Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Sorry for all the linking..

but there is some good reading out there today. This just boggles the mind (emphasis mine)

From The New Editor:

"The unserious nature of seemingly large elements of the Democratic Party was once again on display last week in Palm Beach County, FL.

Palm Beach Post columnist George Bennett reported last Monday that the Palm Beach County Democratic Party had planned to sponsor a screening of the 9/11 conspiracy movie Loose Change, in what the Dems' county Chairman Wahid Mahmood said was part of "an educational process for all of us."

Bennett wrote:


"The local party's Volunteer Outreach, Information, Coordination and Education (VOICE) Committee is sponsoring a screening of the 9/11 conspiracy pic Loose Change later this month (suggested donation: $5) with a special appearance by Space Coast Democratic congressional long shot Bob Bowman, a prominent doubter of the official 9/11 narrative.

The VOICE Committee's Rick Neuhoff handed out Exposing the Myth of 9/11 fliers at Thursday's Democratic Executive Committee powwow. Neuhoff says he's convinced that President Bush had "foreknowledge" of the attacks and that the World Trade Center "didn't come down because of the planes."

The local Democratic Party isn't endorsing any 9/11 theory, Chairman Wahid Mahmood says, just trying to present "an educational process for all of us."



It was only after the "educational process" was made public did the Palm Beach County Dems cancel their plans to show the video, as the Post reported in this editorial.

While it's obvious that the original decision to highlight this movie at an official party gathering is not the mark of a serious local political party, sadly, this kind of conspiracy mongering has been echoed in the past by current and former national party leaders as well.

In 2004 then-presidential candidate and current National Party Chairman Howard Dean seemed to endorse conspiracy theories on National Public Radio when he said there was "an interesting theory" that the President was told about the Sept. 11 attacks in advance by the Saudi Arabian government.

Also in 2004, then National Democratic Party Chairman Terry MacAuliffe echoed 9/11 conspiracy theories when, after viewing Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, he was he asked by National Review Online if he believed Moore's assertion that the war in Afghanistan was fought -- not in an effort to eliminate the Taliban and al Qaeda -- but to assure that the Unocal Corporation could build a natural gas pipeline across Afghanistan for the financial benefit of Vice President Dick Cheney. McAuliffe answered, "I believe it after seeing that."

This week, Newsweek reports that Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chair Rahm Emanuel (IL) has been using his brother Ari Emanuel, Michael Moore's agent for Fahrenheit 9/11, as a key cog in the Dems' fundraising apparatus in Hollywood.

Why are the Dems' leaders associating themselves with 9/11 conspiracy theories, and those who peddle them? Are these decisions the mark of a political party that is serious on the issue of national security?

It doesn't seem so.

via Blogs for Bush