Last week Michelle Malkin appeared on John Gibson’s Fox News program and alleged that Republican/Libertarian presidential candidate Ron Paul is infected with “the 9/11 truth virus” and “has no business being on stage as a legitimate representative of Republicans”.
David Weigel at Reason Magazine has the relevant portion of the transcript:
MICHELLE MALKIN: It is and it doesn’t belong here. And I’m glad that this moment provided great TV for FOX News — it was a very instructive exchange — but Ron Paul really has no business being on stage as a legitimate representative of Republicans, because the 9/11 truth virus is something that infects only a very small proportion of people that would identify themselves as conservative or Republican. And as you say, John, this is far more prevalent, this strain of 9/11 truth virus, on the left, and in much of the mainstream of the Democratic Party as that Rasmussen poll showed.
Ron Paul has gained an impressive amount of online support for his candidacy, some of it apparently from members of the “9/11 Truth” movement. Whether he is himself a believer that our government was behind the 9/11 attacks is not clear. What he has said is that he believes the investigations so far have been inadequate, and that there have been efforts to cover up the truth of what actually happened:
And like you and others, we see the investigations that have been done so far as more or less cover-up and no real explanation of what went on.
I tend to agree. And apparently, so does Michelle Malkin. Or at least she has agreed in the not-so-distant past.
In her March 8, 2002 column titledJust wondering, Malkin asks such questions as:
What really happened on United Airlines Flight 93?
What really happened on American Airlines Flight 11?
Who murdered Katherine Smith, and why?
You will find these very same questions among the pages of several 9/ll Truth sites. See here, here, and here.
So, Malkin apparently felt these were legitimate questions when she was asking them. Now though, anyone else who is “just wondering” is a kook, a moonbat, a conspiracy theorist, infected with a virus, and “not fit as a legitimate representative of Republicans”.
Got that?
**UPDATE** David Weigel points out that Ron Paul has already made clear who he believes was responsible for the 9/11 attacks:
UPDATE III: As the thread continues to grow, probably worth pointing out that Paul has already named the culprits behind the 9/11 attacks. He did so at the GOP debate.
Have you ever read the reasons they attacked us? They attack us because we’ve been over there; we’ve been bombing Iraq for 10 years.
In other words, Al Qaeda did it. Osama bin Laden did it. Paul’s view is incompatible with the idea that “9/11 was a self-inflicted wound” or the towers came down in controlled demolitions.
15 comments
One thing about MM I noticed, she has crazy eyes. It’s like she’s filled with some barely concealed rage.
Ah the famed Rasmussen poll. This has become almost as sacred as the Golden Plates that founded Mormonism. The same poll said that 22% of all voters are “Truthers”. This translates to at least 10 million Republicans who feel this way. Michelle and company have been very careful to focus on two numbers from this poll; 35% of Democrats believe in the conspiracy and 26% say they are not sure. Michelle and her buddies at Hotair love to add the two together to make a 61% figure which is complete smoke. The one number they conveniently leave out is the 22% of all voters who believe the conspiracy angle. This means 10 million or more republicans buy into it?
My personal opinion is that the poll is flawed. The sample was 800 people and 35% of democrats sounds just as off as 22% of Republicans.
But this won’t stop Malkin. Rosie says Truther to an audience of 3 million and Malkin equates the audience to mean a majority of all Democrats.
I really doubt there was a conspiracy in the government. Bureaucracy was our downfall, not a Clinton or Bush involvement/neglect. Too many separate agencies that weren’t sending the pieces to one agency to consolidate made it possible to happen without being caught beforehand.
Malkin is the one with the tin foil hat — for thinking that she is the thought police of the world and no one can question anything, unless it’s her in that article where she questions what happened to Flight 93.
By the way, no permission was given to use that video on Fox, I’m in it and I’m suing……
The site http://www.crooksandliars.com censors any information regarding 911. I tried to post this information on Michelle Malkin of FOX NEWS questioning 911 in reference to a blog on Bin Laden and they deleted my comments twice saying it was “off topic”.
BEWARE: These people are left-gatekeepers!
[…] Trutheriness and Michelle Malkin […]
[…] Thanks to random commentors on Digg and MichelleMalkinIsAnIdiot.com for this. On March 8, 2002, Michelle Malkin, who is currently all over the place trying to convince people Ron Paul thinks 9/11 was perpetrated by the US government (which considering his earlier statements is patently absurd), wrote the following in Jewish World Review: THE six-month anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks is upon us. Here are a half-dozen unsolved mysteries still on my mind: […]
To coin a phrase from Bill O; the Malkinites are spinning now. A thread devoted to declaring Sullivan is a nut case and trying to get attention by “throwing mud on Michelle”.
For even more laughs check out their Immigration bill threads. Fred Barnes of Fox is being called liberal because he thinks the legislation is a pretty fair compromise bill…
To be fair to Malkin, there’s quite a difference between asking questions six months after the attacks when those questions hadn’t been answered completely yet and asking those same questions six years after the attacks and long after these questions have been answered many many times like most of the “truthers”.
Also, Ron Paul’s whole point was that this was a self inflicted wound. He said that they hit us because we were “over there”. In other words according to Paul it’s our fault that we were hit on 9-11. That idea is offensive to the majority of Americans… Paul has no business at all on the national stage talking crazy stuff like that.
Jim C
Jim C,
Malkin’s hotair site has had countless posts citing the poll that said 22% of all voters believe Bush was involved. The only figure they will cite is the 35% of Democrats and then add 26% who said “they are not sure” and come up with 61% of dems are truthers.
If one wants to be taken seriously as a journalist, one must act like a journalist regardless of the stories, and be willing to admit errors (such as in the Jamil case).
RE: Jim C
[”To be fair to Malkin, there’s quite a difference between asking questions six months after the attacks when those questions hadn’t been answered completely yet and asking those same questions six years after the attacks and long after these questions have been answered many many times…”]
After Michelle’s post, I went through my copy of the 9/11 Commission report and could not find answers to any of the questions she was asking in the original article. In fact, they were not even addressed. Can you give me the page numbers (or links to official answers) where these questions are answered? I’d appreciate it since I can’t find them in there.
[”Also, Ron Paul’s whole point was that this was a self inflicted wound. He said that they hit us because we were “over there”. In other words according to Paul it’s our fault that we were hit on 9-11.”]
Which is it? Did Paul claim it was a self inflicted wound or did he say the hit us because we were “over there”? These are contradictory statements so only one can be true. Anyway, that’s a rhetorical question because I know the answer. The first sentence is false. Ron Paul did not say, nor imply that 9/11 was a self inflicted wound. Are you lying or repeating something you heard somewhere else? The second sentence is a distortion of the truth but not inaccurate enough to be called a lie. The truth is, Paul’s point and what he said is that our foreign policy, which has had us intervening in the middle east for more than 50 years, is the main motivation for terrorists who hate America. This isn’t an opinion, it’s a fact. It’s the CIA’s stance (below is the url to an interview with Michael Scheuer, the former head analyst of the CIA’s bin Laden unit discussing the subject) and it is even discussed in the 9/11 Commission Report. Are you or Malkin, who routinely cites the report, now claiming that the report is wrong? The third sentence is false. Paul never said this not anything remotely implying it. Again, are you lying or repeating something you heard somewhere else? Only the first question is rhetorical so I expect answers to the other three.
http://dissentradio.com/radio/07_05_18_scheuer.mp3
[”That idea is offensive to the majority of Americans… Paul has no business at all on the national stage talking crazy stuff like that.”]
What idea? Paul’s statement of fact or the straw man idea that people like Malkin suggest? Everyone I have talked to about this (Republicans, Democrats and Libertarians) see it as common sense and don’t understand what all the fuss is about. The majority of both the liberal and conservative media agree with Paul’s statements so I’m not sure what Americans you’re talking about. Since I like to give benefit of the doubt, I’ll assume you’re not a liar, just very uninformed. If that’s the case then let me know and I’ll post (or send you) a bunch of links to media and TV coverage that seems to contradict your sentiments. In fact, the only coverage I’ve been able to find that seems to portray Paul’s statements as offensive is coverage where they distort and/or fabricate his point. In other words, lie.
As a conservative, people like Malkin really piss me off. The only way she can argue against something is to create a straw man. Andrew Sullivan posted how she was a pot calling the kettle black and, to quote Sullivan, [”No, she’s not part of the tin-foil hat brigade”]. What does Malkin claim? She says, he is [”pointing to a column I wrote six months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks as proof that I am part of the tinfoil brigade”]. I don’t believe Malkin is stupid so she must know that she is rebutting something she just made up and that must mean she knows she has no rebuttal to the actual argument (or else she would address the actual argument). How she doesn’t feel embarrassed for the crap she posts (and says) is a mystery to me. I guess if a bunch of people incapable of objective thought support her regardless of how illogical her statements are, the boost it gives to her ego outweighs the shame.
I haven’t voted in a Republican primary since Reagan but I will in 2008. I am very excited to see how many disillusioned Republican’s are being reawakened by Ron Paul’s campaign. Go Ron!
I’m not going to waste my time arguing with you. Paul’s point was that we were hit because we were wrong in being in the middle east. Furthermore, point to one conservative commentator that supports Paul’s assertions. I know Hannity and Limbaugh don’t.
Jim C
For that matter, neither does Ingraham.
Jim C
Pat Buchanan, Doug Bandow, Steven Chapman, Charley Reese, Justin Raimondo.
And the Republicans involved in the 9/11 Commission. And the truth, but that never stopped a Republican before.
hmm.
hope this post gets around.
The
Katherine Smith story is quite interesting…
http://911review.org/Sept11Wiki/Smith,Katherine.shtml