Can an expression THIS BEFUDDLED be faked?
One of things that interests me about 9/11 is how it violently divides people, creating a kind of epistemological schism. For many, entertaining the conspiratorial view of the event (“inside job” and all that) is tantamount to believing in the tooth fairy. For others, entertaining the official version of the event is also tooth-fairy credulous. There is little middle ground, and the adherents could easily be said to occupy parallel universes.
Needless to say, for those tending to the former perspective, my tongue is firmly, deeply buried in my cheek here: of course I didn’t and don’t think that such a vast and mind-bending conspiracy is possible, let alone credible, or that the following are really anything other than meaningless slips of the tongue (rather than what Freud liked to call “psychic facts”). That is to say, I’m being ironic. Gawd.
(As for everyone else, wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more…I’m just trying to get this information out there!)
Number 1 “The TV was obviously on…” Dubya describes seeing the first plane hit.
Is this the greatest Freudian slip of all time? A predictable number one, certainly, but deservedly so. Where were you when you first saw the planes hit the towers? Remember? Well, apparently being POTUS during such an event plays havoc with your memory. “Kite… Plane…Must… Hit… Steel…”
Number 2 “We watched it go down…” Larry Silverstein tastes some very fancy leather.
Larry Silverstein caused an immense furor when he cavalierly employed the vernacular of controlled demolition when referring to what he later claimed was the evacuation of Building 7. In the first of a couple of Top Five video asides, here’s Lazza very convincingly expanding on why he didn’t come to work that morning as per usual. Thank God, Larry, thank God...
Number 3 “They did it in a controlled fashion, uhhh…” John Kerry: not the sharpest pencil in the pencil-case.
The news (courtesy of a timely provocateur) that Larry Silverstein “admitted” to demolishing WTC7 seems to take John Kerry by surprise (“Did I not get that email?”)—but not to worry, see how smoothly Kerry extricates himself. Many were understandably rooting for Kerry when he ran against Dubya, but you’ve got to wonder if he was actually any more intelligent than the then-incumbent president, let alone respectable. The above admission certainly seemed to worry the powers that be, who apparently decided that, in order to protect Kerry from having to think on his two left feet ever again, it might be wise to see that a small and rabidly violent police force accompany him on all future expeditions….
Number 4 “To ensure that the explosives were high enough…” You just can’t get the help.
Dubya again. This time, however, I’m inclined to think that the fault of the following Freudian slip is someone else’s. Watch him double-check his written statement in mild momentary alarm (well, surprise) after articulating the word ‘explosives’. Once he sees that that is indeed what it says, however, he relaxes, demonstrating again his well-established incapacity for independent thought.
No wonder he responds, in the following additional example of a psychic fact, so badly to the only direct question on this topic he’s ever had to field. You’ve got to feel sorry for the questioner, who was evidently only trying to find an original way to blow smoke up his backside… rather than confront Raskolnikov with his own dripping axe. Cue nervous laughter from the press corp.
Number 5 Missileplanes a go-go!
My last entry is a double bill, with Donald Rumsfeld and 9/11 Commission member Tim Roemer giving the common man an insight into just how terribly complicated it must be to execute dozens of televised interviews on an event you’re having to keep quite separate sets of books on!
[I first lightheartedly cobbled together this list a couple of years ago for the Headpress website, and just remembered again this morning that it existed, and, looking over it, thought it remained entertaining enough to share here, too. ]