Bubba to Ronulan Troofers: You're Nuts!

Bill Clinton now ranks #1 and tied for #2 in our "favorite putdowns" of the kooks.

Eventually, Clinton stopped outside a bakery, offered some remarks, and took questions. As he was answering one on Iraq, one of the Paul backers interrupted and shouted that the Sept. 11 attacks were an inside job, and that the U.S. didn’t need to be in Iraq and Afghanistan.

When he dropped an F-bomb, the crowd booed. Clinton, who had tried to talk over the man, gave up.

"You wanna know what I think?” Clinton said. “You guys who think 9/11 was an inside job are crazy as hell. My wife was the senator from New York when that happened. I was down at Ground Zero. I saw the victims' families. You're nuts."

Thumbs up, Bill!



Mark Steyn chips in:

Too true. Many of my friends and neighbors are supporting Ron Paul. He has by far the largest number of lawn signs (or snowbank signs) in New Hampshire's three northern counties. And when the votes are all counted he may yet push Giuliani into fifth place. I know Derb thinks he's a serious chap who'll return America to minimalist constitutional government, but on the ground you hardly get a word about such stuff either from the candidate or his noisy supporters. You do, however, hear a lot of paranoid drivel from folks who are indistinguishable from the kook left.

Anti-war? Fine. Isolationist? Cool. But "inside job"? Clinton's right. (And good for him for saying it: John Edwards would have nodded thoughtfully and promised to get back to the guy.)

Actually, he did.

Troof Movement Growing, But Slowly

At least on a year over year basis. I've been checking the sitemeter at 9-11 Blogger for awhile, and up till now it's made me caution those who would declare this movement dead.

The traffic at 9-11 Blogger is a good gauge of interest in the 9-11 conspiracy theories. As you would expect, the traffic over there tends to peak around September, with that month showing the highest traffic in both 2006 and 2007. This shows the cyclical nature of 9-11 conspiracy interest, and indicates that a year over year comparison is probably best.

In June of 2006, there were 120,000 visitors to 9/11 Blogger. A year later, in June 2007, the traffic was 238,000, almost double the prior year. That's pretty explosive growth, the kind a movement needs if it's going to become a force to be reckoned with. In July of 2006, the traffic was 149,000, which increased to 231,000 in July of 2007. That's a 55% increase; still strong but nowhere near as strong as the June increase.

In August 2006, the traffic was almost 240,000. In August 2007, it was up to 248,000; an increase to be sure, but only a 3.6% gain compared to a year earlier. In September 2006, they drew 322,000. Last month they got 337,000, about 4.6% higher year over year.

It is an open question as to whether they will show any growth year over year in October. Last October they drew 308,000, an average of almost 10,000 per day. Yesterday they pulled in 8,800.

Caveats? About the only one I can think of is the internal squabbling with items like the Kennebunkport Warning dividing the movement. However, the trend towards slower growth was established in August when everybody still thought Webster Tarpley was doing outreach to the peace movement.

So the movement is far from dead, but it's also far from the fast-growing phenomenon that it might have been seen as only a few months ago. And when you consider that it's only 4.6% of the population to begin with, slow growth means they're doomed to failure in their effort to oust the Bush regime.