Denialism

How not to be taken seriously

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by

MarkH
in ,

I think I’m going to have to add a new behavior to the crank HOWTO based on the latest campaign by troofers to get attention by disruption.

First it was Bill Maher:

Who I think handled it right.

Now Bill Clin-ton.Bill also does a pretty good job with the kooks. But it has me thinking that part of the crank HOWTO is going to have to be go to talks and shows that have nothing to do with your topic and start screaming. If you get tased, congratulations, you’ve been persecuted. Act like it was a victory too, and complain about being manhandled after you’ve disrupted a live television show.

Do we need better proof of their irrelevance? Their idea of getting their message out is yelling at TV hosts? Now that is some crankery.

Comments

  1. Kevin

    Both of the videos you linked to were of Bill Clintons response, you need to re-link one of them to the Bill Maher clip

    Reply
  2. MarkH

    Fixed.

    Reply
  3. Ted

    Bill also does a pretty good job with the kooks.

    These apparently are the champions of anti-truthers. Bill Clin-ton, standing in front of “Go Hillary!” imperial signage, muttering that truthers heckling may give Minnesotans(?) a bad reputation… (someone really should vet the audience better).

    Is Dennis Miller waiting in the wings as well? If I was his staff I’d be trolling the truthers so they could heckle him, because no one really noticed when he piled on plump Rosie some months back.

    Reply
  4. Gingerbaker

    Is Bill Clinton saying 9/11 was not “an inside job”?

    And this web site agrees with that?

    Are you kidding me?

    If anyone believes that the Bush administration is not partially responsible for 9/11 then they have not looked at the evidence comprehensively and/or honestly.

    And I am not talking about blowing up the WTC, or theories about what hit the Pentagon. I am talking about hinderance of the normal investigative agencies.

    Reply
  5. MarkH

    And I am not talking about blowing up the WTC, or theories about what hit the Pentagon. I am talking about hinderance of the normal investigative agencies.

    Sorry, but saying it’s an “inside job” implies MIHOP. MIHOP implies blowing up the WTC, or hiring the terrorists, etc. I agree, “how dare you” is the appropriate response. Clinton is no fool.

    As far as hindering investigation, why can’t that be explained by the very likely possibility that they simply don’t want their incompetence exposed? Why, on this one event, is the Bush administration no longer the bumbling idiots they are in everything else?

    Reply
  6. Bronze Dog

    Hanlon’s Razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.

    Bush has given us more than enough evidence of his incompetence. That trumps any attempt at malice if he went through with it.

    If there’s anything they’re trying (and often failing at) it’s covering up incompetence.

    Reply
  7. Gingerbaker

    “As far as hindering investigation, why can’t that be explained by the very likely possibility that they simply don’t want their incompetence exposed? Why, on this one event, is the Bush administration no longer the bumbling idiots they are in everything else?”

    –Mark H

    Perhaps I didn’t phrase this correctly. If you examine the information that is available, you will see that the Bush administration actively impeded the normal antiterrorist activities of the CIA, FBI.

    This is why Bush, et al were not “incompetent”, they were complicit. These people are corrupt, not necessarily incompetent.

    Katrina, etc, happened because they just don’t care enough about government services to install anyone but political hacks.

    To impede proper investigations of involved terrorists pre-9/11 doesn’t require any big conspiracy. It merely requires pressuring department heads to follow orders.

    The past three years have been one shocking expose after another demonstrating just how good the Bushies are at corrupting governmental agencies. Or are you unaware of this?

    “Sorry, but saying it’s an “inside job” implies MIHOP. MIHOP implies blowing up the WTC, or hiring the terrorists, etc. I agree, “how dare you” is the appropriate response. Clinton is no fool.”
    –Mark H

    Sorry, but what is “MIHOP” ? ( Some tinfoil-hatted branch of the International House of Pancakes? 😀 )

    And no, I don’t agree that “inside job” implies only your restrictive definition.

    And please – Clinton is no fool – but he has done some foolish things. And some highly political ones.

    Reply
  8. Bronze Dog

    MIHOP: Make It Happen On Purpose.

    The fact that Bush keeps getting exposed is a sign of his incompetence. It cancels out some, but not all of his malice. For most of us, these exposes are not shocking at all. I expected as much from him. That’s why I consistently voted against Bush.

    Reply
  9. MarkH

    Sorry, but what is “MIHOP” ? ( Some tinfoil-hatted branch of the International House of Pancakes? 😀 )

    The terminology of the two branches of 9/11 conspiracy crankery are LIHOP, and MIHOP. Which stand for “Let It Happen on Purpose”, and “Made It Happen On Purpose”. Sorry to use unintroduced terms, but they’re pretty typical for these discussions.

    I am well aware of how Bush runs his government, part of this blog is challenging just that kind of management which has crippled other agencies like EPA and FDA, as well as political interference in NASA, Office of the Surgeon General, NIH, etc.

    As far as impeding investigations that’s possible and likely but still has nothing to do with the “on purpose” part of either of the two branches of 9/11 crankery. It’s still easily understood and consistent from the point of view of their general distaste for investigation of any of their behavior, as the politicization, incompetence, and more run-of-the-mill illegalities will be exposed. I don’t think any of it suggests actual involvement in the attacks, which I will again say deserve Clinton’s scorn. That is complete and total paranoia, and rapidly escalates into improbability as any of the conspiracy theories for their involvement are non-parsimonious. It simply wouldn’t be possible for them to keep it quiet, have no whistleblowers etc. They’ve had whistleblowers on lots of other stuff – rendition, wiretapping etc., the people in government simply don’t keep secrets well. It’s too improbable to be worthy of any consideration.

    Reply
  10. Gingerbaker

    I’ll try this again.

    I am NOT talking about Bush resisting investigations into “any of their behavior, as the politicization, incompetence, and more run-of-the-mill illegalities”.

    I am talking about the fact that before 9/11/2001, Bush was impeding the normal investigations of known terrorists by the FBI and CIA. These were the same 9/11 Saudi terrorists who drove planes into the WTC.

    This is well-known and documented by the many whistleblowers who worked for the FBI who have written and testified about this. People like Colleen Rowley.

    Read this article, for example. If you can come away with a conclusion that all this was mere “incompetence” on the part of career agents I’ll eat my hat.

    http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0904-03.htm

    Reply
  11. MarkH

    Again, consistent with the incompetence angle, or in this case, the single-minded tunnel vision of people who wanted to radically change the government.

    Both Clinton and Gore are known to have been upset by the Bush administration dropping the ball when it came to pursuing bin Laden. I think Clinton had even said to them as he left that OBL should be their #1 priority and was ignored. They were far to interested in pursuing their agenda of wrecking the government as they had a 3-way majority for the first time in a century (until a single Republican defected anyway). They ignored the PDB saying “bin Laden determined to attack”, Richard Clarke was jumping up and down trying to get attention, it’s all part of the record. We know that they were negligent.

    Again, there is no evidence they had a hand in it, or had any real idea of what was coming. They were negligent, and careless, and foolish. That’s what they don’t want investigated. But the allegations of complicity are far out, absurd, and would be impossible to suppress. As far as the common dreams article, it is consistent with this again. I don’t think that any of the agents tracking this stuff felt like this was part of a conspiracy. They were being ignored because they were telling the Bush administration what they didn’t want to hear, and didn’t want to deal with. We all know what happens in that case, news not consistent with their worldview is simply ignored.

    I don’t know why criminal negligence isn’t enough to indict the guy, why the twoofers have to go for the idea of a massive conspiracy that would be impossible to hide. Their view of government and governmental agents is so bizarre, detached from reality, and ultimately undermines their position and makes them lose all credibility. That’s why the best they can do for press coverage is yell at Bill Maher. Their position is ludicrous.

    Reply
  12. Ted

    Bronze Dog says:

    Hanlon’s Razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.

    That’s an interesting law that lead me to Wikipedia:

    According to Joseph Bigler, the quotation first came from a certain Robert J. Hanlon as a submission for a book compilation of various jokes related to Murphy’s law published in 1980 entitled Murphy’s Law Book Two, More Reasons Why Things Go Wrong

    Can we assume that any intelligence agency worth its salt will have “Murphy’s Law” manuals, Book I and II, on their reference bookshelf categorized under plausible deniability? Probably most communications professionals as well (I mean those that get paid to communicate a difficult issue for their clients, vs academics.)

    Because on the face of it, it looks like this Hanlon’s Razor can be used quite often, believably even, given the propensity to label people and situations as stupid and incompetent.

    Reply
  13. Ted

    I don’t know why criminal negligence isn’t enough to indict the guy, why the twoofers have to go for the idea of a massive conspiracy that would be impossible to hide.

    Indicting isn’t enough. Lots of people indicted, not many convicted and sentenced. Of those sentenced, not many do time (Libby).

    I find your definition of impossibility difficult to understand. I’m not suggesting that there is a massive conspiracy to be hidden in this case, but I do contest your notion that ANY secret can’t be held reliably. I contend that some could (with apologies to Benjamin Franklin, that “Reilly” of the French Revolution), and the premise that some secrets meet the light of day, doesn’t mean that all do or will.

    Reply
  14. Gingerbaker

    You keep using the derogatory “ludicrous” as if it anoints your positions with the sweet aroma of objectivity.

    But you are willing to accept that on dozens of occasions, FBI and CIA managers were making the same non sequitor decisions, which all resulted in proper investigations being shut down, and ascribe this to mere incompetency.

    A repeating behavior of actions, all of which go against previous policy, all of which have no reasonable explanation, and all of which further the same objective – to impede the investigation and probable arrest of the 9/11 terrorists is NOT incompetency. It is a program.

    And to ascribe such a program as merely one isolated act of “incompetency” after another is – to use your word – ludicrous.

    John O’Neil who was the FBI’s leading expert on Al Queda, resigned his position because he was not allowed to investigate Al Queda for God’s sake!

    Here, from the article I provided above, but which you seem not to have the graces to have done more than scan, is testimony from Collen Rowley. She was a case officer for the FBI, trying to do her job to investigate Moussaoui the Al Queda terrorist who never made it on the plane. His hard drive contained enough onformation to stop the 9/11 plot all by itself. But strangely, she never was able to even get a warrant – a warrant! – to examine it.:

    But the Minneapolis agents never got their search warrant. “Key FBI [headquarters] personnel,” according to Rowley, “continued to, almost inexplicably, throw up roadblocks and undermine Minneapolis’ by-now desperate efforts to obtain a FISA search warrant, long after the French intelligence service provided its information and probable cause became clear.”

    One FBI supervisor in Washington, Rowley says, “seemed to have been consistently, almost deliberately thwarting the Minneapolis FBI agents’ efforts.” He and other officials “brought up almost ridiculous questions in their apparent efforts to undermine the probable cause.” And at one point the official “deliberately further undercut” the search warrant effort by omitting key intelligence information about Moussaoui from a warrant request while “making several changes in the wording of the information”—all of which made it unlikely that the warrant would be approved. One Minneapolis agent described Washington’s actions as “setting this up for failure.”

    This is just the tip of the iceberg of inexplicable behavior by the upper management of the leading agencies. And what this shows is that there was no large conspiracy involved – just department heads. And that yes, there were whistleblowers doing the patriotic thing here, trying to bring this to light.

    We know for a fact that Bush himself put out the order NOT to investigate Saudi terrorists or the money trail that funded them. This is nowhere in dispute!

    Mark, you seem like an intelligent guy. But you seem WAY too invested in the denialism meme to see the obvious here. Sometimes bad guys DO conspire! And the Bush admin spews one example after another of bad guys conspiring. And getting caught, and nothing much happening. Exactly what has happened on this LIHOP evidence.

    Why in the world you think it is beyond the capabilities of the Bush administration to conspire and not suffer consequences for it is simply beyond my comprehension.

    You are showing every symptom of the classic “denialist” personality you so love to dissect yourself.

    Reply
  15. MarkH

    Oh how I love it when people show up at my site, disagree with me on whatever is their issue, then call me “denialist” as if that makes them clever. It does have a specific definition you know. It doesn’t mean “I disagree with you” however much my dissenters want it to.

    As far as O’Neil, it sounds as if he was unable to work with either the Bush or Clinton governments, and the liberal frontline analysis would seem to agree with that interpretation. If he was still an FBI agent on 9/11 it probably would have made no difference at all – after all the problem was communication between the agencies, the so-called “wall” was preventing information flow.

    I don’t disagree that conspiracies are possible. I do disagree that one of the magnitude you are suggesting could be effectively hidden. After all, you are able to collect all this information about lower level people. But then once you get to middle management all these leads dry out, why is that? Is every manager of these agents a political appointee? No. Are they a small enough number that involvement in knowledge of the plot could be conceivably hidden? No. Are agents in Minneapolis reporting to the directors, or deputies, or even heads of divisions? No. In order for this to be some cover-up as part of the conspiracy you’ve already involved dozens of low level, non-political employees. That makes it out of the realm of possibility in my opinion. How would you get all these FBI supervisors, section chiefs, and deputies who were not Bush appointees, and are civil servants to tow the line for some Bush conspiracy? Not to mention they were all working under Louis Freeh until a couple months before the attack – not a Bush appointee. Yes, this is ludicrous. I’m sorry you object to the word, but it’s just stupid. This is why conspiracy theories in general are stupid. All you have to do is think about them for about 20 seconds and you realize they are completely untenable.

    The fundamental problem with these beliefs is logistical and practical. How did the Bush administration, not even having on of their political appointees in control of the FBI or the CIA (Freeh and Tenet) manage to infiltrate them in such a way as to undermine the patriotism of dozens of civil servants? These agencies didn’t see a changeover in leadership or manpower between the two administrations. How is it possible that all of them would have kept quiet? Isn’t it more likely that Richard Clarke’s explanation, that the Bush administration wasn’t interested in anything the Clinton administration worked on, including counterterrorism, far more likely? He couldn’t get a meeting in on Al Qaeda either, and he was right at the top. Cheney and Bush didn’t want to hear it. It’s so typical of the way they manage things I wonder that anyone is surprised. Instead the conspiratorial position requires this monolithic “government” that is capable of concerting its attention and focus on a single goal, all at the command of whoever is in charge (ha ha) the second the keys were handed over in January. This is nuts.

    All you guys have is a bunch of circumstantial nonsense, that would be surprising if it were absent from such a big event as 9/11. Kennedy’s secretary was named Lincoln and Lincoln’s secretary was named Kennedy. Ooooooh. Not buying it. Bring real proof rather than circumstantial nonsense and I might believe it, but there is nothing here that is any different from the usual loose connections and disparate evidence that is the hallmark of a crank conspiracy theory.

    Reply
  16. Gingerbaker

    Mark,

    You have said above that Freeh and Tenet were not Bush appointees and would not toe the line for Bush.

    You are simply not credible on this. Freeh spent his entire time under Clinton making trouble for, and not doing the bidding of, Clinton. He was not a friend to the Democrats.

    George Tenet is undeniably the quintessential example of someone who carried so much water for Bush he should have been wearing a NYFD uniform.

    This is the man who called Bush’s evidence of WMD in Iraq a “slamdunk”! How can you possibly argue that he was not “infiltrated” as you so objectively put it??

    You have fallen for every Bush talking point to try to rationalize why 9/11 happened when it plainly could and should have been avoided.

    There was no wall between the agencies! The FBI and CIA were cooperating for years on terrorism and continue to do so today.

    John O’Neill was accused of stealing a briefcase by Bush’s department. Your own Frontline article says “he wasn’t paranoid – they WERE out to get him”.

    This is a guy who had a what – decades long career? And your explanation of why he left is that he was a misfit – not that he quit in frustration after fighting for the right to do his job and investigate Al Queda?

    It is NOT an item of dispute that Bush put out the order to quash investigation of Saudi terrorists and their funding streams! Of course John O’Neil was making himself a thorn in their sides.

    Prince Bandar himself is implicated in some of this terrorist funding. Is it hard to understand WHY Bush was doing some of this?

    This is an administration that set up it’s own “intelligence” arm at the DOD to manufacture fake Iraq WMD “intel” when the CIA refused to give false reports confirming the admin’s claims of Iraqi WMD. Have you forgotten about Curveball – the infamous liar the DOD intel unit used to doctor the WMD evidence?

    Conclusion – they will lie about anything to further their ends.

    Have you forgotten about the extraordinary, repeated trips by Cheney to the CIA analyst department itself? He browbeat the career CIA analysts into presenting bad intel on WMD! We went to war because of this – this was the lies that Colin Powell presented to the U.N. for crying out loud.

    And you think it is ludicrous to claim that he did not instruct FBI managers to quash Saudi investigations? Why?? It is public knowledge that he did!

    You keep repeating the denialism mantra that LIHOP demands a large conspiracy, and that conspiracies can not exist because there would be whistleblowers.

    How many times do you need to be hit over the head with the fact that there ARE whistleblowers talking – and they talk to no avail.

    We KNOW that Bush quashed investigations into Saudi agents and their funding streams. THIS ALONE is enough to justify his responsibility for LIH. We need only move on to the “On Purpose” part.

    And here is where we see that the warnings of multiple nations, ambassadors, and foreign intelligence agencies in the weeks and DAYS before 9/11 were ignored. These warnings, many of them, were highly specific as to who, how and when the 9/11 attacks were to occur!

    This was not Sandy Berger briefing Condi Rice. This was nations around the world telling the Bush adminstration over and over and over that Al Queda was going to use jet planes in a spectacular attack on American high-visibilty targets in the next few days or weeks!

    Why did they do nothing, essentially, to ensure that this did not happen??

    And, please, don’t tell me that no government, even one as bad as the Bush administration, would do such a thing. Lyndon Johnson did it. The Nazis did it. The CIA has had plans in place for years to stage or allow an attack on American soil to be used for political advantage.( Operation Northwoods, I believe it is called)

    No – what we have are demonstrable lies that the administration “didn’t know” a/or didn’t contemplate that planes were to be used. Why would they so blatantly lie about this, besides the fact that they blatantly lie about nearly everything?

    I’ll tell you why – because it proves the “ON Purpose” part of LIHOP, that’s why.

    And is it so hard to believe why they LIHOP? Why do you think we are in Iraq, Afghanistan, and probably Iran soon enough?

    They have killed at least 750,000 Iraqis, displaced millions more, spent nearly a trillion dollars, maimed tens of thousands of American soldiers to accomplish their political ends.

    What is the big deal about three thousand folks dying in NYC?

    Reply
  17. Left_Wing_Fox

    I admit, I’m somewhat sympathetic to the LIHOP school of thought, but only as an outside possibility.

    So much of the Bush Administration has been characterized by an unglamorous post-hoc scramble for justification masked by a media that is alternately favorable through the pundit class, or downright lazy in the hard-news department. All these screw ups are common knowledge amongst anyone with political inclination and an internet connection. It’s like having a cartoon parody of a super-villein running the nation;
    “What’s this big red button that says ‘Do Not Push; Armageddon’”
    “Um, that’s the… uh… super happy love button!”
    “Oh well it MUST be good then!”

    What prevents me from dismissing the LIHOP possibility completely is that it doesn’t require a vast-reaching network of co-ordinated tight-lipped planners. All it really needs is to be dedicated in their incompetence; make sure reports into the Executive branch get buried in the proverbial inbox, and diligently fail to pass on information from one branch of the government to the other.

    Reply
  18. MarkH

    You have said above that Freeh and Tenet were not Bush appointees and would not toe the line for Bush.

    You are simply not credible on this. Freeh spent his entire time under Clinton making trouble for, and not doing the bidding of, Clinton. He was not a friend to the Democrats.

    I’m not credible? Me? From a guy saying that because Freeh did his job as an independent law enforcer under Clinton that means he was working for Bush all along? Please. That is simply retarded. As in if you actually think that way, your brain is broken. I can understand maligning Tenet for being a fool, although saying he isn’t a patriot is absurd, but Freeh was no fool, and no traitor. It’s frankly disgusting how readily the truthers are willing to malign people in such a serious way, including dedicated public servants like Louis Freeh. That alone tells me we’re done.

    This is the man who called Bush’s evidence of WMD in Iraq a “slamdunk”! How can you possibly argue that he was not “infiltrated” as you so objectively put it??

    Very easily. He was a hawk, as many heads of the CIA are. So what? What does this have to do with 9/11? You are now showing full signs of absolute paranoia. All your babble about WMDs and fake intelligence, what does that have to do with the probability of being able to hide a conspiracy throughout the ranks of CIA and FBI? There’s a big difference between hawkishness, foolishness, wishful thinking, and accusing these men of plotting to kill 3,000 other Americans in a terrorist attack. No one disputes these guys see what they want to see, that they made the intelligence fit the story they want. What does that have to do with convincing me that civil servants, and some truly excellent Americans had a hand in a terrorist attack? You say you’re not part of the troofer movement, but you have a troofer brain all right.

    You have fallen for every Bush talking point to try to rationalize why 9/11 happened when it plainly could and should have been avoided.

    Talking point? What? Why don’t you try reading the article you linked. How about the explanations of the people you cite? You cited Rowley, what did she say?

    Rowley assumed that careerism, timidity, and bureaucratic inertia at FBI headquarters had simply gotten the better of crime-fighting instincts.

    How about O’Neill?

    He “complained that the F.B.I. was not free to act in international terror investigations because the State Department kept interfering,” according to a New York Times account of O’ Neill’s interview with French journalist Jean-Charles Brisard shortly before his death. O’Neill “explains the failure in one word: oil.”

    He wasn’t alleging a conspiracy other than not to piss off the Saudis. Everything fits. Yes, Bush is friendly with Saudis and Bandar, he’s an oil man. Why is this surprising? Why does that mean he had to have been behind the conspiracy to attack our country?

    There was no wall between the agencies! The FBI and CIA were cooperating for years on terrorism and continue to do so today.

    Now we know you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. I think we’re done. You can go away now. I don’t argue with cranks, nor do I allow them in my forums.

    Reply
  19. Gingerbaker

    re the wall ( from 2004 article of the ACLU of Northern California):

    In other words, the culprit was bad lawyering, not bad law. Former Attorney General Janet Reno made a similar point in her testimony before the Sept. 11 commission. She noted that no law kept the CIA from telling the FBI and State Department for 18 months that two Sept. 11 hijackers had entered the United States.

    In fact,she told the commission that there were protocols, contained in memos written by her in 1995 and 2000, requiring the sharing of such information between the two agencies. :

    Reply
  20. LanceR

    Okay, GingerBaker, simple concept here, so pay attention:

    The FBI is our domestic law enforcement/intelligence agency. They do not work internationally. The CIA is our international intelligence agency. They are forbidden by law to work within the United States. There are always problems when trying to share information between domestic agencies and international agencies. This is the nature of bureaucracies.

    I, myself lean towards the “failed to stop it” end. Incompetence does not equal malice. Taking advantage of the opportunity does not equal creating the opportunity.

    Reply
  21. Monado

    I think that provoking someone to punch you in the snout is different from doing it yourself.

    Reply

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