The Feds have these e-mails but are missing 3,000,000 from the Adminstration . . .

Cheney ordered a letter forged to be used as propoganda in the US of A . . .

INQUIRY: did the released e-mails include the headers? Emails without headers can't be verified and should be considered . . . Potentially FORGED.

The FBI had seven years to build a case and all they have is the guy is sort of creepy.

Um.... A guy who is talking about feelings of "isolation and desolation" and going through states where he feels he is "just along for the ride" that his brain is taking should, perhaps, not be working with the deadliest substances in the world. Why was this guy not required to pass a psych screening? And if he was, who was the incompetent that passed him?

I agree that this guy sounds like he needs help, but I don't see any indication that he is lashing out or expressing anger. I'm no expert, but to me this sounds like a guy who might commit suicide, but not homicide.

And do any of the e-mails (and, by the way, I really think it should be "e-mail" not "email", but I appear to be losing that argument) include any expression of grievances against the government or the targeted individuals? Where is his anger?

And to whom were these e-mails sent? I mean, if they really included any red flag comments, wouldn't the recipient have done something about it?

For me these e-mails don't add much weight to the FBI's feather-light case.

-- ARG

In that same September 26, 2001 email, Dr. Ivins states "Osama Bin Laden has just decreed death to all Jews and all Americans" -- language similar to the text of the anthrax letters postmarked two weeks later warning "DEATH TO AMERICA," "DEATH TO ISRAEL."

So, um, how did all the wire reporters and TV newsroom copy editors who used suspiciously similar language when they initially reported the news of Bin Laden's decree of "Death to All Jews and All Americans" (not to mention the thousands of other Americans who at one time or another have probably used those exact phrases because they're such obvious cliches) get out from under the cloud of suspicion? Here Ivins just seems to be passing along the same information we all saw reported in the press around this time. Everyone knows "Death to America" and "Death to Israel" as the preferred slogans of Islamic terrorists! The image of the Islamic suicide bomber shouting these words is probably the most broadly shared cultural stereotype we Americans like to entertain about middle eastern culture, right up there next to the image of the mono-browed middle-eastern guy rolling his eyes back in his head and spouting "Lu-lu-lu-luh-luh-luh" just before he detonates.

Additionally, the envelopes of the anthrax-laden letters were addressed with a four digit extension to the ZIP code.

So we're supposed to take seriously the charge that Ivins' use of the optional four-letter zip code extension in his personal correspondence meaningfully contributes to establishing a link between Ivins' and the anthrax mailings? WTF? I use the four-digit extensions, too, if I know them for an address. Many, many people do. The Post Office even runs ad campaigns to promote the use of the extensions. It's not remotely sane to suggest that a preference for using zip code extensions amounts even to circumstantial evidence for a link. It's crazy logic. Like that "They Might Be Giants" song about the guy obsessed with a famous person, who concludes he and the object of his obsession share a special connection because "Her eyes are brown and mine are blue--they both start with a 'B'."

With the saved-letters-and-four-digit zip-code thing: If those paragraphs appeared in a suspect's e-mail, would that not be considered evidence of paranoia?

...The majority of the letters were from the early 1980s through the mid 1990s. Among others, Dr. Ivins sent letters to United States Senators as well as various news organizations.

These seized letters are significant since all of the anthrax-laden letters were sent to members of the Media or members of the United States Senate. ... (08-084-M-01 Search Warrant Affidavit, p23)

I see no linkage with the crime whatsoever in these. Weak sauce. It feels like they are grasping at straws.

With the saved-letters-and-four-digit zip-code thing: If those paragraphs appeared in a suspect's e-mail, would that not be considered evidence of paranoia?

You'd spend an extremely unfruitful and long time searching if you ever set out to find a highly technically proficient, intelligent person or highly-qualified academic who didn't at one time or another grapple with at least minor mental health issues. Nothing in Ivins' emails seems like anything more serious than the run of the mill angsty-stuff most smart people deal with from time to time.

Besides, a more crucial point is this: it's not enough to establish that someone may have been clinically paranoid or had paranoid thoughts to establish the potential for carrying out the specific crimes with which Ivins' is posthumously being charged. Nor does paranoia in itself sufficiently qualify as motive.

Consider this illustration of the point: White House recordings that were made public after the fact unequivocally showed President Johnson to be a delusional paranoiac who believed that a secret Jewish cabal was plotting to gain control over America. Would we accept at face value a DOJ argument that Johnson's paranoia provides a reasonable basis to conclude Johnson plotted the Kennedy assassination (buttressed, of course, by mountains of easily cobbled together circumstantial evidence that Johnson knew the details of Kennedy's comings and goings, had access to covert intelligence networks known to have had previous contact with Lee Harvey Oswald, etc.)?

Not likely. And arguably, in making such an unlikely case against Johnson, it's a lot easier to form a plausible connection between Johnson's paranoia and the actions arising from it: Johnson's paranoia, the case might go, led him to believe he had to eliminate Kennedy and assume the presidency himself to avert the imminent threat posed by the shadowy cabal (the very real threat of which JFK, no doubt, refused to acknowledge).

Crazy people generally do things we consider crazy because their starting assumptions aren't grounded in a reasonable understanding of reality (or the actions they take reflect a profound disordering of the mind--random acts that don't involve a lot of planning or forethought, but that occur spontaneously as the result of a sudden psychotic break).

None of this adds up, whether Ivins was actually paranoid or not.

oh yeah, i think we're in complete agreement. sorry about any confusion. i originally meant to take your quote as a launching-off point in a different direction and then ended up kind of going another way but neglected to go back and revise for sense. d'oh. wish TPM had a preview feature.