My new book, "Into the Nightmare"

[Joseph McBride]

Sometimes I have trouble understanding a question
if it's too vague or unformed. I don't try to dodge questions if
they are serious and focused on issues. So I look forward to clearly pointed ones
here. There are a lot of highly knowledgeable people here, which
is why I came to this site to have good discussions.

Please help me to help you understand the following two matters, which I now have raised and directed to your attention publicly at least six times in the aggregate:

1. Regarding your hypothesis that J. D. Tippit very well may have been the "Badge Man" figure allegedly firing at JFK from behind the picket fence, I have argued that the ability to hit a stationary target at a great distance under relaxed, non-life threatening circumstances (a skill which, according to Tippit's father as stated in your interview with him, Tippit possessed) does not equate to the ability to hit a moving target under the most pressure-packed, life-threatening circumstances imaginable. Yet your Tippit-as-Badge-Man argument is predicated in great measure (but not exclusively) on a simple "if you can hit a bird, you can hit a president" conclusion.

I find your argument here to be deeply flawed and otherwise uninformed by refined deep political analysis. As a direct consequence, the often valuable insights you present in the book are opened to ridicule.

Please indicate the flaws in my reasoning.

2. Regarding your "agree to disagree" position vis a vis the demonstrably ludicrous and, in my estimation and that of many others, hostile-to-the-truth conclusions of Phillip Nelson, please enlighten us as to the limits, if any, of your collegiality.

Do you "agree to disagree" with lone nut lie proponents Posner? Bugliosi? Rahn? Cinque? McAdams? Dunkel? Specter? Where, if anywhere, do you draw the line and distinguish between honorable argument and enemy action in JFK scholarship?

Do you agree that the LN/conspiracy faux debate is the critical component in the ongoing JFK conspiracy cover-up?

In closing: Previously you have dismissed these questions as unworthy of response by leveling the charge that I had not read your book and thus was unqualified to pose them.

You now seem to have abandoned that wholly spurious claim and replaced it with new evasions: My questions are too vague ... unformed ... not serious ... unfocused ...

So again: Help me to help you.

Sorry, but you seem to be complaining about some other book than mine.

[Charles Drago]

Sometimes I have trouble understanding a question
if it's too vague or unformed. I don't try to dodge questions if
they are serious and focused on issues. So I look forward to clearly pointed ones
here. There are a lot of highly knowledgeable people here, which
is why I came to this site to have good discussions.

Please help me to help you understand the following two matters, which I now have raised and directed to your attention publicly at least six times in the aggregate:

1. Regarding your hypothesis that J. D. Tippit very well may have been the "Badge Man" figure allegedly firing at JFK from behind the picket fence, I have argued that the ability to hit a stationary target at a great distance under relaxed, non-life threatening circumstances (a skill which, according to Tippit's father as stated in your interview with him, Tippit possessed) does not equate to the ability to hit a moving target under the most pressure-packed, life-threatening circumstances imaginable. Yet your Tippit-as-Badge-Man argument is predicated in great measure (but not exclusively) on a simple "if you can hit a bird, you can hit a president" conclusion.

I find your argument here to be deeply flawed and otherwise uninformed by refined deep political analysis. As a direct consequence, the often valuable insights you present in the book are opened to ridicule.

Please indicate the flaws in my reasoning.

2. Regarding your "agree to disagree" position vis a vis the demonstrably ludicrous and, in my estimation and that of many others, hostile-to-the-truth conclusions of Phillip Nelson, please enlighten us as to the limits, if any, of your collegiality.

Do you "agree to disagree" with lone nut lie proponents Posner? Bugliosi? Rahn? Cinque? McAdams? Dunkel? Specter? Where, if anywhere, do you draw the line and distinguish between honorable argument and enemy action in JFK scholarship?

Do you agree that the LN/conspiracy faux debate is the critical component in the ongoing JFK conspiracy cover-up?

In closing: Previously you have dismissed these questions as unworthy of response by leveling the charge that I had not read your book and thus was unqualified to pose them.

You now seem to have abandoned that wholly spurious claim and replaced it with new evasions: My questions are too vague ... unformed ... not serious ... unfocused ...

So again: Help me to help you.

Sorry, but you seem to be complaining about some other book than mine.

This gets more interesting by the hour.

I'm not "complaining" about any book.

I am calling you (presumably) to task on the "Tippit-as-Badge-Man" hypothesis as proffered in the book Into the Nightmare: My Search for the Killers of President John F. Kennedy and Officer J. D. Tippit .

Are you in fact the author of that book?

On page 277 of the volume to which I shall hereinafter refer as ITN, the author "McBride" writes:

"One of the most important pieces of information I gleaned from my interview with Edgar Lee Tippit had to do with J.D.'s shooting prowess. A story his father told me indicated that J.D. possessed, from an early age, an uncanny skill with firearms ... 'He loved to hunt,' recalled [J.D.'s] neighbor and future brother-in-law Jack Christopher. Tippit's father said of J.D., 'He was a good shot,' and that once when J.D. was young, they saw 'a hawk way off sitting on a treetop. J. D. told me, "Get your gun, and I'll kill the hawk." I said, "You can't." He did do it. He killed the hawk with the first shot, at least a hundred yards [away].'"

On page 568 of ITN, "McBride" writes:

"The shot from behind the retaining wall in relatively close proximity to President Kennedy may not have been a particularly difficult one, but hitting its target was crucial to the success of the plot. The accuracy of that shot that most likely was the one that blew out the back of Kennedy's head attests to the lethal expertise of the gunman who fired it. J. D. Tippit's unusual skill with firearms, from boyhood, was attested to by his father, and it was furthered in his U. S. Army service during World War II and his years with the Dallas Police Department. That expertise could help account for why he may have been chosen for the job of Badge Man [.]"

Did you, or did you not, write these passages?

And are you, or are you not, the individual who posted on this forum the admonition that we should "agree to disagree" with Phillip Nelson regarding his "LBJ-as-mastermind" claim?

[Jan Klimkowski]

To the best of my analytical skills and visual acuity, "Badge Man" is some blur on one of Mary Moorman's photograph.

I respect and mourn Jack White.

I loathe Gary Mack.

My own considered judgement is that "Badge Man" is at best a red herring, at worst a psyop to discredit JFK asssassination research.

I do not welcome the resurrection of this random noise....

[Joseph McBride]

To the best of my analytical skills and visual acuity, "Badge Man" is some blur on one of Mary Moorman's photograph.

I respect and mourn Jack White.

I loathe Gary Mack.

My own considered judgement is that "Badge Man" is at best a red herring, at worst a psyop to discredit JFK asssassination research.

I do not welcome the resurrection of this random noise....

With his intemperate remarks borrowed from prizefighters, etc., Mr. Drago seems to be trying to bait me into attacking him,
for some reason. I'm not sure what he's so exercised about, so I won't try to decipher it or respond.

[Lauren Johnson]

To the best of my analytical skills and visual acuity, "Badge Man" is some blur on one of Mary Moorman's photograph.

I respect and mourn Jack White.

I loathe Gary Mack.

My own considered judgement is that "Badge Man" is at best a red herring, at worst a psyop to discredit JFK assassination research.

I do not welcome the resurrection of this random noise....

I thought I was the only one that thought BM was nothing but smudges. After going through a case of Visene and hours spent squinting at the Moorman photo to the point of blindess, I have long ago given up. I think it is a mistake to base anything on the alleged Badge Man character when the evidence is so poor.

[Charles Drago]

To the best of my analytical skills and visual acuity, "Badge Man" is some blur on one of Mary Moorman's photograph.

I respect and mourn Jack White.

I loathe Gary Mack.

My own considered judgement is that "Badge Man" is at best a red herring, at worst a psyop to discredit JFK asssassination research.

I do not welcome the resurrection of this random noise....

With his intemperate remarks borrowed from prizefighters, etc., Mr. Drago seems to be trying to bait me into attacking him,
for some reason. I'm not sure what he's so exercised about, so I won't try to decipher it or respond.

What I have been trying to do is to engage you in a spirited, respectful, in-depth, on-the-merits argument regarding your "Tippit-as-Badge-Man" hypothesis.

Rather than addressing my questions in a forthright and scholarly fashion, you have responded by A) declaring, without any supporting data, that I did not read your book; B) describing my focused, articulate queries as being "vague and unformed; and C) ludicrously claiming that you were not the author of the book to which I was obviously referring.

Now you would accuse me of "trying to bait [you] into attacking [me]."

For someone who so vigorously eschews ad hominem attacks, you seem to have no trouble whatsoever smearing my character, intellect, and motives.

Permit me to give you a bit of unsolicited advice: You are doing neither yourself nor your book any favors whatsoever by running and attempting to hide from serious criticism.

Your Tippit-as-Badge-Man hypothesis is, in my informed estimation, a house of cards that you cannot and thus will not attempt to defend.

And by the bye, your evasions don't pass the laugh test.

As for your bizarre reference to my alleged usage of the patois of prizefighters ... Well, this heavyweight has grown board with sparring with a lightweight.

You stick to your weight class, I'll stick to mine.

[Magda Hassan]

While it would be enlightening if Joseph could address Charles' more reasonable questions re Tippet he is not to be blamed for not wanting to engage with Charles and there are plenty who choose not to.

[Tracy Riddle]

C'mon everybody, let's not form circular firing squads. I only engaged in a little Palmara-bashing because I don't know what he really believes, if anything, about the assassination. But if we disagree about specific matters, we should state our objections and then let it rest. There are at least 10,000 different items we could all disagree about in this complex subject, and unless we're prepared to repeat the religious wars of the Middle Ages, we need to accept that fact. A lot of questions in this case are probably unanswerable at this point.

[Magda Hassan]

C'mon everybody, let's not form circular firing squads. I only engaged in a little Palmara-bashing because I don't know what he really believes, if anything, about the assassination. But if we disagree about specific matters, we should state our objections and then let it rest. There are at least 10,000 different items we could all disagree about in this complex subject, and unless we're prepared to repeat the religious wars of the Middle Ages, we need to accept that fact. A lot of questions in this case are probably unanswerable at this point.

:rocker: Thank you Tracey. And I don't think you are alone in wondering what Vince P thinks this week about the assassination.

[Charles Drago]

While it would be enlightening if Joseph could address Charles' more reasonable questions re Tippet he is not to be blamed for not wanting to engage with Charles and there are plenty who choose not to.

Ahh, the blade beneath the birka.