One Pristine Bullet? That Dog Don't Hunt!
The Scripps Howard News Service has done a wonderful thing in asking Americans what they thought of five popular conspiracy theories. The least credible theory: "The Pentagon was not struck by an airliner captured by terrorists but instead was hit by a cruise missile fired by the U.S. military." A mere 12 percent of Americans buy into that. But a sizable 40 percent think "officials in the federal government were directly responsible for the assassination of U.S. president John F. Kennedy." The support for theories of a cover-up of life on other planets and a "Reichstag fire" conspiracy on 9/11 are probably the biggest shocks in the poll—the former is only 38 percent, the latter is a whopping 36 percent. (I know 38 is bigger than 36, but there have been several more movies over more decades about Area 51 than about any 9/11 conspiracies.)