COUNTERCOLUMN: All Your Bias Are Belong to Us

In his own words:

I was disgusted that the conspiracy-theory nutjobs were crawling everywhere like the rats they are. But I was even more disturbed at the media leaches crawling around them. I wanted to go up to some of my media colleagues with their pens cocked and ready and tell them to turn around: The story isn’t a few wackos who come because you and your cameras and notebooks are here, you fools! The story is over there, in the hole that still haunts us. The story is about the families and about the heroes and about the memories and about that hole. The story is even about WTC 7, now rising above the void, shining in a sky as bright as that five years ago today. The story is about the crowd of people — more than I’ve seen in recent years — who came to pay their respect. The story is not about these disrespectful loons, who got into shouting matches, drawing more cameras to them.

Amen.

When I look around and I see that the number of lunatics who believe in the conspiracy theories has reached more than a third of the electorate, I become seriously grieved for this Republic.

That's going to equate to the majority of the Democratic party.

I never thought it would get this bad. It's mass delusion - and it has the potential to seriously undermine American interests and our security.

Indeed, it is already doing so.

The conspiracy theories cannot stand up to examination. The Truthists are cultists. They are the modern equivalent of the Flat Earth Society, or Citizens for Immediate Nuclear War, minus the self-deprecating, tongue-in-cheek sense of humor.

And the news media - a flat out failure and national embarrassment in covering the War on Terror almost from Day One - is to blame.

Politicians and Demogogues will do what they do. There will always be partisans, mudslingers, shoe-pounders, and whackos. You expose one group, another will take their place.

But when the news media is more intent on finding conflict to fuel their ratings - and in trumping it up where none exists - when the news media fails to hold national leaders and mealy-mouthed double-speakers for like Howard Dean, for example, accountable for their trial balloons, for their plausible-denials, and their enabling of a national slander, then they have failed in the raison d'etre for their very existence.

We can't rely on the media to check facts. Why should an outfit like Snopes or Fact-check.org even be neccessary? Why haven't our news professionals long since put them out of business?

And if they cannot put Snopes out of business, what good are they - at least as concerns the national and international stories?

The terrorists cannot compete with us when it comes to technology. They cannot compete with us when it comes to productivity. Our soldiers and Marines have proven that they can close with and destroy any enemy on any battlefield anywhere. Our soldiers are tougher and stronger and better trained than theirs.

But they have, like a virus, found this Great Republic's critical vulnerability - the news media. The fourth estate. And misguided souls on the fringe have been turned to fight a parallel cultural and rhetorical struggle alongside them. Not as allies, to be sure. But as cultural warriors with a common cause willing to undertake a de facto marriage of convenience. Yes, they will deny it. But don't pay attention to what they say when questioned. What what they do ... and watch what side they will consistently take when the interests of the US Attorney General - representing the People of the United States - and the terrorists themselves collide in a courtroom.

Will the ACLU be filing amicus briefs on behalf of the victims of 9/11? Or on behalf of the terrorists?

There will always be whackjobs. They used to be on the fringe - charming little nutcases - cultured on university petri dishes and pinkish coffee houses and Marxist bookstores - who were fun to have around, if only for the comedic value, or to provide a bit of Devil's advocacy at any gathering. It only took one to liven up the party - and I regarded them as among my closest friends.

I still do.

(One of my closest buds still cheers Hezbollah openly - and refers to the British as Nazis. Long, sordid story).

Unfortunately, the cancer - once manageable with standard treatments, but too long uncured - has metasticized into the remainder of the body politic. It now threatens to cripple a vital organ - the Democratic Party.

Maybe it already has.

And it's disheartening to me to see.

I was never pessimistic about Afghanistan or Iraq. We will not lose there.

But we are in danger of losing here - with disastrous results for freedom-seekers everywhere.

Splash, out

Jason