Posted on 11/08/2004 6:31:01 AM PST by OESY
WASHINGTON, Nov. 7 - The grainy 30-second commercials are eerie and cryptic, and they suggest a government cover-up of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. One implies that no plane flew into the Pentagon. The other suggests that 7 World Trade Center, which collapsed late in the afternoon that day, was detonated from within.
The advertisements, which ran repeatedly here and in New York between Oct. 20 and Nov. 2 on several cable networks, including CNN, Fox News and ESPN, offer a Web site, an address and a phone number but give little indication who is behind them.
The ads are the latest salvo from James W. Walter, a millionaire from Santa Barbara, Calif., who over the years has financed programs promoting voter registration in low-income neighborhoods and prison reform. Recently he has taken a growing interest in the investigation of the Sept. 11 attacks. The television commercials, as well as ads in magazines and newspapers, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Daily News, are part of a $3 million national campaign paid for by Mr. Walter in an effort to press for the reopening of the investigation by the independent Sept. 11 commission.
"It just isn't possible that 19 screw-ups with box cutters pulled this whole thing off," Mr. Walter said in a telephone interview Friday as he traveled from Florida to California by train. He has traveled by train since Sept. 11, 2001, he said, because he has been too scared to fly.
"We've never gotten solid answers on why Tower 7 collapsed when it was two full blocks away from where the planes hit," he said. "We've also never received an answer for how such a large plane left such a small hole in the side of the Pentagon."
The independent commission, which issued its final report in July, disputed some commonly held beliefs about the attacks but not the general conclusion, that 19 young terrorists hijacked planes and flew them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
For Mr. Walter, though, what started as a hunch about official negligence has blossomed into a full-blown conspiracy theory involving government officials looking for a pretext to send troops into Afghanistan and Iraq.
Mr. Walter has tapped into a long tradition in which national tragedies - from the assassination of President John F. Kennedy to the downing of Trans World Airlines Flight 800 - inflame the most feverish imaginations.
But in New York, the ads may have found a particularly receptive audience.
A Zogby poll of New Yorkers' opinions about the 9/11 investigation, released last month, indicated that 49 percent of New York City residents and 41 percent of New York state residents believed that some federal officials "knew in advance that attacks were planned on or around September 11, 2001, and that they consciously failed to act." The poll also found that 66 percent of New York City residents and 56 percent of state residents wanted a fuller investigation of the "still unanswered questions."
Using the poll findings to make their case, relatives of victims of the attacks and others skeptical of the commission's investigation have asked Eliot Spitzer, the New York attorney general, to open an investigation into what they said were unanswered questions.
Glenn P. Corbett, a professor of fire science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice who is part of an investigation into the collapse of the World Trade Center towers by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, said that he was not surprised by the lingering speculation about the attacks, but that there were clear answers to most questions raised by Mr. Walter's ad campaign.
The hole left by the attack on the Pentagon was not bigger, Mr. Corbett said, because the wings were lighter than most other parts of the plane and probably disintegrated on impact with the ground and the building. The reason 7 World Trade Center collapsed straight down, he said, was most likely the large amounts of diesel fuel stored in the building's lower levels. The fuel was meant to power emergency generators.
"The conspiracy theorists fail to recognize that there was structural damage in Building 7 caused by flying debris after the first two towers collapsed," Mr. Corbett said. "This led to fires that burned for several hours which eventually collapsed Building 7, too."
One skeptic who wants Mr. Spitzer to open an investigation is W. David Kubiak, who lives in Kennebunkport, Maine, and runs a Web site called 911Truth.org. He said that not all doubters had gone as far as Mr. Walter in their conspiracy theories. Most people in his group, he said, including families of 9/11 victims, simply want more of an explanation why there were so many problems that day involving emergency communication and the chain of command.
"I guess I'm one of the few people with the wherewithal to push the issue," said Mr. Walter, who says he is worth about $7 million, most of which he inherited from his father's building materials company in Tampa, Fla. Besides making financial donations to various causes, Mr. Walter, 57, also founded Walden Three, a nonprofit group in Santa Barbara that researches futuristic ideas for environmentally friendly urban development. Much of his time, Mr. Walter said, is spent working on a science fiction novel that he hopes to publish to promote utopian visions for city planning.
"Sometimes Jimmy gets a little carried away with his own ideas," said Assia Mortensen, who works occasionally as an editor for Walden Three. "But at root, he's an eccentric sweetheart with a lot of money and he shares it with a lot of important groups."
Mr. Walter said he was no stranger to adversity, having overcome an addiction to cocaine. He also has Tourette's syndrome, he said.
"I have a hard time not speaking up when I see something that doesn't seem right," Mr. Walter said. "I guess that is just the way I am."
Another kooky Michael Moore wannabe getting a blessing from the NYT,,and did you notice there's a Zogby poll in the middle of that?
Putrid.
These people need to wrap the tin foil around their heads with the shiny side facing out...
Cue the "Not this sh** again" graphic!
I think we should prove to him what 19 kooks can do to an unsuspecting person. Toilet Paper his lawn anybody? And leave a lot of flyers with, "19 kooks did this to you when you weren't expecting it. Get used to it!"
We never had men go to the moon either. They filmed that in Death Valley. (sarcasm)
I bet his hard working daddy would be real proud of his boy - spending the family inheritance in such a positive way and all...what an idiot.
"In a related news story, Reynolds Aluminum has announced a surge in sales of their Extra heavy duty foil."
Humming Twilight Zone theme song...
Damned liberal pansy!
The NYT's has now become the "Enquirer of Times in New York". Obviously, this guy has killed to many brain cells to be taken seriously.
The Times has become the MSM version of The Daily Worker... commies, socialists and anarchists rejoice!
are we allowed to post full articles from NYT? just in case...
I think algore knew about these attacks and didn't want to deal with them, that's why he threw the election to Bush in Florida. He appeared to fight the results but that was all for show. We all know that when the Dems want to win a state a mere 600 votes is childs play. Rendell worked for the gore campaign and he later became governer of Pennsylvania and lookee here that's where the 4th plane crashed. See I can play foil nut too.
Ain't America great. This clown proves that you don't have to be very bright to be rich.
Why didn't Barbara Olson come home?
Whenever you think the NY Slimes has hit ROCK BOTTOM, they go and publish a story like this and they keep digging lower and lower and lower.
There is now not much difference betweeen the NY Slimes and the National Enquirer. Except that the average Enquirer issue has more facts in it than the average Slimes issue, I guess.
"The other suggests that 7 World Trade Center, which collapsed late in the afternoon that day, was detonated from within. "
Actually, Josh Silverstein - owner of the company that leases the WTC Complex - admitted to giving the order to 'pull' WTC-7 around 4:45pm. He made this amazing statement in an interview in March of this year. I'd post a link to it, but moderator would probably pull the post.
I've got news for this idiot. It's believed that trains will be the next target. Railfan excursion insurance has gone up so much that companys are shutting down as they can't afford the premiums.
9-10 mentality bump.
"'It just isn't possible that 19 screw-ups with box cutters pulled this whole thing off,' Mr. Walter said in a telephone interview Friday as he traveled from Florida to California by train. He has traveled by train since Sept. 11, 2001, he said, because he has been too scared to fly."
This is just tooooo funny!! The whole thing was a hoax but he is too scared to fly. Go figure.
I guess he doesn't remember what it was like, but lots of us do. Racial profiling was getting police into hot water, there was next to no security for getting on a plane, we were wide open, welcoming relaxed and happy with foreign elements and most Americans had never heard of OBL. So, it wasn't hard for 19 fruitcakes to pull off what they did. You couldn't question anybody's motivation for anything then, it wasn't politically correct. And we had just come off eight years of a "President" who spent his time hiding out with White House intern and who knows how many others we never heard about, trying to imagine what it felt like to be JFK.
Oh thanks for the laugh!
It seems to be a given that daddy works his butt off, and then rich-kid offspring turns to leftist fantasies.
Reminds me of the wonderful scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail where the Big Daddy Scots Baron is marrying limp pale son off to the Hefty Beauty ---"And she's got big tracts o'....land!'
Beauteous son wafts about shooting arrows with messages begging for help...
Why do they all turn into such worthless, fantasizing, disabled, vain creatures?
Since I can't think of another adjective I will cease my rant.
....and algore received contributions to the dnc via tom daschles's wife in exchange for softening the report about airline security standards he was chair of.
...remember, they killed ron brown in a phony plane crash - with bullet wounds to the head... and JFK Jr. too! AND Paul Wellstone!!!! They could stage another!
...the plot thickens... ;)
BKO is gonna be real disappointed to hear that.
New York Times--Inquiring minds wanna know!
Just more proof that liberalism is a mental illness
There are dozens of eyewitnesses who saw the plane hit the Pentagon. I have met two of them. One is the wife of the rector of the church where my daughter attended preschool. She was in her car on the road that goes by that side of the Pentagon and saw the whole thing, the plane flew right over her, and debris from the plane even hit her car. The other is a woman I met at a dinner who was in her apartment in Crystal City talking on the phone about the attacks in New York when she saw the plane fly right into the Pentagon. She had to have weeks of psychotherapy to recover from the sight.
Okey-dokey
What interesting timing - I saw a DVD Saturday night that put forth these same "theories". It was absolutely ridiculous.
That's the first thing I thought - Dad probably put himself in an early grave to build that wealth and Junior pees it away like this.
I told my kids not to expect anything, and God bless 'em, they said, "Spend it all dad, we're doing OK."
"Mr. Walter said he was no stranger to adversity, having overcome an addiction to cocaine. He also has Tourette's syndrome, he said."
Time for another 30 day chip!
..........:p
We've got some real kooks out there, LOL!
The times should be ashamed of reporting this crap. It is so easy to disprove. One, what would have been done with the passengers of the real flights? Why do all their relatives think they are dead? Did the government hide them away somewhere along with the crew members of the planes? What happened to the real planes? Just a couple questions this guy is unable to answer and fails to cover in his little theory. NYTimes is desparate to use anything they can against Bush. Maybe they think we will hold the elections again?
Damn, that must mean I am too. She was a friend of mine.
Thanks for posting that pic. A few months ago one of my buddies sent me a link to one of those conspiracy websites that has an overhead photo of the hole in the Pentagon with a diagram of the wingspan of a 747 or whatever, superimposed over the picture. Trying to imply that a plane didn't crash into the Pentagon, or at least not the plane that everyone thinks crashed there. I said "well what happened to the real plane then? And the people on board?"
I just sent him this pic, I hope he can take off his tinfoil soon!
Well, then, you must know the infamous "undisclosed location."
(I am very sorry if my previous post caused you any grief - I was definitely making fun of the author, not BKO.)
TS
According to a search it was Larry Silverstein and they base their theory on the insurance aspect.
Same folks with kooky ideas about OKC bombing?
WTH does this mean?
Elvis lives too!!!!! on a boat with JFK and Jimmy Hoffa!
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