Catering to the Fringe

Speaking of the loony left, the NYT is peddling the 9/11 conspiracy theorists once again. This time, they're providing coverage of 500 of the wackjobs gathering to peddle their theories:

The controlled-demolition theory is the sine qua non of the 9/11 movement — its basic claim and, in some sense, the one upon which all others rest. It is, of course, directly contradicted by the 10,000-page investigation by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which held that jet-fuel fires distressed the towers' structure, which eventually collapsed.

The movement's answer to that report was written by Steven E. Jones, a professor of physics at Brigham Young University and the movement's expert in the matter of collapse. Dr. Jones, unlike Alex Jones, is a soft-spoken man who lets his writing do the talking. He composed an account of the destruction of the towers (physics.byu.edu/research/energy/htm7.html) that holds that "pre-positioned cutter-charges" brought the buildings down.

Like a prior generation of skeptics — those who doubted, say, the Warren Commission or the government's account of the Gulf of Tonkin attack — the 9/11 Truthers are dogged, at home and in the office, by friends and family who suspect that they may, in fact, be completely nuts.

"Elvis and Area 51 — we're sort of lumped together," said Harlan Dietrich, a recent college graduate from Austin, Tex. "It's attack the messenger, not the message every time."

To get the message out, the movement has gone beyond bumper stickers and "Kumbaya" into political action.

There is a plan, Mr. Berger said, to create a fund to support candidates on a 9/11 platform. There is a plan to create a network of college campus groups. There is a plan by the British delegation (such as it is, so far) to get members of Parliament to watch "Loose Change," the seminal movement DVD.

UPDATE:
This doesn't mean that there aren't problems with the government's investigation into the 9/11 attacks. There are serious discrepancies that were not addressed satisfactorily by the Commission, including the Able Danger program, which may have picked up Atta and other individuals involved in the attacks, but the data was not shared with other intel and law enforcement agencies that could have acted upon the information. Congress has held hearings on the matter, and has yet to resolve the issue.

UPDATE:
Others noting this particular NYT story: Newsbusters, Blue Crab Boulevard.

UPDATE:
Gay Patriot caught that AOL was headlining this story.