A Sensible Leftist Speaks Out On The Truther/Sheehan Alliance

I've generally found Marc Cooper to be one of the more sensible lefties and a post today decrying Cindy Sheehan's newfound buddies in the 9-11 crackpot movement just reinforces that opinion.

Meanwhile, back to Sheehan. I've been reading on some liberal list-serves how last month Sheehan pulled together a meeting in Philly to explore --omigod-- how to unify the the peace, pro-impeachment and the"9/11 truth" movements. The latter, of course, are the certifiable loons who believe the Twin Towers were dropped by "controlled demolitions" set off, presumably, by the Bush Administration. These are the whack-jobs we want more unity with? Didn't Cindy Sheehan say she was retiring from politics? Can she re-retire, please?

Unfortunately, Sheehan's efforts have borne some fruit -- so to speak. Check out this upcoming event in which the "unity" sought by Sheehan is at least partially reflected. One expert fringe-watcher has extracted some real nuggets from the stew of participants and backers of this horrific event. He notes that speaker Webster Tarpley was a long-time militant in the proto-fascist LaRouche cult. One of the other guest speakers, Ralph Schoenman, has a long checkered history dating back to the 60's when he was accused of manipulating his then-boss Bertrand Russell into endorsing actions he knew nothing about. Jean-Paul Sarte threw a fit over the way Schoenman tried to hijack an international citizens' war crime tribunal over Vietnam. Since then Schoenman has been on a constant trajectory away from Earth and is now deep into 9/11 conspiracy crap which he professes on his regular radio show on the ultra-marginal WBAI.

Meanwhile, Scott Ritter hits on one of my regular themes:

The “impeach now” crowd reminds me of a football coach, late in a season which has produced only loss after loss, imploring his team to throw a “Hail Mary” pass over and over again, all the while suffering sack after sack of its quarterback as the offensive line fails to effectively block and the receivers fail to get open. The season is lost, and instead of pursuing futile and ineffective tactics designed to produce a meaningless score, the coach would be better off seeking to return to the basics so that his team might perform better next season. Only when the basics of blocking, tackling, running and ball handling are mastered can one expect to mount a campaign designed to produce a winning season.

Exactly. And the impeach now crowd's alignment with 9-11 Denial is the ultimate "Hail Mary" attempt.