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quite three weeks ago, my editorial masters at NRO HQ solicited
my thoughts on the Chandra Levy case. I demurred, reasoning at the
time that the matter invited only idle speculation, a surfeit of
which was already erupting across the airwaves and the Internet.
Such speculation did nothing to aid in the search for Miss Levy,
but rather served only to compound the unfathomable grief being
borne by her family and friends. But in the time that has since
passed some things have become clear. Foremost among them, most
sadly, is that Miss Levy is all but certain to have come to harm.
I regret adding my voice to those who would deny the Levys their
fleeting hopes that their daughter will one day be found alive,
but she has been missing since April 30 and the prospects for her
safe return have grown dim. Twenty years in law enforcement have
taught me that evil does indeed walk the world. Chandra Levy, I
fear, has become its victim.
But in whose guise has evil come to claim her? The swirling speculation
has thus far focused on Rep. Gary Condit, and not without considerable
justification. When police officers searched Miss Levy's apartment
they found a photograph of her with Mr. Condit, who, when first
asked about his relationship with Levy, characterized it as a "close
friendship." He continued his denials of a sexual relationship with
her until last Friday, when at last he admitted to investigators
that he and Levy had been lovers. He had been steadfast in his denial
of a sexual relationship "to protect his family."
In this belated admission Mr. Condit has followed a script, one
authored by a much more prominent politician. Though I had hoped
never again to write about Bill Clinton, doing so is unavoidable
under the present circumstances, such was his mastery of the self-serving
yet manifestly absurd denial. In denying his affair with Monica
Lewinsky, Mr. Clinton employed — and encouraged others to employ
— all manner of intellectual and etymological contortions,
to the point that those who hoped to unravel the mysteries of the
Oval Office had to resort to the grade-school exercise of diagramming
sentences. And when finally cornered in his own web of lies he reluctantly
admitted the truth, but said he had lied because he wanted to protect
his family from the meanies who so relentlessly hounded him. What
it boiled down to was something similar to this: "I didn't." "I
wouldn't." "I couldn't have." Then, finally, "Okay, I did, but it's
none of their business."
So, what of Mr. Condit? Let us put aside for the moment the speculation
that he is somehow responsible for Miss Levy's disappearance. He
may indeed be, as we say in the trade, as clean as a Safeway chicken.
An alternative theory, just off the top of my head, is that Chandra
was done in by some rival suitor, one who became enraged on learning
of her affair with Condit. By denying the affair as long as he did,
Condit prevented detectives from even considering this avenue of
investigation. When responding to a report of a missing person,
investigators must quickly immerse themselves in the quotidian details
of the person's life, so as to make an informed decision on the
direction the investigation may then take. In withholding the truth
about his relationship with Miss Levy, Mr. Condit impeded the investigation
at its most critical juncture.
Every televised update on the Levy investigation is accompanied
by images of Condit briskly walking hither and thither through a
phalanx of reporters, cameramen, and still photographers, presumably
in attendance to his continuing congressional duties. And as he
flits about he seems to be constantly and incongruously grinning,
grinning, and grinning some more, like some Cheshire cat loaded
up on lithium. What in creation, we may ask, has he to grin about?
Granted, there is no evidence to suggest that he has harmed Miss
Levy, or even that he had any role her disappearance. But, at the
very least, his behavior in the matter has been dishonorable, even
disgraceful. And in another echo of Mr. Clinton's White House shenanigans,
other women are coming out of the woodwork to say that they, too,
had affairs with Condit, some of them simultaneously with Chandra
Levy. Is it possible that Mrs. Condit will prove to be as numb to
insult as was Mrs. Clinton? Mr. Condit may not be headed for a criminal
courtroom, but some divorce court must surely await him.
We as a country used to expect more from fathers and husbands, and
even more from those who would serve as our leaders. Nearly every
day of my 20 years as a cop I have dealt with the fallout from the
diminution of the family in American life. This will come too late
for Mr. Condit, but I offer a few words of advice to all the other
intern-grabbers and skirt-chasers out there: The time to protect
your family is before you have the affair. If you can't live up
to your vows then get a divorce. I'm tired of cleaning up after
you.
(*Jack
Dunphy is the author's nom de cyber. The opinions expressed are
his own and almost certainly do not reflect those of the LAPD management
.)
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