Quien Es More Wacko?

Further to my post below on the nuttiness of the 9-11 "researchers" I thought it would be useful to break them down into levels of whack.

Let's give the movement some credibility here, and say that the lowest level of crank is represented by those who believe that the attacks happened, but that there was something fishy about the collapse of WTC 7. I don't know for certain, but I think nobody died in that collapse, so it's not that nutty a theory, although of course, it's also nonconsequential.

At next lowest level of nuttiness, I would put the people who believe that Flight 93 was shot down but the government is covering it up. This is insane to anybody who knows anything about how well secrets are kept, but it's not that much of a stretch to believe that the government knew that Flight 93 was headed back to the Capitol and needed to be shot down.

After that, it gets pretty nutty, and fragmented. There are two basic working theories among the 9-11 conspiracists: LIHOP and MIHOP. LIHOP is Let It Happen On Purpose, and MIHOP is Made It Happen On Purpose. Under LIHOP, Bush knew about the 9-11 attacks beforehand and allowed them to go forward, while the MIHOP brigade believe Bush (or more likely Cheney) planned the whole thing.

Well, it's not hard to see that there aren't many sane choices between those two, but at the same time, LIHOP is actually more sane than MIHOP even though they're both thoroughly in the fruitbat area.

Ready? Here's my breakdown:

0. Normal. Believes 9-11 story as generally understood
0.5. Wary. Thinks perhaps WTC 7 was brought down intentionally with no loss of life.
1. Paranoid. Believes 9-11 story as generally understood but thinks Flight 93 was shot down.
2. Mildly psychotic. Believes Bush allowed some part of 9-11 to happen.
3. Obsessed: Believes Bush allowed all of 9-11 to happen and shot down Flight 93.
4. Crazed: Believes Bush ordered some part of 9-11 to happen.
5. Whack: Believes Bush ordered it all in an incredible master plan.

Now, you know how it is; I could come up with levels of nuttiness beyond that, like that Captain Kirk beamed up all the folks who would have died and put them on an Eden-like world, or that the government has them all living in the witness protection program.

So where does Loose Change fit on this scale? Well, clearly they're pegged out beyond wack. Not only do they believe in the Master Planner Bush theory, but they also buy into the Bumble Planes nonsense, and the idea of a cruise missile or a military aircraft hitting the Pentagon.

Think about this for a second. What is the nutty theory that Loose Change doesn't endorse? If we include the things that were dropped for Version 2 (like the missile before impact theory, or the pod theory), there is very little that Loose Change hasn't endorsed at one time or another.

And that may be why it's been so successful. They've coopted their fellow "experts" on the subject by adopting every single one of their theories that is kookie enough to be appealing and not easily disproven.