Reply #148: The suspicion that it was an assassination

[Lydia Leftcoast]

is definitely bubbling under the surface and will not go away.

I was living in Oregon when the crash happened, and people who knew I was from Minnesota would mention the crash to me and then ask almost surreptiously,"Do you think it was really an accident?"

The last time this happened was when I went to visit my 92-year-old great aunt. We were bewailing the Bush administration (she's a senior activist who has worked on health care issues), and she expressed the wish that Wellstone were still around. Then she added, "I don't think that crash was an accident."

As a mystery fan, I find motive, means, and opportunity in the Wellstone case, but I'm not any kind of an aviation expert, so I can't say for sure that the plane was sabotaged. But my gut feelings won't let me rule out the possibility, especially given the timing. I would not have had these suspicions if the crash had occurred in the summer of 2002, or if Wellstone had died of a some medical condition such as a heart attack.

But the only people who really know what happened (unless it was an assassination) are dead, so unless someone fesses up, we will be arguing this question for years to come.