Inside Job

In my last post, I showed you my favorite pictures from the Tax Day Tea Party event. This is my favorite person I met there. He was sitting off in the corner, near the park entrance, with his big sign: “9/11 Was An Inside Job.”

I spoke with him at length. He was the sanest, most rational person I met that day. I know, it sounds odd to describe a 9/11 Truther as sane and rational, but hear me out. I was, after all, in the middle of a crowd of teabaggers.

The difference between the teabaggers and the Truthers isn't so much what they believe. His theory – that the 9/11 attacks were arranged by Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld – is straight out of “24,” and I don't believe it. It's not, though, as crazy as the Tea Party nonsense. He's not shouting about things anyone with a few minutes at a computer can disprove; he's quietly trying to spread the word about something based on extrapolating from fact. The 9/11 attacks were the best thing that happened to the Bush Administration, and Dick Cheney is evil, so it's a tempting story.

I don't know what makes people latch on to ideas like this. The real war crimes of the Bush Administration are being ignored, so it's unlikely that anyone will ever investigate a far-fetched claim like this to disprove it, and he will go on believing it forever. What I do know is that, in a sea of teabaggers, he is an island of sanity. And a hell of a nice guy.