WaPo Offers Prominent Article to 'Birther,' But Ignored 9/11 'Truthers' in 2004

In its ongoing effort to embarrass conservatives, Tuesday's Washington Post devoted a large front-page Liza Mundy Style section profile to Orly Taitz, one of the leaders of the "birther" crusade to prove President Obama was not born in America. Along with a Jacqueline Salmon profile in July on Randall Terry (shortly after he made waves for saying murdered abortionist George Tiller reaped what he sowed), the Post has betrayed an urge to suggest these are the faces that define opposition to President Obama.

But in 2004, when former Obama White House aide Van Jones signed a petition suggesting an investigation was needed to see if George Bush knew in advance about 9/11 and did nothing to stop it, the Post offered no profile of the architects of the petition at 911Truth.org, or their most prominent supporter, on-and-off leftist congresswoman Cynthia McKinney.

Melissa Radler of the New York Sun reported on it around the third anniversary of the devastating terror attacks on September 10, 2004:

As the country prepares to mark the third anniversary of the September 11 attacks, hundreds of New Yorkers gathered at Symphony Space yesterday for the "9/11 Omission Hearings," where a former member of Congress vying to recapture her seat presided over a day of far-fetched conspiracy theories, America bashing, and calls to impeach President Bush.

Organized by the fringe groups 9/11 Citizens Watch and 911Truth.org, the hearing was modeled on the 9/11 Commission's public hearings held last year. It was chaired by a former congresswoman of Georgia, Cynthia McKinney, who was voted out of office two years ago after she accused the Bush administration of having foreknowledge of the attacks and charged her own critics with being racist.

As Ms. McKinney and her fellow commissioners -- the father of a man who was killed at the World Trade Center and a physician who treated victims at ground zero -- listened quietly, witnesses spun allegations of CIA collusion with Al Qaeda, described American support for Israel as impetus for the attack, and questioned whether the murder of nearly 3,000 civilians was, in fact, an act of terror.

"The attacks of September 11, 2001, were the pretext for the American, and to a lesser extent, the British and Israeli empires to begin seizing, by force, those energy supplies needed to sustain their power, hegemony and their teetering economies," said a former Los Angeles police officer, Michael Ruppert.

The only time the Post noticed 911Truth.org was this year during its brief coverage of the Van Jones controversy.

This would suggest that figures that threaten to embarrass the Democrats are not half as newsworthy to The Washington Post, even if Democrats are the party in power right now.