President Barack Obama directed Navy Seals to capture or kill Osama bin Laden in Pakistan on Sunday. Do most in his political party believe that the president got the wrong guy?
When Scripps Howard asked, “How likely is it that people in the federal government either assisted in the 9/11 attacks or took no action to stop the attacks because they wanted the United States to go to war in the Middle East?,” more than fifty percent of Democrats answered “very likely” or “somewhat likely” in 2006. A May 2007 Rasmussen poll found that 35 percent of Democrats believed George W. Bush had advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks. An August 2007 Zogby poll reported that 43 percent of Democrats believed that Bush either caused or allowed 9/11 to happen.
These polls were commissioned, of course, when George W. Bush was president. Since Barack Obama took the oath of office the views of the Democratic Party’s left-wing have, well, “evolved.” They are not as vocal about Guantanamo Bay, Middle Eastern wars, military tribunals, or the shadowy machinations supposedly behind 9/11. But it is worth remembering that once upon a time a substantial chunk of Democratic voters didn’t believe that Osama bin Laden was behind the terrorist attacks that felled the Twin Towers and smashed the Pentagon. For the hardcore party conspiracists, the real perpetrator was not holed up in Abbottabad, Pakistan, but in Dallas, Texas.
The Truthers have achieved a success in making the Democratic Party look like a magnet for fools. Indeed, the kooks touting various conspiracy theories regarding 9/11 are a significant portion of the Democratic electorate. Though the number of 9/11 conspiracy theorists among the foot soldiers may greatly outweigh their numbers among the commanders, the truth about Democratic Trutherism is that it could not command the support of one-third to one-half of Democratic voters without having the encouragement of a considerable number of party luminaries.
Days before the 2004 election, a coalition of leftists released the 911 Truth Statement. The document charged that “people within the current administration may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext to war.” Signatories included Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus author John Gray, former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, “people’s historian” Howard Zinn, Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg, “Lou Grant” actor Ed Asner, perennial presidential candidate Ralph Nader, and Rabbi Michael Lerner.
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