News & Politics   comments_image Comments  9/11: Wild
Conspiracies and Rational Concerns  Even when you cut through
the conspiracy theories about 9/11 and head straight for the
facts, the government's version still seems fuzzy.  According to
a recent Zogby poll, less than half of all Americans agree that
"the 9/11 attacks were thoroughly investigated and that any
speculation about U.S. government involvement is nonsense."  You
could almost hear a wail of frustration rising up from the
gatekeepers of acceptable discourse.  Just after the Zogby poll
was released, William Arkin, the Washington Post's normally
circumspect military affairs columnist, had a fit of apoplexy
over some e-mail from 9/11 skeptics. "National security is men's
work," he wrote -- absurdly bringing gender politics into a
debate that's already quite muddled -- and conspiracy theorists
are, presumably, not real men, but "predatory and devious,
seekers of polarization and not light, abusive of the political
system [and] contemptuous of anythin