U.S. REP. GARY CONDIT was no great shakes in Congress. Most people never heard of him until his name began cropping up in May 2001 in connection with the disappearance of Chandra Levy.
In no time at all, Condit went from being an anonymous member of Congress to the media’s favorite maybe-suspect in the presumed murder of the 24-year-old intern. Condit, who was having an affair with Levy before she disappeared, was not eager to help police in their investigation. He lied to the police several times about his involvement with Levy before her aunt confirmed the affair. Condit’s reticence was taken by many to be proof of his guilt.
Condit was never charged in the case, but until the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, drove the case out the headlines, he was being treated by the media as the prime candidate for defendant in the next “trial of the century.” There was no trial — of anyone — even after Levy’s remains were found in a Washington, D.C., park in 2002.
The publicity in the case ruined Condit’s political career. Voters turned him out in the 2002 primary, perhaps reasoning that if he was not a proven murderer, he was at least an admitted adulterer. He sank out of sight, surfacing briefly in 2006 when Baskin-Robbins revoked his franchise for two ice cream stores.
Now the Washington police have asked for a warrant for an arrest in Chandra Levy’s death. It is not Gary Condit, but a man who is in prison for attacking two women at knifepoint in the park around the time Levy disappeared.
Does somebody owe Condit an apology? It is not a question that is easy to answer. Condit began digging his own political grave when he lied to police about the affair. But the media circus that developed around him was due more to media dreams of another high-profile murder trial like that of O.J. Simpson than to any evidence linking Condit to Levy’s disappearance.
Such trials have become a prime commodity on television and in tabloid news. Increasingly, they even leak into the pages of the big daily newspapers. Crime and wild speculation about crime have become staples of the infotainment business. Shows like that of Nancy Grace on CNN Headline News exist solely to winnow the bloody headlines in search of the next big case. The ranks of paid consultants and television crime reporters are full of lawyers and expert witnesses from one of the many previous “trials of the century.”
Condit, once a contender for celebrity murderer of the year, now joins Richard Jewell and John and Patsy Ramsey in the annals of people wrongly pursued by police or the media in high-profile crimes.
But the death of Condit’s career was suicide — assisted suicide, to be sure — and not murder.
There will be another “trial of the century” along at any moment, but don’t expect it to be the trial of the man accused of killing Chandra Levy. He is, after all, a nobody.
madpoet (anonymous) says...
Unfortunately, that is the price you pay when you become a public figure. Look at the recent candidates for Obama's cabinet. It makes me wonder what percentage of politicians cheat on their taxes... You give up a lot of privacy when you run for public office or become a singer, actor or whatever. That is the cold, harsh reality of these United States today.
February 24, 2009 at 1:28 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
create (anonymous) says...
madpoet, I hope you don't mean that ordinary run-of-the-mill people don't cheat on their taxes.
February 24, 2009 at 5:01 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
OutsiderJ (anonymous) says...
Richard Jewell, now there is a name I haven't heard in awhile. Man they trashed him from the rafters to the floorboards. Innocent until proven my foot! I wonder whatever happened to that guy.
February 25, 2009 at 9:23 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )