There is no truth in the truther: trying to squeeze the zest out of a lemon
The view from the Virgin Islands
By John F. McCarthy
TMV Columnist
If you’re from Detroit (and if you are at this point few would admit it) “Monday moanin’” is a tradition that you are not only familiar with – but comfortable with.
The Pulitzer-Prize winning newspaper here has a similar journalistic enterprise called “Halos and Pitchforks” every Saturday.
That way the people who deserve praise – get it – and those who deserve to be rolled under the bus – get nominated. Normally I would have written a column Sunday night, I’d have the relatively easy job of editing it today – and it would just be a matter of time before it was “hot off the presses.”
I had chosen the subject of 911 to write about last week, as the punch-line to the bad joke that has been on all of us since 2001.
Then the “truther” uncorked himself at the Super Bowl last night – and gave me something only the late Free Press Columnist Bob Talbert would be worthy of complaining about. The only thing I’ll say on that issue is that in this Twitter-pated world that we live in – one that even Andy Warhol himself couldn’t have imagined – 15 minutes of fame is down to 15 seconds.
If you want to know why we’re in the mess we’re in – it just depends how far back in history you want to go – to find out who is to blame.
When Barack Obama was re-elected to a second term in the White House, Rush Limbaugh said we voted the President to a second term because “people aren’t going to vote against Santa Claus.” Mr. Limbaugh was suggesting that no American can resist swag, but he went on to refine his postpartum comments to include that voters “still blame Bush.” So in a presumably Oxycotin-free mind, the conclusion by the de facto head of the Republican Party in America was that because the economy tanked in October 2007 while President George W. Bush was in office – he was somehow still to blame.
But I’m not sure “The Rush” is quite correct. Insurance prices spiked following 911; the stock market lost $1.4 trillion of its value in the five days that Wall Street was closed following the September 11 attacks – all of which points to just one culprit – (who is no longer with us) – Osama Bin Laden.
Because “W.” got the credit – and 92 percent approval ratings in the aftermath of 911 – he was said to have brought the nation closer together following the worst damage ever inflicted upon the United States by a mortal man. So when it was time to give the vaunted free market system a rest in October 2007 with the bank and insurance bailouts – and the American economy crumbled – Mr. Bush got the credit then, too.
But should he have? No matter which side of the aisle you’re on, you have to admit that the attack planned, approved and executed by nineteen people connected to Al Qaeda – is what put us in the mess we’re in today – not George W. Bush. I remember seeing a photo taken of Osama Bin Laden just days after the attacks – he was fifty shades of gray whiter than he had been prior to the attacks.
Maybe not hard enough evidence to convince a truther that he – and he with the help of fifteen Saudi Arabian nationals, two people from the United Arab Emirates, one person from Egypt and one person from Lebanon – crashed planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon on that fateful day.
And if you are a truther – one thing you might want to investigate yourself is Al Qaeda Capo Mohamed Atta’s luggage which was intercepted by the FBI following that anguishing day. It seems Mr. Atta had to check two of his three bags to Boston’s Logan Airport because of “space limitations” on the 19-seat commuter flight he took there. Inside the two bags were the names of all the hijackers and the plans for 911.
We will never forget the tragedy in terms of the nearly 3,000 human lives lost – and world economies of scale squandered – even if the truthers choose to shift the blame elsewhere.
After Sunday’s less than super Super Bowl, the question isn’t: “Who dunnit?”
Only a moron would pretend not to know that – but rather – where do we go from here?
© 2014 Secret Goldfish Publishing House/John Francis McCarthy. Please send comments to: [email protected]
John McCarthy is a freelance journalist, fine artist and Realtor who lives in the Virgin Islands.