Scripps Howard Poll

In the January 2008 slideshow, this slide was split into two for emphasis. In the March 2008 slideshow, it was again combined into a single slide. Otherwise, it is unchanged.

The September 2007 slideshow refers to this poll in a second slide that was omitted from the January 2008 slideshow.

The Scripps Howard August 2006 Poll

In this slide, Gage uses a Time Magazine article to introduce an important study about American 9/11 beliefs.

In August 2006, the Scripps Howard News Service conducted a study of 9/11 conspiracy theory beliefs. Their findings were published in this article, and then used as part of the Time Magazine article quoted by Richard Gage here.

The results were eye-opening.

Thirty-six percent of respondents overall said it is "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that federal officials either participated in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon or took no action to stop them "because they wanted the United States to go to war in the Middle East."

...The poll also found that 16 percent of Americans speculate that secretly planted explosives, not burning passenger jets, were the real reason the massive twin towers of the World Trade Center collapsed.

...Sixteen percent said it's "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that "the collapse of the twin towers in New York was aided by explosives secretly planted in the two buildings."

Gage is using this information to make you feel more comfortable with the idea of believing what he wants you to believe. There is safety in numbers, and 36% of Americans is a rather large number!

But Gage is taking advantage of a weakness in this poll. It combines two different takes on the 9/11 conspiracy theory known by the popular acronyms LIHOP and MIHOP. The LIHOP side charges the U.S. government with a sin of omission. They Let It Happen On Purpose. The MIHOP side charges the government with a sin of commission. They Made It Happen On Purpose by either giving covert assistance to the hijackers or actually planning and carrying out the attacks.

Both LIHOP and MIHOP cover a dizzying array of theories as to what actually happened on 9/11. It really isn't fair to lump these two sides together into one 36% figure. A more recent poll, the subject of the next slide, allowed people to choose between the official story, LIHOP, MIHOP, and Not Sure. The numbers lined up well with the Scripps Howard poll. 36.4% chose an option other than the official story.

Richard Gage's proposal of controlled demolition belongs firmly in the MIHOP camp. And as the Zogby poll will make clear, only 4.6% of Americans are willing to commit themselves to such an extreme theory.

16% Believe Explosives?

So what to make of this 16% of people who say that controlled demolition theories are either "very likely" or "somewhat likely"? Let's take a look at the actual question.

The collapse of the twin towers in New York was aided by explosives secretly planted in the two buildings.

Very likely 6%

Somewhat likely 10%

Unlikely 77%

Don't know 6%

Other response 1%

That 16% isn't quite as persuasive when it's split into its components and put right up against a staggering 77% that find such a scenario unlikely.

Furthermore, if you think Al Qaeda might have secretly planted some explosives in the twin towers, you are a part of this 16%. Many people on the day of the attack thought that other devices might have been planted in the building. A belief that explosives might have been secretly planted is not necessarily a belief in MIHOP.

Motivations For the 36%

The 2006 Scripp Howard poll found that this belief in government culpability had spiked in the two years before the poll. They also found a specific reason for this recent increase:

University of Florida law professor Mark Fenster, author of the book "Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and Power in American Culture," said the poll's findings reflect public anger at the unpopular Iraq war, realization that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction and growing doubts of the veracity of the Bush administration.

"What has amazed me is not that there are conspiracy theories, but that they didn't seem to be getting any purchase among the American public until the last year or so," Fenster said. "Although the Iraq war was not directly related to the 9/11 attacks, people are now looking back at 9/11 with much more skepticism than they used to."

Conspiracy-believing participants in the poll agree their suspicions are recent.

...[T]he new survey found that 77 percent say their friends and acquaintances have become angrier with government recently and 54 percent say they, themselves, have become angrier - both record levels.

The survey also found that people who regularly use the Internet but who do not regularly use so-called "mainstream" media are significantly more likely to believe in 9/11 conspiracies. People who regularly read daily newspapers or listen to radio newscasts were especially unlikely to believe in the conspiracies.

So the growth in belief of 9/11 conspiracy theories is directly related to anger over the bungled war in Iraq. This isn't a statement made after careful consideration of the evidence, but an expression of disgust with an incompetent government. Whether people are justly angry over this is another argument. Even in their anger, the vast majority of people willing to state a belief in 9/11 conspiracy theories only go as far as a LIHOP scenario.

Time Magazine Article

Richard Gage takes this quote from a Time Magazine retrospective done five years after the attacks:

A Scripps-Howard poll of 1,010 adults last month found that 36% of Americans consider it "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that government officials either allowed the attacks to be carried out or carried out the attacks themselves. Thirty-six percent adds up to a lot of people. This is not a fringe phenomenon. It is a mainstream political reality.

This is quite true, and the reasons for this are given above.

Here's a second quote from the Time Magazine article that you won't hear from Gage:

But there's a big problem with Loose Change and with most other conspiracy theories. The more you think about them, the more you realize how much they depend on circumstantial evidence, facts without analysis or documentation, quotes taken out of context and the scattered testimony of traumatized eyewitnesses.

Gage tries very hard to not appear to rely on such weak evidence, but as we proceed, you will see that this is pretty much all that he has. Given the extreme nature of his propositions and the flimsy nature of his evidence, there is no need to trust Gage or his fellow theorists with subpoena power. If the American public is going to find satisfaction over the waging of the war in Iraq, they will need to look elsewhere for leadership.

Sourcing Materials

As you see up above, I've given you direct links to and quotes from the various articles and surveys being referenced here. I will do so at every opportunity that I can (although some pictures may be difficult to track down). Why doesn't Gage do this?

Certainly I don't expect you to be able to link to his material if you are listening to a presentation. But this is available on the Internet as well. That would be the perfect place for links to the actual source material that Gage is referencing. Indeed, that is what the Internet is all about.

Could it be that going to the actual survey or magazine article would weaken his case? I think I've just demonstrated that to be so. For someone who's so upset at 9/11 not being properly investigated, he certainly isn't very facilitating of such basic investigation as is available on the Web.

How can we trust Gage with subpoena power if he's willing to set a hurdle to the simple back-and-forth on the Internet? How is this being responsible to the cause of truth?