[Mb-civic] The Conservative Epiphany By PAUL KRUGMAN

Sat Mar 11 09:09:11 PST 2006

Here is my letter in response:

Paul Krugman says that "The truth is that everything the new wave of Bush 
critics has to say was obvious long ago to any commentator who was willing 
to look at the facts" (Op-Ed, Mar. 10).  Those of us in the 9/11 truth 
movement are saying the same thing.

Re the Pentagon: A plane with a wingspan of 124 feet and a height of 44 feet 
does not leave a hole only 60 feet wide and 30 feet high in a building.  Re 
the Twin Towers: 110-story buildings with 47-beam solid steel inner cores do 
not collapse at "free fall" speed perfectly into their own footprints.  Re 
WTC 7: The explosive charges for the controlled demolition of a 57-story 
building cannot be set in less than eight hours, especially when there are 
two active fires in the building.  Re Flight 93: An airplane crashing 
directly into the ground does not leave debris over an area of eight miles.

These and many other facts have been available for quite some time.  Yet no 
one - Democrats, Republicans, or even savvy pundits like Mr. Krugman - seems 
to have the wherewithal to do significant research on this issue, much less 
the courage to join the movement.

Mr. Krugman makes a solid case that this Administration has lied, 
obfuscated, dissembled, stonewalled and spun on issues ranging from WMDs to 
a link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, from torture of prisoners at Abu 
Gharib to placing propaganda in Arab newspapers, from spying on Americans to 
its horrendous, unconcionable failure in New Orleans.

Why then is it so difficult for Mr. Krugman and others to "connect the dots" 
re 9/11, and question whether the "official story" as laid out in The 9/11 
Commission Report is just as flawed, if not "spun," as almost everything 
else this Administration has done?

Rev. Ian Alterman
New York City

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Butler" <michael at michaelbutler.com>
To: "Civic" <mb-civic at islandlists.com>; "HAIR List" 
<mb-hair at islandlists.com>
Sent: Friday, March 10, 2006 1:33 PM
Subject: [Mb-civic] The Conservative Epiphany By PAUL KRUGMAN

The New York Times
Printer Friendly Format Sponsored By

March 10, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist
The Conservative Epiphany
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Bruce Bartlett, the author of "Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted
America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy," is an angry man. At a recent book
forum at the Cato Institute, he declared that the Bush administration is
"unconscionable," "irresponsible," "vindictive" and "inept."

It's no wonder, then, that one commentator wrote of Mr. Bartlett that "if he
were a cartoon character, he would probably look like Donald Duck during one
of his famous tirades, with steam pouring out of his ears."

Oh, wait. That's not what somebody wrote about Mr. Bartlett. It's what Mr.
Bartlett wrote about me in September 2003, when I was saying pretty much
what he's saying now.

Human nature being what it is, I don't expect Mr. Bartlett to acknowledge
his about-face. Nor do I expect any expressions of remorse from Andrew
Sullivan, the conservative Time.com blogger who also spoke at the Cato
forum. Mr. Sullivan used to specialize in denouncing the patriotism and
character of anyone who dared to criticize President Bush, whom he lionized.
Now he himself has become a critic, not just of Mr. Bush's policies, but of
his personal qualities, too.

Never mind; better late than never. We should welcome the recent epiphanies
by conservative commentators who have finally realized that the Bush
administration isn't trustworthy. But we should guard against a conventional
wisdom that seems to be taking hold in some quarters, which says there's
something praiseworthy about having initially been taken in by Mr. Bush's
deceptions, even though the administration's mendacity was obvious from the
beginning.

According to this view, if you're a former Bush supporter who now says, as
Mr. Bartlett did at the Cato event, that "the administration lies about
budget numbers," you're a brave truth-teller. But if you've been saying that
since the early days of the Bush administration, you were unpleasantly
shrill.

Similarly, if you're a former worshipful admirer of George W. Bush who now
says, as Mr. Sullivan did at Cato, that "the people in this administration
have no principles," you're taking a courageous stand. If you said the same
thing back when Mr. Bush had an 80 percent approval rating, you were blinded
by Bush-hatred.

And if you're a former hawk who now concedes that the administration
exaggerated the threat from Iraq, you're to be applauded for your
open-mindedness. But if you warned three years ago that the administration
was hyping the case for war, you were a conspiracy theorist.

The truth is that everything the new wave of Bush critics has to say was
obvious long ago to any commentator who was willing to look at the facts.

Mr. Bartlett's book is mainly a critique of the Bush administration's fiscal
policy. Well, the administration's pattern of fiscal dishonesty and
irresponsibility was clear right from the start to anyone who understands
budget arithmetic. The chicanery that took place during the selling of the
2001 tax cut < obviously fraudulent budget projections, transparently
deceptive advertising about who would benefit and the use of blatant
accounting gimmicks to conceal the plan's true cost < was as bad as anything
that followed.

The false selling of the Iraq war was almost as easy to spot. All the
supposed evidence for an Iraqi nuclear program was discredited before the
war < and it was the threat of nukes, not lesser W.M.D., that stampeded
Congress into authorizing Mr. Bush to go to war. The administration's
nonsensical but insistent rhetorical linkage of Iraq and 9/11 was also a
dead giveaway that we were being railroaded into an unnecessary war.

The point is that pundits who failed to notice the administration's
mendacity a long time ago either weren't doing their homework, or
deliberately turned a blind eye to the evidence.

But as I said, better late than never. Born-again Bush-bashers like Mr.
Bartlett and Mr. Sullivan, however churlish, are intellectually and morally
superior to the Bushist dead-enders who still insist that Saddam was allied
with Al Qaeda, and will soon be claiming that we lost the war in Iraq
because the liberal media stabbed the troops in the back. And reporters
understandably consider it newsworthy that some conservative voices are now
echoing longstanding liberal critiques of the Bush administration.

It's still fair, however, to ask people like Mr. Bartlett the obvious
question: What took you so long?

    * Copyright 2006The New York Times Company
    * Home
    * Privacy Policy
    * Search
    * Corrections
    * XML
    * Help
    * Contact Us
    * Work for Us
    * Site Map
    * Back to Top

_______________________________________________
Mb-civic mailing list
Mb-civic at islandlists.com
http://www.islandlists.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mb-civic