Sabato reviewed by DiEugenio

[Jim DiEugenio]

I've always thought Sabato was a talking head with a silly mustache. He only wrote his book for a one time payoff on the fiftieth anniversary. He's not worth a serious review IMO. I did read the CTKA review though.

More importantly, I've learned much from DiEugenio's deconstruction of Bugliosi in 'Reclaiming Parkland'. At it's best, it's persuasive. And in argument, that's all that matters.

Now that I've gotten past the Hollywood stuff and the Tom Hanks tedium, I think it's a more important book than 'Destiny Betrayed'. It is focused on taking down Bugliosi's (ie., the etablishment's) conclusions, carefully, logically, one-at-a-time. That's important and no one yet has done it to my knowledge. So if Bugliosi's book is 'for the ages', so is 'Reclaiming Parkland'. It is the only serious point-by-point rebuttal I know of.

More than once, the author returns to Bugliosi's dubious pledge at the beginning of his book, to state his opponents' arguments in the way they would make them, and leave nothing out. DiEugenio shows repeatedly, either Bugliosi was dishonest about that, or the JFK assassination is a subject way out of his intellectual depth.

I highly recommend 'Reclaiming Parkland'. Notwithstanding the title, it's not about a flop movie.

Thanks Marc. I may have been the only guy to read all of the book, plus the CD. When I asked Gary Aguilar if he had done so, he memorably replied, "Are you crazy!"

To this day, I don't understand why Bugliosi took that pledge in his introduction. If I was his editor I would have told him, "Look you wrote a long prosecutor's brief. You did not include all the exculpatory stuff. Someone is going to take notice and go after you on that." Either the editor did not tell him that, or Vince ignored him. With all due respect to VInce, who I still like personally, he deliberately left stuff out. For example, about Ruby's polygraph. He read that report. He then censored it for the reader.

About the title. They gave me a list of five titles to pick from. I wanted to call it either "Refuting Bugliosi" or "Doubting Bugliosi". I got overruled. Turns out I was right. But 90% of the time, the publisher gets to name the title.