PBS Ombudsman Laments Association with Truthers

And the fact that Colorado Public Television keeps dragging their name through the mud.

What actually interests me about this new round of 9/11 conspiracy films is not that CPT12 is showing it. Rather, it is the association with PBS that it generates, and with PBS's unwillingness or inability to separate itself more clearly from the production and distribution of such programs. There have been other such cases, especially involving programming for pledge drives. PBS is among the more widely trusted brand-names in the country, so an association with PBS tends to convey legitimacy to viewers, and some of them feel deceived and get upset, as most of the letters below demonstrate.

He notes that Gage's gaggle uses the PBS logo on their page announcing CPT12's broadcast of Expert's Speak Out.

BTW, he also mentions:

"The evidence is overwhelming," says professor Lynn Margulis, one of the experts.

As most of you probably know, Margulis was an expert in biology, which, if the Truthers believed that nano-termites brought down the towers, might actually be a relevant field.  I checked the Wikipedia entry on Margulis, and it turns out that 9-11 Denialism isn't her only bit of kookery:

Margulis later argued that "there's no evidence that HIV is an infectious virus" and that AIDS symptoms "overlap ... completely" with those of syphilis.

Keith Olbermann, Truther

Recent Tweet on the Eichenwald OpEd in the Times:

Certainly makes this clip of Olbermann chastising (correctly) Andrew Napolitano for his Trutherism somewhat ironic:

Toronto Hearings Video

Some Truthers have released a video of last years Toronto Hearings which is edited down to "just" 5 hours.  I am not sure if I have the endurance and self-loathing to get through this entire thing though.  Maybe I can outsource the job to India or something?  If anyone else thinks they can make it through the whole thing, leave some comments.

The Eichenwald Article on Other PDBs

My feeling is that it's a tad overdramatic; on the other hand it is intended to sell a book. Key paragraph:

The direct warnings to Mr. Bush about the possibility of a Qaeda attack began in the spring of 2001. By May 1, the Central Intelligence Agency told the White House of a report that “a group presently in the United States” was planning a terrorist operation. Weeks later, on June 22, the daily brief reported that Qaeda strikes could be “imminent,” although intelligence suggested the time frame was flexible.

Okay, on May 1, 2001, the CIA warns that a group presently in the US was planning a terror strike. And yet the CIA, which had known since 2000 that Nawaf Al-Hazmi and Khalid Al-Mihdhar were in the US, didn't see fit to tell the FBI about their presence until two weeks before the attacks? Or are we supposed to believe that the CIA had information on another group then-presently in the US? Once again, I find myself wondering how George Tenet gets a pass on this stuff. I guess because it doesn't suit the narrative that Bush was at fault.

Gawker says there's nothing to see here. They also link to a bizarre article about a controversial investigation Eichenwald did of a child pornography business. Reading the latter piece, I can get no clear sense of whether Eichenwald is credible on that prior investigation, and obviously that has some bearing on his current work.

I'm Not Dead Yet!

This story couldn't help but remind me of Monty Python.  If you haven't noticed, it has been pretty dead around here.  Hard to find anything to write about, but the Truthers insist that they are still winning.

Eleven years after its birth as a strange stepchild of the response to the attacks on 9/11, the 9/11 Truth movement remains firmly confined to the political fringe. But the truthers retain the ability to rile people up, and on Tuesday a half dozen of them took their case to the Lower Manhattan neighborhood in the shadow of the rising Freedom Tower.

There, the truthers absorbed the abuse of passersby. “You want to be on Hitler’s side, go on Hitler’s side!” one man, Ronald Lefranc, yelled at them. “We are not here for you to fuckin’ open your mouth and protest!” shouted a woman who wore red, white and blue and carried an Army camouflage bag.

The truthers in Zucotti Park,the site of the original Occupy Wall Street encampment, were unfazed. They are as certain as ever that the attacks of September 11 were an inside job, despite a total absence of credible evidence for a massive and complex conspiracy involving hundreds of players in the American government, the private sector, and Al Qaeda alike. They’re also by and large convinced that their movement is growing and strong, despite the fact that it’s become a closed loop of groups and characters who have been going over the same theories, producing similar documentaries, and visiting the same websites for years.

Definitely An Inside Job

The Onion "covers" the unraveling of a 9-11 Truther's life:

“Meanwhile—and this is where it really gets interesting—on four separate occasions in 2002 I recorded my mother saying she thought my research was ‘interesting’ and ‘worth thinking about,’” continued the man, who confirmed he has watched the film series Loose Change seven or eight times in the past week. “How was it, then, that by November of the following year she was calling it ‘crazy’ and ‘sad,’ a complete reversal of her original stance?”

Highly recommended.

Eleven Years Later

As is becoming a tradition around here, we link to the memorial film featuring Enya's Only Time.

No, It Wasn't On the PBS Network

Despite the claims of 9-11 Truther Victoria N. Alexander.

"9/11: Explosive Evidence - Experts Speak Out" is getting public attention and casting doubt on the scientific validity of the U.S. government's investigation into the WTC tragedy. PBS is the first major network to air the program.

Just days away from the 11th anniversary of the World Trade Center tragedy and months away from the U.S. presidential election, a game-changing 9/11 documentary is ranking number three among "most watched" documentaries on PBS and number one among "most shared." Available for free online August 18th - September 4th, the documentary could have a significant effect on public opinion. Both the Republicans and Democrats, as equally staunch defenders of the official story, stand to be affected if the public's suspicion of government corruption grows deeper.

In fact, it was broadcast on just one PBS station, the nutbar Colorado one that has previously aired Loose Change, Press for Troof and other paranoid conspiracy films.

Victoria's a longtime kook, belonging to Scholars for 9-11 Truth, Justice and the America Way, Steven Jones' splinter group.  She describes herself as a philosopher of science.