"I especially object to having my character assassinated by reference to events from my past which bear absolutely no relationship to the question of who the anthrax killer is"
About this Quote
Hatfill’s line is the sound of a man trying to yank the conversation back to a single, supposedly clean variable: evidence. The word choice is surgical. “Especially object” performs restraint, as if he’s being reasonable even while alleging a grave wrong. Then he detonates the phrase “character assassinated” - a moral charge that reframes investigative scrutiny as violence. It’s not just that people are wrong about him; it’s that they’re killing his public self.
The sentence is built around a courtroom move: narrow the admissible record. “By reference to events from my past” casts reporters and investigators as cherry-pickers rummaging for salaciousness, and it quietly concedes there are “events” to rummage through. The key pivot is “bear absolutely no relationship,” an absolutist claim meant to foreclose the most common logic of profiling: past behavior as predictive pattern. In a post-9/11 panic, that logic was culturally irresistible. The anthrax attacks demanded a villain; institutions and media filled the vacuum with narrative.
Context matters: Hatfill was publicly treated as a “person of interest” while the case remained unresolved, a limbo that invites insinuation. His intent is defensive, but also strategic: he’s not disproving the allegations so much as arguing the method is illegitimate. The subtext is a warning about how democracies metabolize fear - when the demand for closure outpaces proof, biography becomes pseudo-evidence, and suspicion becomes a career-ending contagion.
The sentence is built around a courtroom move: narrow the admissible record. “By reference to events from my past” casts reporters and investigators as cherry-pickers rummaging for salaciousness, and it quietly concedes there are “events” to rummage through. The key pivot is “bear absolutely no relationship,” an absolutist claim meant to foreclose the most common logic of profiling: past behavior as predictive pattern. In a post-9/11 panic, that logic was culturally irresistible. The anthrax attacks demanded a villain; institutions and media filled the vacuum with narrative.
Context matters: Hatfill was publicly treated as a “person of interest” while the case remained unresolved, a limbo that invites insinuation. His intent is defensive, but also strategic: he’s not disproving the allegations so much as arguing the method is illegitimate. The subtext is a warning about how democracies metabolize fear - when the demand for closure outpaces proof, biography becomes pseudo-evidence, and suspicion becomes a career-ending contagion.
Quote Details
| Topic | Justice |
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