is missing. She may not be publicly criticized, no matter how nutty, mistaken or confused she may appear.
21. He should not have attacked the character of flight attendant Anne Marie Smith, saying she had "taken advantage of this tragedy. She didn't know Chandra Levy. So she gets to have her moment of publicity, of financial gain. And I'm puzzled by that." That made him seem petty and mean.
22. He should not have tried to hide behind expressions like "lawyer-to-lawyer statement." That was how he explained the attempts to get Smith to deny their affair. Words like that always come out sounding like "dodge."
23. He should at least have tried to be likeable. The man is a professional politician. Is that too much to ask? All he tried to do was protect himself.
posted on August 26, 2001 10:12:32 AM new
The following are quotes from a Newsweek interview...
"In his interview with NEWSWEEK, Condit was positively Clintonesque about Anne Marie Smith. “In my opinion, we did not have a relationship,” he said. Asked how he could square his “opinion” with Smith’s detailed description of the affair, he responded, “It would probably be her definition of a relationship versus mine.”
He denied reports by the aunt that he had taken Chandra to out-of-the-way restaurants to avoid being seen. “We didn’t go out to restaurants,” he said. “We never had a conversation about marriage or a future or children,” he added. “She understood her boundaries very well.”
posted on August 26, 2001 10:34:47 AM new
So basically he should have appeared on the interview wearing sackcloth & ashes over a hair shirt, whipping himself with a flail, and thrown himself at Chung's feet weeping.
But why should he have said "I blame myself" if he had nothing to do with Chandra Levy's disappearance? Folks would have taken that as an admission of murder.
posted on August 26, 2001 10:45:41 AM new
It's clear he shouldn't have given a TV interview at all, planning to handle it as he did. The only good thing that may have resulted from this media blitz is that women will no doubt avoid him like the plague in future...once they understand his view of their boundaries.
posted on August 26, 2001 11:00:02 AM new
I saw the DC police chief interviewed by the news media after a Condit spokesperson had made a statement along the lines of "He was asked not to say anything to the media, as to do so might hinder the investigation into Chandra's disappearance". The police chief was asked directly if that were true. He denied that he had ever told Condit he shouldn't or couldn't speak with anyone about anything. (This was before the TV interview we're speaking about.)
Bunnicula - I think I'd feel more like you if, from the beginning, he'd been willing to deny anything to anyone. He chose silence. I could understand him not wanting to discuss the details of his affair with Chandra, if the circumstances were different and we didn't have a missing young woman. Then I would agree it's none of our business.
You know when people are missing or found dead, they always look to the people closest to them as suspects. Then one by one (after interviews) they take them off their lists of suspects. So it was only natural that his affair with Chandra would come to light since they were seeing one another right up until the time she disappeared. He could have averted so much of this speculation by being more open and honest. I could have seen him telling her parents and the DC police the truth, right from the beginning, but adding something along the lines of "But while I was (admit to) having an affair with your daughter, I want you to know I had absolutely nothing to do with her disappearance and I will cooperate in any way I can". Then do so .....not only with them, but with their private investagators and the DC police. Instead he has chosen to stonewall.
posted on August 26, 2001 11:09:07 AM new
toke, ideally women would avoid him, but unfortunately, as krs said, Washington has its share of political groupies.
That is their business.
