McCain rebuffs 9/11 revisionists

Arizona Republic
Aug. 10, 2006

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., rebukes the crackpot Sept. 11, 2001, revisionists in the foreword to a new book titled Debunking 9/11 Myths: Why Conspiracy Theories Can't Stand Up to the Facts from the editors of Popular Mechanics magazine.

"We cannot let these tales go unanswered," McCain writes. "The 9/11 conspiracy movement exploits the public's anger and sadness. It shakes Americans' faith in their government at a time when that faith is already near an all-time low. It traffics in ugly, unfounded accusations of extraordinary evil against fellow Americans."

The book is an expanded version of a March 2005 Popular Mechanics piece that relied on cold, hard science to knock down various wild-eyed, Internet-distributed conspiracies about the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

McCain again from his foreword: "The CIA was not involved in 9/11. Our military did not bring about the destruction of the World Trade Center. Bombs or missiles did not fell the towers. A white jet did not shoot down Flight 93."

The authors also take apart what to me is perhaps the kookiest theory: that the damage to the Pentagon was not consistent with a strike from a Boeing 757.

At the time, I was living down the street on Columbia Pike in Arlington, Va. I passed the Pentagon every day on the way to work in downtown Washington, D.C. I'm no expert, but it sure seemed to me like a plane could have caused the destruction, the horrendous black smoke and burning fuel stench.