Bush, Manson, and the Media Blackout - Bugliosi Interview Part 2

The reality is that if you're unknown and less effective, you can get published and heard.  If you're well known and highly effective, you're not allowed to disagree.

For a book of this nature, people take me seriously, because I write very, very serious books, and I can say this.  This book is identical to every other true crime book I've ever written.  Some people have said it's my greatest true crime book.  I'm not going to say that one way or the other.  It's certainly my most powerful, explosive book.

What I'm saying, Michael is that this book is identical.  I present the evidence with powerful inferences and the law, the applicable law.  I present the evidence and the applicable law to prove my case.  That's the only way I'm capable of writing.

MC:  130,000 have sold right now, or it's probably above that, isn't it?

VB:  I really don't know what the number is, but the book is a best seller.  It's number ten this week on the New York Times, and that number is not a particularly high number for me, but I can tell you that the publisher is ecstatic about it, because they say, "Vince, come on.  This is incredible.  You've been essentially blacked out by the mainstream media, and you're still a New York Times best seller."

Why am I a best seller?  Well, one reason is the tremendous word of mouth the book has been given.  Number two, people like you, Michael, who are giving me a voice to convey my message to the American people.  And progressive radio.  By the way, that New York Times article, my publicists were high fiving it back there before it came out.  They thought it was going to open up the media to me, because of The New York Times article.  I'm proud of them, because they're at the pinnacle of the mainstream establishment, and they've kind of chided the rest of the media for blacking me out.  It did not open up the media at all, or hardly at all.  I was on one show -- what's the -- not McDougall.

MC:  On television?

VB:  Cavanaugh, Scavanaugh --

MC:  Oh, Scarborough.

VB:  Scarborough.  I was on the Scarborough show early in the morning.

CNN came to the house and talked to me for a couple of minutes on the blackout, very, very little, and then they wanted to do a regular interview with me. And they were disgraceful, absolutely disgraceful.  They interviewed me for around 20 minutes, taped it, and then they put four and a half minutes out there that basically almost converted it into a pro Bush piece

What they did is they totally bastardized the 20 minutes.  And this was CNN.  Now, people have asked me, "What's the genesis of all this?"  And I'm no authority on this, because I haven't studied contemporary history, but I can tell you just my sense, it's the despicable right wing in America.  They have transformed this country into a nation where people like myself -- and many other people said the same thing -- for the first time ever do not feel 100 percent comfortable.  They have transformed us into a nation where someone as honorable and decent as Mario Cuomo could say, "I respect Rush Limbaugh," an uncommonly loathsome individual.

MC:  I had not read that until I read it in your book.  I was stunned.

VB:  Yeah.  If I may be so presumptuous, Mario Cuomo does not respect Rush Limbaugh.  That would not be humanly possible.  Limbaugh is just endlessly reprehensible.  And yet he said that, and I think he said it because he's sufficiently intimidated to say that.  People yield to fear.  They capitulate to fear, and they cater to the source of the fear.  The left fears the right in America.  Why?  Well, the far left and the far right are both daffy, zany, but there's a big difference.  The people on the far left are not mean people.  They may be crazy, but they're not mean.  The people on the far right are mean spirited, horrible human beings.  They're rotten from the top of their head to the bottom of their feet.  And the left fears the right in America.  That's why the left leaning stations, networks and cable, will not have me on, because they're fearful of being savaged by the right if they have me on.

MC:  Well, and then there's the element of corporate ownership too, because if CNBC or NBC has you on, their parent company, General Electric, might feel a little heat.

VB:  Right.  Right.

 1  |  2  |  3  |  4  |  5  |  6