I don't think the things you call absurd are that absurd but I'm not saying it's what happened either.

The thinking goes: if the government employs assassins to do ops like this, they don't want them getting killed or caught. Yet if the assassin escapes, the public will demand they are found. So, they provide a fall guy, someone that can be killed or caught and solely blamed for the assassination, someone with no real connections to or knowledge of the op/other assassin.

If the government does employ assassins to kill heads of state (maybe it's absurd to think they do?), yet it's absurd to employ patsies, then what's reasonable? Is it reasonable to get your assassins killed, caught, or have the public believe a presidential assassin is on the loose for eternity?

There are probably better ways to sneakily kill an old guy than shooting him, but patsies are not "absurd." Unless you believe the official stories of the JFK and RFK assassinations, both are thought to involve patsies (RFK's has incontrovertible evidence of a patsy imo, but I am also an absurd idiot by your standards anon).

The thinking goes: it's one shooter, and one patsy. So, one shooter missed and the patsy did their job. I don't think it's "absurd" to think people make mistakes doing their jobs.