Well, a prophet is never known in his own time, as they say. Or at least not for a few weeks. Talking Points first started turning a jaundiced eye towards the Gary Condit’s non-denial denials way back on May 18th. And by now of course everyone’s gotten into the act. Yesterday The New York Daily News said:
It doesn’t help that Condit bears a striking physical resemblance to actor William Macy, who played a mild-mannered car dealer with the anxious grin whose murderous plot spins wildly out of his control in the movie “Fargo.”
But wait a minute! Didn’t Talking Points flag the Condit-Macy connection back on June 19th! I mean, God!!! What is journalism coming to nowadays when a young, up-and-coming writer can’t even get credited for his own semi-libelous riffs on the events of the day!?!?!
Anyway, enough of this lameness.
We’re clearly into the phase of the Condit story where most of the developments are meta-developments, or perhaps better to say para-developments — events which tell us nothing really new about the underlying question but add embroidery around the edges and interesting but extraneous information from which we can at best infer new insights.
In this category we have Condit’s second interview with the police, his hiring of Abbe Lowell, his meeting with Levy’s mother and so on.
As nearly as I can tell the only significant new detail we have is the Washington Post’s report that in the second police interview Condit said he last spoke to Levy on April 29th.
As your more experienced Conditologists will remember, the 29th is the day before Levy disappeared. It is also the first day on which she was making repeated calls to Condit’s private pager (Time Magazine said Levy’s mother found “about 20 calls” to the number on Chandra’s cell phone bill — but the Time report left unclear how many of those were on the 29th and 30th.)
So what does this tell us?
As nearly as I can tell this is what we know: on Saturday April 28th, Condit’s wife Carolyn arrived in Washington for a visit — something she only does two or three times a year.
The next day, Sunday the 29th, Levy began sending repeated pages to Condit trying to get in touch with him. Some time that same day (either after or before the flurry of pages, we don’t know) Condit spoke to Levy for what was apparently the last time.
After speaking with Condit on Sunday, Levy continued to try to get in contact with him the next day, paging him again repeatedly on Monday the 30th. Also on Monday the 30th, Levy went to Washington Sports Club and cancelled her membership, and sent a final email to her parents about travel plans (which arrived the following day).
One issue that seems very worth clarifying is whether the Condit-Levy conversation of the 29th occurred before or after she started ringing up his pager. If it occurred before the pager calls began, that makes you think something of real importance occurred in the final conversation, leaving Levy extremely eager to talk to Condit again. If the conversation occurred in the midst of those pager calls, the picture is a little more ambiguous.
