A Headline You Won't See: 9/11 Twoofers Against Rudy

The major media outlets are all trumpeting a press release that says four 9/11 families groups have united to oppose Rudy Guiliani speaking at the commemoration ceremony ahead. All the media treat it as if this press release means that the survivors of this brutal attack are rising up against Rudy in revulsion. Here's a few examples. 

ABC (al-Reuters): "Families of September 11 victims and emergency responders raised alarms"... 

New York Times bylined story by Michael Cooper: "Some relatives of people who died on Sept. 11 said they feared the presence of former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani might inject politics into the event at ground zero." The Times followed up with an alarmed editorial. 

Washington Post, bylined al-Reuters story by Daniel Trotta: "Families of September 11 victims and emergency responders raised alarms on Wednesday that former New York mayor and presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani might politicize the sixth anniversary memorial of the attacks."

Did you notice, every one of these stories has a very similar lede? Why? Because of one of the dirty secrets of the media: lots of reporters don't report any more. The reason the stories are so similar, is that they all took their verbiage direct from the press release uncritically, and only added whatever spin their particular version of the MSM slant required. 

None of them did any serious original reporting. None of them even looked at who the four groups were. Is no one curious any more?

Well I am, and so I looked into the groups. And sure enough, this story doesn't mean what it's being spun to mean by these dishonest reporters and the rest of their wolfpack. It took me fifteen minutes to find out who was behind this "story," and you can follow along with me overleaf, and duplicate my results if you care to. 

Here's how I found out what apparently none of these mighty journalists with all their layers of editors couldn't. 

I began by assuming that this is not the main families group (which is cautiously apolitical), but the four or five New Jersey widows that Ann Coulter dissed (I forget exactly what she said, but it was pretty cruel, if I remember). The widows have established themselves as all-purpose Democratic Party spokespeople, and have apparently lit on Rudy as the realization sinks in that they're not going to have Bush to kick around in a year and a few months. Is it them? Lemme check... 

No, wrongo bongo, Hognose! Not just the fine ladies of exit whatever, but more! Check 'em out:

9/11 Firefighters & Families for Truth -- a twoofer group. These are the morons who believe that Bush, the CIA, or for all I know Rudy, blew up the buildings to have an excuse to... uh... seize Afghanistan's oil. (Uh, I've been there. There's no freakin' oil... but that's the least error that these dunces make). And this is the lead group on the press release. Twoofers!

WTC Families for Proper Burial -- another group aligned with uber-Twoofer Alex Jones, see here. Among the curious things that they believe is that human remains can't be destroyed beyond recovery -- a touching bit of faith in the human organism's ability to stand up to millions of tons of falling masonry. Not exactly adept in physics or biology, these folks. 

9/11 Parents & Families of Firefighters & WTC Victims -- seems to be a non-profit set up by a law firm and a PR firm to collect money. At a skim, none of the board members (voting or advisory) or paid staffers seems to have any connexion to 9/11 victims, except for making money off them, which most of them seem to be doing. Cha-chingg. 

September 11th Advocates -- sure enough, these are the Jersey Girls.  See here: http://www.sourcewatch.org/wiki.phtml?title=September_11th_Advocates

At least they really did lose family members, unlike the "Familes of September 11" group. Weird that the family members are "advocates" and the ambulance chasers call themselves "family members" -- seems like both groups have it ass-backwards. Well, it's a free country. 

As I thought, none of these is a mainstream family member group, and none of them comes up in Charity Navigator, although several solicit donations. (While Charity Navigator warns that there are innocent reasons for an organization not being listed, I myself find a non-listing a red flag unless I personally know the key people).

Ten minutes on Yahoo, five more on Charity Navigator. More work than any of the MSM will do -- all of them are trumpeting this press release as if it's the actual opinion of the, lower-case and real, 9/11 family members.

The real story that Reuters, ABC News, and a bunch of outlets missed: The "9/11 Truth" movement, the trial lawyers, and the four-member Jersey Girls group, don't like Rudy Guiliani. Dog bites man, eh?

The 9/11 Truth Movement groups get the lead position in the press release, too. Interesting. The Twoofers are proof positive that public education needs some work. 

Hat Tip: Ian Schwartz

Posted: Sunday - September 02, 2007 at 07:49 PM