What you say plausable, from a Psychiatric point of view. Americans are suckers for 'foreign' experts [Ahmad Chalabi comes to mind]. Being a 'French Expert' in America and reporting on America in France sounds consistent with the workings of a scam artist. But where is the money? Sociopaths are in it for personal gain.
The other thing is his risk-taking. The Iran bombing plan, or the interviews with famous people, were bound to draw attention to him in a dangerous way. It smells like either he's a good deal crazier than you characterize him, or he was up to something and was being paid for doing it. Like you, I'd bet on the former, but I wouldn't give odds.
What's interesting to me is that no one has yet come forward with anything about his actual life. All we know is what he is "not." Did he live somewhere? Have personal connections with anyone? Have a source of income? Was he so "banal" that he had no existence outside of his fabricated identities? Does no one actually know Alexis Debat?
I'm not ready to close the door and leave him looking like a Rene Magritte painting. If he's a Rocco Martino, I'd like to see some positive proof...
Posted by Mickey at September 17, 2007 10:07 PMMickey - you have to appreciate the Anti-social personalities always live on the edge. Always push the envelope. It goes like this, once others have accepted lie X, then they move on to lie Y, then Z. Each one more fanastic and less believable than the former. It's those that weren't around for X and then Y and only entered at the point of Z that can easily say, that's ridiculous. These people are high stakes gamblers (many also hit casinos).
As for money, nothing has surfaced to date to suggest that he had much. Limited income is much easier to mask in the day of easy credit. That job at ABC probably gave him several credit lines. If he's a classic case, those credit lines would be pretty much maxxed out.
Chalabi is most definitely in the same psych classification as Debat. Two differences, he's smarter than Debat and he had something to sell that the US government wanted to buy. Regime change in Iraq has been US policy since 1991 and that's what Chalabi was selling.
Posted by Marie at September 17, 2007 10:29 PMrtsp://video.c-span.org/project/ter/ter_wj071807_debat.rm
thoughts?
Posted by JOZ at September 18, 2007 03:59 AMplus Chalabi got paid by the Iranians
Posted by Gay Veteran at September 18, 2007 06:17 AMNB: The name of the journal is, in fact, The National Interest. In the National Interest is the now defunct online-only weekly published by TNI and the Nixon Center.
Posted by Rol at September 18, 2007 07:11 AMThis guy's incredible or wonderful or both. I just glanced at the en.wikipedia and fr.wikipedia articles on him; even discounting much of what's written there, it's clear the guy is a fraud of towering proportions. If anything he deserves a medal for fooling so many people. Or "inversement" the gullibles should be fired.
Posted by CSTAR at September 18, 2007 01:12 PMMarie, excellent analysis. Thanks. I look forward to hearing all about how he actually pulled this off, how he lived, as it emerges. I've encountered someone like this (also foreign--I guess globalization notwithstanding, that still makes it harder to fact check--also an impossibly varied CV, also started by gaining entre to a place where it's easy to do so and then traded on that legitimacy), and was surprised that even when one does notice the discrepencies and oddities, those who are still enamored just don't want to see the signs.
Posted by jane at September 18, 2007 01:21 PMJane - white, college educated Americans are the biggest suckers for anyone with a British or French accent. They can't even tell the difference between a British and an Australian or New Zealand accent. Look at how they all swooned for the crap Blair pitched. More than one American con artist has made use of a fake British accent to pull off his/her scam.
CSTAR - what con-men know is that most people are gullible. It's not true that "all of the people can be fooled some of the time;" it's only about 90%. Plus half or more of the people can be fooled all of the time. Preachers and religious organizations have been pulling that one off for a few thousand years.
Posted by Marie at September 18, 2007 02:23 PMAnother solid analysis, Marie. Kudos.
Posted by Meteor Blades at September 19, 2007 12:42 AMThis guy has surfaced at a school in a Master's program - mid-Calif. coast.
Posted by JuliaJennie at October 23, 2008 09:17 PM