The theories of 9/11 “Truthers” implicitly, and often not so implicitly, accuse some of our best — soldiers, those at the Central Intelligence Agency, etc. — of partaking in mass murder. After all, Bush and Cheney alone can’t remote-control planes or plant explosives or whatever the theory du jour is. Executing the cover-up would require the cooperation and acquiescence of thousands upon thousands within the White House, within the Cabinet, within the military, within the intelligence community, within the law-enforcement community, and beyond.
There are a lot of Americans in the above groups, and they have a lot of friends, family, and neighbors. Accusing them to their faces of mass-murdering their fellow citizens may bring a rebuttal across the bridge of your nose. (But let’s be consistent — no finger-biting.)
The hiring of Jones was a scandal, the failure to flag this issue in the vetting process is unforgivable, and the fact that we’re not watching cable-news coverage of Obama personally throwing Jones’s desk knick-knacks out the third-story window of the Old Executive Office Building while the Secret Service removes him from government property is disappointing.
Obama understands how catastrophic it is to have a Truther in his administration, right? He knows that responsibility for 9/11 isn’t one of those issues where we can “agree to disagree,” right?
I’ve tried to cut Obama slack here and there. Respect the office, even if you don’t agree with the man, stand when he enters the room, try to remember he’s a husband and a father too, etc. But if there’s any sense that Obama doesn’t think Jones’s past statements, views, and support of Trutherism are a big deal, and an automatic reason for dismissal, it will trigger a political firestorm that will make the differing views over the Iraq War look like the “tastes great–less filling” argument.