Jonathan Chait objects to my post on Truthers v. Birthers. Chait writes:

There are two claims here. The first is that liberals understate the craziness of Truthers. Goldberg’s sole piece of evidence to support this claim is a New York Times article that he deems insufficiently hostile to the Truthers. The headline of the article — 500 Conspiracy Buffs Meet To Seek The Truth Of 9/11 — captures the tone. The term “conspiracy buffs,” Goldberg seems not to realize, is media code for “whackjobs.”

Chait makes a fine point that “conspiracy buff” is code for “whackjob” except much — though not all — of the tone of that NYT article made them seem like sympathetic, if not lovable, whackjobs.

Chait’s just wrong when he says my “sole piece of evidence” is the aforementioned New York Times piece. Indeed, I began my post thus: “As I wrote last year, I find it amazing that the ‘Birthers’ are considered more dangerous and evil than the ‘Truthers.’”

Intriguingly, the “As I wrote last year” clause linked to a column I wrote last year. In it, I pointed out that many liberals rallied around Van Jones despite the fact that he was a Truther. In other words, my post about the New York Times story about birthers was simply a continuation of an argument I’d made previously. Then Chait writes:

Goldberg’s second claim is that, since the Truthers have a nuttier and more significant conspiracy theory, the media should be subjecting them to more extensive and hostile coverage than the Birthers. I agree that Birthers have attracted far more coverage than Truthers. I attribute the difference to the fact that Birthers have a significant foothold within the GOP, gaining at leats soft support from numerous elected Republicans at the state and even national level. This is not true at all of the Truthers.

Forgetting that a Truther — Van Jones — had a significant foothold within the White House itself, this really isn’t that great an argument. I’m willing to concede, at least for the sake of argument, that the Birthers have more prominence in the GOP than Truthers had in the Democratic Party. But let’s not pretend that truther-style nuttery wasn’t indulged by the Democrats (nor forget that Trutherism is a vastly more evil and pernicious worldview than birtherism). Michael Moore, who sat in Jimmy Carter’s skybox at the Democratic Convention, was embraced by the leadership of the Democratic Party. Moore believed 9/11 was an “inside job.” Cynthia McKinney first broached the “inside job” thesis while she was still a Democratic congresswoman. And while, Jeremiah Wright isn’t strictly speaking a “truther,” he’s certainly a crazy race-obsessed conspiratorial nutjob who only happened to be the president’s pastor and mentor for 20 years. I’m sure if George W. Bush had that kind of relationship with someone that awful, both the New York Times and Chait would downplay and dismiss those connections as well.

Then of course, there was Howard Dean on the Diane Rehm Show, Dec. 1, 2003. This was when he was the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination:

Diane Rehm: “Why do you think he (Bush) is suppressing that (Sept. 11) report?”
Howard Dean: “I don’t know. There are many theories about it. The most interesting theory that I’ve heard so far — which is nothing more than a theory, it can’t be proved — is that he was warned ahead of time by the Saudis. Now who knows what the real situation is?”