CON-DIT-IT RETURNS TO THE NEWS

Osama Bin Laden saved Gary Condit's bacon back in Sept 2001. At the time, the FBI had just assigned their number one investigator to the case, but because of 9-11 they had to re-direct their investigative resources toward the terrorists.

The situation wasn't looking good for Condit back then as public pressure mounted during the investigation. The pressure was removed because of 9-11 but his political career was destroyed when the folks back home in Modesto discovered Condit's sleasy private life in DC.

Last night Fox' "ON THE RECORD WITH GRETA" had Condit's daughter on with the usual panel of lawyers discussing the case against her father. It was good tv to say the least. Lots of shouting back and forth. I'm sure the ratings were huge and will propel the story back in the public's eye.

Enter Dominick Dunne.

A couple years back, Dunne made some allegations on TV about Condit that have prompted Condit to file a lawsuit against him. One aspect of Dunne's remarks were proven false after the remains of Chandra Levy were found in Rock Creek Park, but that hasn't caused Dunne to back of his original claims that Condit was involved in her murder.

The lawsuit, if Condit continues with it, will require him to be deposed by Dunne's lawyers. Condit will be forced to answer many questions about his involvement with Levy, including the ones he has to this date refused to answer. This process will be very messy for Condit but I think he'll go forth since it will make him look guilty if he backs away from it. Dunne has him right where he wants him, I think.

Dunne is no dummy when it comes to this stuff, and I think he knew exactly what the ramifications were going to be when he made those statements on tv; it could well have been his plan all along, in order to get Condit out in the open.

I don't know what happened to Levy, but I do know that something about this story is fishy. Dunne is the perfect guy to go after Condit. He's old, experienced, rich, and he's not alone in his beliefs Condit is involved. Not by a long-shot.

Dunne's crown jewel is the Martha Moxley murder case he solved with the help of Mark Furhman. At the time of the murder, the police were looking at the Skakel family's hired tutor, who had the bad luck of arriving for his first night's work the same night Martha was killed. Later, when that didn't pan out, they focused on Tommy Skakel, a family friend and neighbor, but couldn't pin that down, either, or didn't want to, since the Skakels were a very powerful political family connected to the Kennedys. The police let the case go cold for for over 20 years.

Dunne, undaunted, pressed forward with the case and ran across the one piece of information that would eventually solve the puzzle. Mr. Skakel, a rich and powerful man, wanting to remove the dark cloud hanging over his family, secretly hired a PI firm to investigate the murder and find out who really killed Martha. After $750,000 in PI expense, their findings were reported to Mr. Skakel in a good news/bad news format. The good news was they didn't think his son, Tommy, was guilty; the bad news was they thought his other son, Michael, was the culprit.

So, with that information, Mr. Skakel did what some rich, powerful people do when faced with bad news: He buried it.

With the help of an inside source, Dunne took this info and ran with it. Michael is now in prison for Martha's murder some 25 years after he committed the crime.

I'm hoping the Levy case unfolds in similar fashion. And I hope Dunne brings Furhman in on this case, too.