From: Jasper
Date: 20 Jan 2005
Time: 23:25:17
Mario, …….I saw that Bailey was setting Fuhrman up and nobody told me about Fuhrman’s use of the n-word. Nobody had to tell me. Bailey wouldn’t have made such a big deal out of that “collateral” point if he didn’t have something to follow it up with and Ito would not have allowed that line of questioning if he didn’t know it was relevant. The smart answer would have been, “I might have used that word in a moment of anger,” or “I’m ashamed to say that I did use that word on this or that occasion.” If anyone had asked Bailey that question, or Cochran or Lange or any of the jurors I’ll lay you odds that all of them would have said, “yes.” ……..It took years for me to see it but after following the pattern of how and why Fuhrman set himself up with the glove-planting story and the release of the McKinny tapes. I finally realized that Fuhrman didn’t really set himself up and that I didn’t see what I thought I did in Bailey’s “clever” n-word line of questioning. Bailey didn’t set Fuhrman up. Fuhrman set Bailey up to make it look as though the defense was “playing the race card” as a smokescreen to hide their client’s “obvious” guilt. …….This was the “angle” Fuhrman needed to guarantee that he would be controversial enough to make his first book a bestseller and that he could spin it the way he wanted to in his book. As Ludwig came to realize, Fuhrman knew what the public would say. He understood how the institutions he was dealing with (the LAPD, The DA, The press and the publishers) invariably operated under specific circumstances and he worked systematically to create those circumstances. He was ahead of everybody at every turn in the case because he was there ahead of everybody to post the detour signs. –Jasper