I don’t think I’ve changed my position on Prayer Man since my very first post on the subject at the Ed Forum, where I simply asked how anyone could possibly believe PM could possibly be Oswald.
Yet, I respect Bart Kamp and Greg Parker and others who remain staunch PM advocates. (Everyone should be an advocate for the release of the original Darnell film if NBC still has it because – well, why not?)
If Oswald was PM, then the entire LN narrative is bogus. What I can’t get my brain around is any conspiracy in which Oswald the patsy was nevertheless allowed to be standing in full view on the TSBD steps, to be seen by everyone in the vicinity and to be photographed by anyone with a camera. It's pure chance that there aren't 50 clear photos of PM.
The only “justification” I ever got at the Ed Forum was from Sandy Larsen. His idea was that the conspirators were flexing their muscles, sending an in-your-face message. “We’re so completely in control that we don’t even care if our patsy is standing there in full view when he’s supposed to be up on the sixth floor shooting JFK.”
Now I see that Greg Doudna is positing that PM is Oswald in the process of escaping, or something like that. Oswald left his PM perch, went up to the second floor intending to go down the northwest stairs and exit out the rear of the TSBD, saw Baker, and ducked into the lunchroom just in time for the lunchroom encounter. What? Talk about ad hoc speculation.
Can anyone see a PM theory that isn’t fundamentally insane? Forget the mountain of evidence, such as the fact that no one on the steps who would obviously have seen Oswald remembered seeing him or that Oswald never screamed “For God’s sake, I was standing right there on the steps! Frazier and Shelley and Lovelady and everybody must’ve seen me!” Forget all that. I’m just curious as to what sort of conspiracy would have allowed Oswald the patsy to be standing on the steps in full view.
I’m genuinely puzzled that people who don’t seem completely off their rockers somehow manage to think PM is a viable theory. It’s one of those things like a Flat Earth where I once would have thought the proponents were just being silly and having fun, but this is clearly not the case. Some people I sort of respect have NO DOUBT!!! that PM is Oswald.
The most common refrain is, “Regardless of whether it makes sense to you, it’s a game-changer if that is Oswald.” Well, yes, of course, which is why even I would love to see the clearest version of the Darnell film. But if the likelihood that it’s Oswald is zero, as it seems to me to be, why do intelligent people entertain this fantasy?
What am I missing?