Neo-neocon: The Conspiracy of Kennedy Conspiracists

There are Kennedy conspiracists and then there are writers who write about Kennedy conspiracies. The former may be kooks and fools, but the latter are knowingly dishonest.

I’ve been reading a book by Vincent Bugliosi entitled "Reclaiming History", which purports to definitively prove that Oswald killed JFK by himself and was not part of any conspiracy. Bugliosi amasses a mountain of evidence (almost literally; the book is huge) and strikes down each and every conspiracy theory point by point by point. ...Bugliosi makes an especially interesting point in his introduction, one I hadn’t really thought of before, which is that although most of the people who believe in the various conspiracies are probably sincere in their beliefs, many of those who actually write the conspiracy books are not. They are lying and they know it, but they count on their readers not to realize this.

Why would they lie about things that are easily checked?

Bugliosi notes that conspiracy sells, and he is correct. There is no question that some of the motivation to write these things is to make money. But for at least some of the conspiracy authors and promoters there is probably another reason, which is that belief in conspiracies undermine faith in our government as a whole.