Oswald in the doorway: the blog of the Oswald Innocence Campaign, by Ralph Cinque

Here is Vincent Bugliosi talking about Oswald's motive for killing Kennedy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4dAkn839Ac

He starts by saying that, as a prosecutor, he doesn't need motive. If he has evidence a person committed murder, he can get them executed without establishing motive. But, he admitted that juries like to know the motive, so he always tries to establish a strong motive. But, he added something that is very telling: He admitted that:

"Absence of motive is circumstantial evidence of innocence."

Indeed, that is true. But, it carries even more weight in this case for the reason that Oswald is dead and there is not going to be a trial. The whole issue of what the legal system requires to convict is now moot. But to people, establishing motive is VERY important, which is why Bugliosi spoke of what juries like. 

So, this is Bugliosi's stab at establishing a motive for Oswald to kill Kennedy:

1) He said that Oswald had "delusions of grandeur." Oh really? Here's the definition:

Grandiose delusions (GD) or delusions of grandeur are principally a subtype of delusional disorder that occurs in patients suffering from a wide range of mental illnesses, including two-thirds of patients in manic state of bipolar disorder, half of those with schizophrenia and a substantial portion of those with substance abuse disorders. GDs are characterized by fantastical beliefs that one is famous, omnipotent, wealthy, or otherwise very powerful. The delusions are generally fantastic and typically have a supernatural, science-fictional, or religious theme.

What evidence is there that Oswald was manic or schizophrenic? He definitely did not have a substance abuse disorder. Grandiosity is a psychiatric diagnosis, but how can it be assigned to Oswald? Based on what? I want to know what the specific medical evidence is that Oswald had delusions of grandeur.

2) Bugliosi said that a squadmate of Oswald's said that he wanted to do something that people would be talking about 10,000 years in the future. He said that? Oswald did? 10,000 years? Ten millennia? Did a squadmate really say that Oswald gave that figure of 10,000 years in the future? Because, if there is any exaggeration in that then it throws it back to Bugliosi, and it becomes his delusion. So, this squadmate needs to be found and interrogated- if he's still alive. The 10,000 years claim needs to be put under a microscope, and if it turns out that there is no solid evidence for it, then Vincent Bugliosi, who keeps saying it over and over in every speech he gives, needs to be disbarred. 

3) He said that Marina said that Oswald compared himself to historical greats whom he read about in biographies. Really? Like who? George Washington? Karl Marx? Who did Oswald compare himself to? And how did he put it? "You know, Thomas Jefferson was great, but I'm just as great." There is this from Marina's testimony:

Mr. RANKIN. Was there anything else of that kind that caused you to think that he was different?
Mrs. OSWALD. I think that he compared himself to these people whose autobiographies he read.

It only says that she thinks he compared himself to the people he read about. And if you read the whole testimony, you can see that Rankin was leading her along, and she was following and trying hard to please, to deliver. Look: What are the chances that Oswald ever actually said to her, "You know, I'm as great as so and so." They are so slim that it makes this entire claim worthless.

4) Next Bugliosi compares Oswald to Charles Manson, which is groundless and reprehensible. But then, he quotes from Oswald's diary in which Oswald wrote that "Anyone who lives under capitalism or communism, as I have, must despise the representatives of both systems." First, I am having no success finding that quote in Oswald's diary. Here is Oswald's "Historic Diary" as per John McAdams, which is what Bugliosi referenced. See if you can find it:

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/historicdiary.htm

But second, the verbs "despise" and "murder" are light years apart in meaning. They are so far apart that, again, it makes this entire claim completely, utterly worthless. 

5) Bugliosi said that Oswald didn't hate Kennedy and even liked certain aspects of Kennedy, but he had "a little jealousy" of him. Vince, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. How did Oswald have "a little jealousy" of Kennedy? What was he jealous about? Did Oswald want to be President? Did he ever express such a wish? Did he envy Kennedy's vast wealth? Did he envy Kennedy's vast harem of women with whom he had sex? What was Oswald a little jealous about? But regardless, Bugliosi's own words rule out hatred for Kennedy as being Oswald's motive. No, on the contrary, Bugliosi said that Kennedy was just a "representative" and not meaning an elected representative, but rather, just being representative, symbolic of, a proxy for: the United States of America. Bugliosi says that it was the USA that Oswald hated. "No question about it; he spoke about it all the time." That's what Bugliosi said. 

Well, in that case, let us see the evidence for that. What is the evidence that Oswald hated America? I want to see it.

According to Bugliosi, Oswald's decision to kill Kennedy was motivated by a combination of two things: a desire for infamy, so that he would be talked about 10,000 years in the future, plus a hatred for America- the whole system, the whole country, and the whole society.  

But, Bugliosi has never substantiated either of those claims, and what makes it worse is that there is no relation, no connection, no association between those two claims. 

First, lots of people hate. There's no shortage of that. But, it's relatively rare for hatred to drive people to kill, especially when it's something as vague as "hating America". Now, I know about the jihadists with their "Death to America" but is Bugliosi really comparing Oswald to them? Furthermore, how many of these jihadists also have the tandem desire to be famous in 10,000 years?

What's really going on here is that Bugliosi is grasping at straws. He doesn't have a case for either one. He doesn't have a case for Oswald wanting fame 10,000 years hence (which, by the way, is an inconceivable amount of time to everybody; not just about everybody, but every single body) and he doesn't have a case for Oswald being a jidhadist who hated America. But, he thinks that if he combines two failed hypotheses that he's building something. He's not. Two wrongs don't make a right, and two failed hypotheses don't make a right hypothesis. It doesn't advance his case in the least. On the contrary, it only weakens it. It only shows how desperate, helpless, and hopeless his case really is.