by PL

First, please read this, from a few years back:

Next, please read this: The “If Linda…” Fallacy.

Then, consider these points:

Mindi Miller’s statement is a simple and obvious example of pandering [pander: “to please other people by doing or saying what you think they want you to do or say“]. Linda Thompson is held in very high esteem amongst Elvis fans, and this whole “Could have saved Elvis” thing starts and ends with her. No one else should add to this absurd position/idea; it’s bad enough one person owns this claim, we don’t need two. (Even worse that so many people buy into it.) But with Linda Thompson’s stature in the Elvis community, it is interesting that Mindi Miller didn’t hitch her wagon to any of the other women in Elvis’s life…no, just Linda Thompson. So it is obvious here that Ms. Miller is jumping on the Linda Thompson bandwagon, and placing herself in that upper echelon of “The People Who (Ridiculously Believe They) Could Have Saved Elvis,” which apparently includes only two people (and a few dishonorable mentions).

Ms. Miller says she “[holds] some anger” about the facts (note: should be plural) surrounding Elvis’s death. Which “facts” would those be? She doesn’t say. The only “facts” I am aware of, that Ms. Miller is also aware of (I presume), are those that are part of this “official” sequence of events: Ginger Alden was asleep in the bedroom, due in part to a strong pain medication that Elvis had requested for her, and it was during this time period of Ginger being asleep/drugged that Elvis, in an adjoining room, suffered a medical emergency and died. Are there any other “facts” that Ms. Miller is referring to? Or, wait, let me guess, she is alluding to the Grobists’ position of “Ginger let Elvis die!” Isn’t that the “fact” Miller is really referring to, without just saying it? Don’t the Grobists understand the code [def. 2]? Sure they do.

As I have asked previously of those who fall under this “Could Have Saved Elvis” umbrella, and who support this bizarre claim, I would pose these same questions to Miller: Do you know the cause of Elvis’s death? If not, how do you know you could have saved him (or “given him a shot”)? What would you have done had you been there? Were you trained in advanced life-saving procedures in August 1977? Or by “saving” Elvis do you mean you would have been sitting right next to him in the bathroom and when he collapsed you would have called for help? Isn’t this what you really mean? Never mind that the notion that anyone would have been sitting in the bathroom with him is beyond ridiculous.

Or does, “If I had been there…” actually mean something entirely different…?

These folks always throw out the concept of the “girlfriend protocol,” that phantom set of rules that all the “girlfriends” were supposed to follow in terms of their babysitting efforts for Elvis. (And yes, if there was a protocol for “watching” Elvis then it was babysitting.) But wait, didn’t Elvis have two actual babysitters on the payroll back then, on-duty that day, who were supposed to be at least in the vicinity? Yes, he did. Rick Stanley was supposed to be on-call, alert, and available from 12:00am (midnight) to 12:00pm (noon), and his brother, David, was supposed to be on-call, alert, and available from 12:00pm to 12:00am. But they weren’t, were they? Funny how the responsibility for Elvis always shifts to Ginger Alden, but not to the two guys who were actually supposed to be there. Or to the doctor. Or to the nurse. Or to anyone else.