Truthers At Anti-Obama Rally in SF

Discussion here, along with lots more photographs.

Birthers and Truthers: Equally Moronic, But Not Equally Pernicious

Jonah Goldberg wrote yesterday:

As I wrote last year, I find it amazing that the "Birthers" are considered more dangerous and evil than the "Truthers." The Birthers believe that an ambitious man who travelled a lot as a kid has concealed the circumstances of his birth so he could be eligible for the presidency. I don't think they've made their case. And, frankly, I'm not sure I'd want them to at this point. Aside from the horror of a Biden presidency, I for one don't yearn for a constitutional crisis. And while I am sure there are more elaborate and crazier versions of Birtherism, the basic allegation isn't that crazy, at least in the abstract.

He's wrong there; Birtherism is crazy, just as crazy as Trutherism. They have a lot in common, including waving away all evidence that contradicts them as evidence of the coverup.

But I agree that the Truthers are more dangerous and evil than the Birthers, which statement came under attack from Eric Boelert and Kevin Drum (who, to their credit, dismiss the Truthers as "whackjobs (sic) and bombthrowers"):

Compare that to the birthers. It's bad enough that prominent conservative pundits like Rush Limbaugh, Liz Cheney, and Sean Hannity have flirted with the birthers. But what's worse is that birtherism seems to be a perfectly acceptable belief among actual Republican leaders. Sarah Palin thinks it's a question well worth asking. Roy Blunt isn't sure Obama is a citizen. Dick Shelby thinks it's curious that we haven't seen Obama's birth certificate. Michele Bachmann recently showed up at a tea party event and palled around with birther queen Orly Taitz.

I'm in agreement that both the Truthers and the Birthers are crazy. And I'm even in agreement that Birtherism appears to be more widespread among Republicans than Trutherism ever was among rank and file Democrats, and even more acceptable. And I'm appalled at those on the right who've embraced the Birther nuttery.

But for chrissakes, let's not forget the magnitude of the charges. On the one hand, you have a supposed conspiracy involving huge segments of the government, military and other professions in America to kill 3000 people.

And on the other you have a supposed conspiracy of a few people (most dead) to conceal the real circumstances of birth of a man who later grew up and was elected President.

Suppose both theories turned out to be true; which would result in executions? Nobody (well, nobody sane) would suggest the death penalty for those covering up Obama's birth, whereas I'd probably be among those recommending execution for Bush if it were proven to my satisfaction that he ordered or knew in any detail of the impending terrorist attacks.

Let me repeat this: Both conspiracy theories are retarded. Both share Phil Berg, too. But 9-11 Troof is pernicious in a way that the Birther nonsense isn't.

Truther Decline Showing in Polling

Orphia Nay at JREF points out the latest poll result.

Holocaust Museum Shooter Was 9-11 Truther

Well, well, scratch a 9-11 Truther and find a Holocaust Denier, yet again.

Authorities have confirmed that James W Von Brunn, a known anti-Semite who has published works concerning Adolf Hitler, the Third Reich and white supremacy was the gunman who entered Washington D.C.’s Holocaust Museum on Wednesday and shot a security guard before being shot himself.

Check out signer #9196 on the Justice for 9-11 Petition.

9196. James W. von Brunn, Maryland, USA

Note that the signers are up to 16,000, so it's not like one of us debunkers went in and added his name to the petition to make the Troofers look bad.

And in keeping with our notion that if you're stupid enough to fall for one conspiracy theory, you'll probably fall for another, von Brunn was also an Obama "Birther".

Hat Tip: JREFer sylvan8798.

Update: No surprise, he was a big fan of Infowars:

# JAMES VON BRUNN Says:
March 7th, 2008 at 10:35 am

Yours is an excellent site. Thanks for your efforts.
KEEP FIGHTING!

I HAVE WRITTEN A MOVIE-SCRIPT SET DURING U.S. CIVIL WAR. MANY PROBLEMS CHALLENGING THE SOUTH HAVE PARALLELS TODAY. PLS. PUT ME IN CONTACT WITH A MOVIE PRODUCER-DIRECTOR OF MEL GIBSON’S PROFESSIONALISM. WE ALL WILL PROFIT
JVB

The security guard has died. That makes five people murdered by 9-11 "Truthers" in the last year, and six people murdered by cretins that frequented Infowars.

Richard Falk: Still A Crackpot

And still a Princeton professor and a UN appointee. He's just published a new article on his 9-11 nuttery:

From this perspective, and given the dark cloud of doubt that lingers over the official 9/11 narrative, why was the issue not even discussed during the many months of presidential campaigning? As far as I know it was never mentioned. And the explanation is not the urgency associated with the widening economic crisis or the tactical interest of the Democrats to avoid offending Republicans in their search for support across party lines. The truth is deeper, and far more disturbing.

As far as I can tell, the real explanation is a widely shared fear of what sinister forces might lay beneath the unturned stones of a full and honest investigation of 9/11. Ever since the assassinations in the 1960s of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X there has been waged a powerful campaign against “conspiracy theory” that has made anyone who dares question the official story to be branded as a kook or some kind of unhinged troublemaker. In this climate of opinion, any political candidate for high office who dared raise doubts about the official version of 9/11 would immediately be branded as unfit, and would lose all political credibility. It is impossible to compete in any public arena in the United States if a person comes across as a “9/11 doubter.”

Actually it did come up during the campaign on several occasions, Richard. Remember, Ron Paul being asked about the Truthers during a Republican debate?



It also came up indirectly when Bill Clinton was campaigning for his wife and got interrupted by the fruitcakes. Remember that one, Richard?



I am not Bill Clinton's biggest fan, but that was a moment that I stood up and cheered for him.

As for Falk, if the UN were capable of being embarrassed by their endorsement of idiots like him, they'd thank him for his service, give him a gold watch, and hustle him off the stage. But it is the UN, after all.

Update: I thought I'd take another couple whacks at the Falk pinata, and by extension, David Ray Griffin. Falk notes in his introduction that:

David Ray Griffin and others have analyzed and assessed these discrepancies in such an objective and compelling fashion that only wilful ignorance can maintain that the 9/11 narrative should be treated as a closed book, and that the public should move on to address the problems of the day.

But he also claims:

What has not been established by the “9/11 Truth Movement” is a convincing counter-narrative – that is, an alternate version of the events that clears up to what degree, if at all, the attacks resulted from incompetence, deliberate inaction, and outright complicity.

Ah, but here Falk is not up to date. Griffin has assembled a counter-narrative (convincing or not). Griffin clearly believes in outright complicity, not deliberate inaction. For example, consider his continued insistence that the phone calls from the planes were faked. If Griffin believed in LIHOP (deliberate inaction), he would not deny the phone calls, because the phone calls do not disprove LIHOP. LIHOP assumes that the hijackers were Arab terrorists, but that the government knew about their planned attacks ahead of time and allowed them to go forward. It is only MIHOP proponents who have trouble with the phone calls.

Griffin also believes in the vast conspiracy; this is not some small operation. As James pointed out last week, he apparently believes that the bodies of the passengers of Flight 77 "could have been transferred to that middle building from somewhere else and to the people at the pathology institute they would assume they all came from the Pentagon."

I'm starting to think we should assemble a list of all the wacky things that David Ray Griffin believes. He's such a slippery customer that it's easy to forget that he endorses some of the nuttiest stuff in 9-11 Denial.

9-11 Truther's Book Debuts at #1 on NY Times Bestseller List

(Welcome, Ace of Spades, Conservative Grapevine and Damien Penny readers!)

But you can probably guess the punchline: It's not a 9-11 Truth book.

In the summer of 2004 the conservative gadfly Jerome R. Corsi shot to the top of the best-seller lists as co-author of “Unfit for Command,” the book attacking Senator John Kerry’s record on a Vietnam War Swift boat that began the larger damaging campaign against Mr. Kerry’s war credentials as he sought the presidency.

(snip)

Significant parts of the book, whose subtitle is “Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality,” have already been challenged as misleading or false in the days since its debut on Aug. 1. Nonetheless, it is to make its first appearance on The New York Times best-seller list for nonfiction hardcovers this Sunday — at No. 1.

Corsi embraced 9-11 Trooferism in January of this year on Alex Jones, citing the microspheres argument of Steven Jones:



Here's Corsi on Corsi, also from the Times. Somehow he neglects to mention his 9-11 nuttery. That's not particularly surprising; he also forgets that he bravely led the charge against the North American Union in 2007.

UPDATE: The NY Times' Caucus Blog runs with the story:

Among the follow-up efforts to Jerome R. Corsi’s “Unfit for Command,” which inspired the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth attacks on Senator John Kerry in 2004, is “Obama Nation.” But the conservative commentator’s book about Senator Barack Obama appears to have distracted him from another project he was planning in January: exposing what he calls the government’s inadequate explanations about the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center.

And it turns out that Alex Jones' show is not the most objectionable outlet where Corsi has appeared:

Perhaps Corsi’s most telling appearance, however, has been on The Political Cesspool, an overtly racist, anti-Semitic radio show hosted by self-avowed white nationalist James Edwards. Corsi was interviewed on the Cesspool on July 20 and is scheduled to appear again this Sunday, August 17, joining a recent guest roster that has included Christian Identity pastor Pete Peters, Holocaust denier Mark Weber and former Klan boss David Duke.