Sean Scallon
The American Conservative
February 18, 2010
(The article starts with the writer’s recollection of how Medina was never meant to be allowed to challenge Perry-Hutchison, and then the convenient action on the part of Beck in sneaking the 9/11 question on Medina…and how all that was reminiscent of the very similar tactics with the Ron Paul campaign.)
As soon as Medina finished with her interview Beck declared her candidacy “back at 4 percent” and Perry campaign had the robocalls already dialed in. In other words, the smear was on.
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It’s funny that given the anti-government sentiment on the right these days that questions about the official story about 9-11 don’t get more traction, or are reacted to with such scorn and outrage. After all, history has shown that the start of many wars, whether be the Spanish-American War (Remember the Maine?), World War I (It’s all Germany’s fault!), World War II (Did we know Pearl Harbor was coming? Our intelligence did), Korea (Secretary of State and U.S. Senator all but invites North Korea to invade) Vietnam (Gulf of Tonkin’s phony attacks), the Gulf War (Anyone remember April Gillespe?) usually aren’t so clean and clear cut as one would be led to believe from the school history books. Yet when Ron Paul suggested in a debate that perhaps U.S. foreign policy had something to do with the reasons the hijackers carried out their diabolic deeds on 9-11 (Could this not be a reasonable answer to Beck’s question about the extent of the government’s invovlement, it’s own foreign policy?), he was all but branded a Truther too and banned from a New Hampshire debate on Fox News because of it. Indeed 9-11 has itself become a third rail in American politics.
Yet, isn’t it rich that persons accusing Medina of “conspiracy theory” have peddled such theories on their own without media or political sanction? Apparently Rick Perry can advocate Texas secession and lead in the polls. Georgia Congressman Nathan Deal can sponsor a resolution demanding Preisdent Obama produce a birth certificate to please all the “Birthers” out there and yet be still considered a serious candidate for governor. It’s okay for Glenn Beck to peddle the works of conspiracy theorist W. Cleon Skousen, on his radio and TV shows and his employers look the other way. Back in 1978, Democrats in control of Congress at the time delved into the Kennedy-King assassination conspiracy theories with the Special House Committee on Assassinations. Oh, then there’s the fact Beck, leading GOP candidate for President Mitt Romney and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid believe in something called the “magic underware” as Mormons, but no one thinks that’s a disqualification for either public office or a TV show. Yet, God help you from the assaults coming your way from Cosmoland if you even broach the subject of 9-11.
- A d v e r t i s e m e n t
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And when you think about how much such powers have invested in the war that has followed 9-11, then their attitudes make perfect sense. Even asking a simple a question about what happened on 9-11 throws the legitimacy of the war into a certain degree of doubt. To question 9-11 questions the war, it questions everything about U.S. foreign policy. After all, don’t you know what happened on 9-11? You saw it on your TV screen! Why do you need to ask any questions?! Move along! This is what scares such people about Ron Paul, because he did manage to ask such questions and lived politically to tell about it despite their best efforts. (It’s also serves as a good point to Paulites to be very careful and very wary of media people and pundits who like to say their your friends (Carlson) or say they sympathize with you (Beck), because they usually say such things before sticking the knife into your back.) It’s apparently okay to talk about conspiracy theories so long as it in the context of struggle between the two major political parties. Start talking about 9-11 and you first uncomfortably bring up the subject of George Bush II and Dick Cheney and what their actions were that fateful day. Then you bring the question whether the government did all it could to prevent 9-11 from happening to finally a discussion on whether the war itself is still worth it now that more people have died on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq than died at Ground Zero and the fact the main perp in this case still remains at large. Say what you want about “Truthers” but they at least understand what they’re target is and what impact it can have. Likewise, the neocons who run Fox News would throw Beck off the air in a minute if they thought he was peddling 9-11 conspiracy theories. He may be a self-confessed “rodeo-clown” but he’s smart enough to know who butters his bread and what side he likes buttered. He’s no fool and he went and did his hatchet job on the non-establishment Media as dutifully as he could, their catspaw having done the dirty work of trying to discredit her.
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