A Conspiracy Theory the Media Can Tolerate

While ABC came under assault from the left in this country for even thinking to air something critical of the Clinton administration's role in the leadup to 9/11, Canada's leading broadcast network was doing the very opposite: airing a "documentary" exploring the idea that the Bush White House was behind the attacks that killed thousands of Americans (often called MIHOP in leftie circles):

On the eve of the 9/11 remembrance ceremonies, the leftist, anti-Bush Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Canada’s national public broadcaster, aired an outrageous and disgraceful documentary on a Sunday news program regarding half-baked 9/11 conspiracy theories that only served to insult the memories of those who perished that tragic day.

Titled 9/11: Truth, Lies and Conspiracy, the only fascinating thing about the CBC show was its complete absurdity and the fact that it actually made it to air.On the conspiracy side, it featured a young, budding “film-maker” whose online documentary portrays the destruction of the World Trade Center towers as the result of a bomb in the basement, demolition explosives planted beforehand throughout the buildings, and the airliner crash, which, it claims, was not enough in itself to topple the towers. According to this masterpiece of misleading fiction, the Pentagon was also hit by a missile, not by an airplane; and the passengers of United 93 didn’t crash into a Pennsylvania field, but disembarked at an airport.

This is a widely downloaded internet conspiracy film that is being translated into different languages. The CBC swallowed it whole.

You might think that this is a problem just for Canadians. Surely if a major TV network tried showing "9/11" here no one would be interested. Think again. About a third of Americans believe in 9/11 conspiracy theories:

More than a third of the American public suspects that federal officials assisted in the 9/11 terrorist attacks or took no action to stop them so the United States could go to war in the Middle East, according to a new Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll.

The national survey of 1,010 adults also found that anger against the federal government is at record levels, with 54 percent saying they "personally are more angry" at the government than they used to be.

Widespread resentment and alienation toward the national government appears to be fueling a growing acceptance of conspiracy theories about the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Suspicions that the 9/11 attacks were "an inside job" _ the common phrase used by conspiracy theorists on the Internet _ quickly have become nearly as popular as decades-old conspiracy theories that the federal government was responsible for President John F. Kennedy's assassination and that it has covered up proof of space aliens.

Big tip of the hat to Ace who adds this:

Fringe? Fringe in its dementia. But not fringe in its numbers.

Where is the media in all of this? Why does Time Magazine play a game of nudge-nudge-wink-wink with these people, postulating that their lunacies are plausible?

The media likes to endlessly repeat that some portion of the American public believes Saddam Hussein was connected to 9/11, and endlessly "debunk" that sentiment (though there is plenty of evidence suggesting Saddam/bin Ladin cooperation on other matters).

Why, then, are they so unwilling to run a major primetime special exposing these maniacs as the paranoid morons they are?