There’s been a lot of talk lately about conspiracy theories that put our government behind the attacks of September 11.

I agree that every investigation regarding this White House over the last six yeas has been lackluster. I’m hopeful that a Democratic House of Representatives might hold some real hearings.

Still, I think it is unlikely that the U.S. government was involved in the 9/11 attack for the following reasons:
1. The bigger a conspiracy is, the easier it falls apart. How many U.S. citizens would be needed to pull off this conspiracy? Two? Five? Nine? Thirty? Put yourself in their theoretical shoes for a second: You’re involved in the biggest crime of the century and you’re relying on X number of others not to step up, relieve their conscience, and grab immunity for their testimony! Watergate—a dumb breaking and entering that didn’t kill any Americans—was brought down from within.
2. It gives these guys too much credit. Seriously. If they could pull off 9/11 and not get their dicks caught in their zipper, why couldn’t they pass Social Security reform? The only genius in BushCo, as far as I’ve seen, is Karl Rove. His specialty is turning bad news for his boss into good news (well, that and smearing campaign opponents). It’s easy for people to believe that the Prez was involved because so many things have fallen his way since the towers crumbled (high approval rating, congressional support, etc.). I think it’s more likely that attack made them think, first, “Oh shit!” then “How can we use this to fuel our agenda?”
3. It’s perversely reassuring to think the Government controlled this. Right? It would mean that we lived in a country of God-like power and as long as we got to the bottom of it, put the bad guys behind bars, and elected the right leaders, we could return to a pre-9/11 safety. It’s like we’re little kids and we just saw dad get sucker punched by a scrawny foreigner. It’s humiliating and frightening.