Insanities

I saw several reports and interviews on the television while at the gym this afternoon. And some of them were really nuts.

First was a report on Al Sharpton's attack on presidential candidate (former Massachusetts governor) Mitt Romney. What Sharpton said was “As for the one Mormon running for office, those that really believe in God will defeat him anyway, so don’t worry about that, that’s a temporary – that’s a temporary situation.” (See also reports here and here.)

Sharpton denies ever saying that. He also claims he was talking about Christopher Hitchens, the atheist he was debating at the time he made the statement. But I — along with much of the country — have heard the audio on both radio and TV. There's no question of what he said.

Sharpton's apologists admit that's what he said, but claim it's not what he meant. They claim he made clear what he really meant to say later in the debate. If that's so, Sharpton should apologize for what he said and make clear that it wasn't what he meant. The fact that he won't do so indicates it really was what he meant, and that he's the same race-baiting bigot he's always been.

Then there's John Kerry. A report on the National Journal web site says he responded to a question about Building 7 at the World Trade Center on 9/11 by saying “I do know that that wall, I remember, was in danger and I think they made the decision based on the danger that it had in destroying other things, that they did it in a controlled fashion.” It was not clear from the video clip I heard if he was really talking about WTC Building 7, though that was what people like Webster Tarpley asserted very firmly. If Kerry meant what he seems to have said, his connection to reality is much more tenuous that I'd previously thought.

And who is Webster Tarpley? On his web site (no, I'm not going to provide a link) he identifies himself as "Intelligence Expert, Activist, Historian" and author of 9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA. I saw him interviewed this afternoon, too. He claims World Trade Center Building 7 was effectively undamaged, and was brought down by a controlled demolition. He says placing the explosives to do that would require several days of work by experts. (No suggestion was made as to how that was accomplished without anyone noticing.) He says Arabs do not have the capability to carry off such a task, and asserts it was an "inside job" carried out by rogue elements within the Bush Administration. Of course, this also means the attack on the World Trade Center's twin towers (and the Pentagon) was also carried out by Bush Administration elements. (He says the destruction of the twin towers was also by controlled demolition with explosives that took days of work by experts to place.) Tarpley does not deny the existence of Al Qaeda, but says it's a sham — "the CIA's Arab legion." He said, too, that there are several Osama bin Ladens, all actors on the CIA payroll.

Listening to Tarpley, I couldn't help wondering what color the sky is in his world. He gives moonbat a whole new level of meaning.