John Batchelor Not As Scary Sounding in Second Appearance with Imus

Besides being weirdoes, Imus and fellow radio host John Batchelor, who can be heard at night on WABC, discovered they have something else in common: a mutual interest in Hampton Sides’s new book, Hellhound on His Trail, about the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. by James Earl Ray.

“He collects a whole lot of facts that don’t go anywhere, and so they’re sitting there,” Batchelor said of Sides. “How did Ray come to this genius after a lifetime of misery and sadness? How did Ray get here and do this, and who in Missouri put a bounty on Martin Luther King’s head?”

Sides doesn’t solve these riddles; rather, he lets them hang out in there in a way Batchelor called “creepy.” And if something creeps out John Batchelor, that’s really saying something.

“There’s a discontinuity that’s eerie,” he said, referring to Ray’s pursuit of King. “There could be an additional human being in between these events, someone he talked to, someone who communicated some aspect of a plot to him.”

Batchelor has yet to finish the book, and Imus, who read it in a day-and-a-half, strongly suggested he do so prior to interviewing Sides tomorrow on his show. But Imus’s reputation for obsession precedes him.

“I got obsessed with Sam Tanenhaus’s biography of Whittaker Chambers,” he confessed, as though he were at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. “I got where Charles actually threatened my life if I didn’t shut up about it.”

As such, Imus is fixed to become Sides’s Rupert Pumpkin, which would probably work to Sides’s advantage as he tries to sell as many books as possible.

Moving on to an equally sinister subject, the recent Goldman Sachs hearings, Batchelor said, “It takes a strong man not to break out laughing” while watching them.

He warned Imus that should the Justice Department decide to take over the civil case against Goldman brought by the SEC two weeks ago, it could spell disaster, as it did for investment firm Drexel Burnham in the 1980s.

“The buzz from the guys who got busted in the 80s…is if there’s a Justice referrel—meaning, if Holder takes this up and moves criminal charges—Goldman Sachs dies the next day,” said Batchelor. “Over. Close the doors.”

He’s rooting against that unlikely outcome, but said, “From the Justice Department that brought you Khalid Sheikh Mohammed on trial in Lower Manhattan, anything is possible.”

-Julie Kanfer