LIE DOWN WITH PROGRESSIVE DOGS...:

Enough of the 9/11 Conspiracy Theories, Already (Matthew Rothschild, September 18, 2006, The Progressive

At almost every progressive gathering where there's a question and answer session, someone or other vehemently raises 9/11 and espouses a grand conspiracy theory. If you haven't had the pleasure of enduring these rants, please let me share.

Here's what the conspiracists believe:

* 9/11 was an inside job.
* Members of the Bush Administration ordered it, not Osama bin Laden.
* Arab hijackers may not have done the deed.
* On top of that, the Twin Towers fell not because of the impact of the airplanes and the ensuing fires but because the Bush Administration got agents to plant explosives at the base of those buildings.
* Building 7, another high-rise at the World Trade Center that fell on 9/11, also came down by planted explosives.
* The Pentagon was not hit by American Airlines Flight 77 but by a smaller plane or a missile.
* And the Pennsylvania plane did not crash as a result of the revolt by the passengers but was brought down by the military.

I'm amazed at how many people give credence to these theories. Everyone's an engineer. People who never even took one college science course can now hold forth at great length on how the buildings at the World Trade Center could not possibly have collapsed in the way they did and why the Pentagon could not have been struck by that American Airlines jet.

Why should their conspiracy theories be any more sensible than the rest of their ideas?

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 18, 2006 8:00 AM