I just watched the DVD of Brian Flemming's movie Nothing So Strange. It's an interesting movie. It's about the aftermath of the Bill Gates assassination, during which some "conspiracy theorists," unhappy with the official investigation into the murder, try and goad authorities into reopening the investigation and try and come up with their own alternative explanations.
The movie was quite good and quite relevant to the current situation. It really struck what I thought was the right balance. The investigators have only a couple solid reasons to question official reports, but mostly they resort to speculation and plausible "alternative explanations," though the solid reasons they have are more than enough to raise an eyebrow. The fact that the authorities quickly wrap up the investigation and seal the records is another reason to be suspicious. On the other hand, since they are left with little but speculation - sometimes reasonable, sometimes quite silly - it's easy to dismiss them.
The truth is, we don't know a lot about what happened on 9/11. There was little media or public interest in finding out the truth. There's plenty that is "known" which seems to be contradicted by fact, and plenty of things which are left unexplained. This frightening Gail Sheehy article lays out some things.
In the early days of this weblog I defended some of the tinfoil hat-types because at least they were asking the questions the nobody else was. And, it's hard to really know how to react when the Washington Post considers efforts to thwart the 9/11 commission to be essentially minor news. I have no idea what the Bush administration wants to hide, but I do know that the self-appointed guardians of our national discourse have been letting them get away with it for far too long.
It was the Day That Changed Everything, and for some reason no one seems to give a shit.
