Truthers Come Out to Dance

As if by chance, last night I caught a bit of "La Bamba" starring Lou Diamond Phillips and Esai Morales. The sight of Esai Morales on the screen triggered a memory in brain. You see, during the "darkest days in American History", Esai came out as a full-blown Truther. Some evidence here - Esai Morales supports the 9-11 Truth Movement

Anyway, why bring this up now? Because, evidently, people who are full blown Truthers still have access at the highest levels of government:

Invited onto the dance floor last night by actor Esai Morales at an annual Washington, D.C., gala held by the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts, Sonia Sotomayor drew cheers for her salsa steps and turns during a mambo number, reports the Reliable Source blog of the Washington Post.

Trutherism Is Now Acceptable

I've been saying for years that Trutherism would eventually gain the credibility of the JFK assassination conspiracies that have created a massive industry for people chasing down the phantoms of right-wing CIA and FBI agents colluding with anti-Castro Cubans and Carlos Marcello henchman to take down the President. Rasmussen reported last year that 35% of Democrats polled believed that Bush had a hand in the events of 9/11. Then today, John McWhorter, an intellectual who has garnered acclaim from the Left and the Right, suggests in The New Republic that it's perfectly acceptable for somebody to hold these views.

There's the standard. It's acceptable for someone to hold these views and still be part of the mainstream. If that's the case, then then no longer can the loons be kept out of the club.

Granted, Howard Dean (head of the DNC the last time I checked) called it an "interesting theory" but that falls just shy of founding a committee that was leading an effort to force Congress to investigate. He later walked that back.

You will see more mainstream Democrats push this theory now. They will do it out of solidarity with the martyred Van Jones and they will do it because they need to broaden the acceptability of the idea. They must do so because so many Democrats already believe it and if they don't make it acceptable, they will see more people like Van Jones fall.

UPDATE: The Nation suggests that the Truther committee of which Van Jones was a part was really just pushing for another investigation of 9/11 because the pre-2007 Congress was too willing to avoid an investigation of the Bush administration's role. So, now we are to believe that Trutherism is really just a desire to reinvestigate 9/11 and not an assertion built on the implicit belief that Bush and Cheney were willing to murders tens of thousands of Americans.

If they can make this assertion stick then they could eventually force a reinvestigation of 9/11. It may seem completely implausible but that didn't stop Congress from reinvestigating the asssassination of JFK fully 15 years after the Warren Commission had published their report.

Trutherism: What does Obama Believe?

The question is not, "does President Obama believe that Bush knew of or was complicit in 9/11?". I'm sure he doesn't. First, because it's ludicrous on its face. Second, because if he became President of the USA and information was shared with him that indicated as much and he did nothing to prosecute the Bush administration for it, then he is an accomplice after the fact.

The question is, "does Obama believe that it's acceptable for anybody to hold those views?". His reaction to the Van Jones/truther news indicates to me that he does

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs limited his remarks about Jones on Friday, saying only that he "continues to work in this administration." As to the Sept. 11 conspiracy theorists, Gibbs said, "It's not something the president agrees with."

And if it's true that Obama believes Trutherism is an acceptable view, that's reprehensible. If he doesn't believe that it's unacceptable, but is unwilling to say so for fear of alienating the 35% of Democrats that do, then that's reprehensible as well.

Trutherism vs. Birtherism

I was thinking about this as the beliefs of Van Jones, the Green Jobs Czar, come to light. For those who do not know, he was one of the founding members of a Truther Commission and also one of the signatories of their petition demanding that Congress look into the Bush's role in 9/11. Just to be clear, they weren't just curious if the Bush administration was involved, they were asserting that as a truth that needed to be uncovered.

So, which is worse? Birtherism is the belief that Obama is not eligible to be President of the United States because of a technicality - some believe that Obama was born in Kenya and that although his mother was a citizen, she may not have spent enough time as an adult in the US before travelling overseas and giving birth to Obama in Kenya. They believe that there has been a conspiracy by a number of people to keep this secret - several at his birth which would have included family members, several in the state government of Hawaii when they found out and Obama, when he found out. In the end, they believe that it's a conspiracy of dozens to trick the system.

On the other hand, what do truthers believe? At the most extreme, they believe that the Bush administration, the US military, members of state and local government, private citizens as well as the Air National Guard conspired to set up the murder of 10s of 1,000s of American civilians. I say 10s of 1,000s because that was the goal.

So, these dozens (?) of conspirators all agreed to collaborate in this murder because they all believed what? It's ridiculous to argue.

They all believed in the W administration? Really? 8 months after a horribly divisive election debacle there were a huge number of true believers who wanted to support mass murder?

They all believed in the need to invade Afghanistan, a country that 80% of Americans still cannot find on a map?

They all believed in the need to invade Iraq and take its oil? Something we still haven't done?

They all believed in taking down bin Laden - a man that 90% of Americans had no knowledge of before 9/11?

So, Birthers vs. Truthers. I, of course, am neither. That said, who's got a more implausible theory? Who's more nutter? I will go with Truthers.

Imagine the Reaction

If Van Jones was a birther!! If so, then that would have been something the Washington press corp could have spent some time on when the guy was put in this position. Nah, he's just a truther like 35% of the Democratic party.