TPM Reader WB on Truthers and Birthers ...

I'm sadly not at all surprised at those high 9/11 "truther" numbers among Democrats. I've had many conversations with friends and family who believe some variation of this nonsense (anywhere from "Bush let it happen" to "the the attacks were planned and executed at the highest levels of government, the planes didn't cause the collapse, etc."). It is tiring, but not altogether surprising because really traumatic national events like 9/11 or Presidential assassinations tend to lead to conspiracy theories. Pick any national trauma of similar magnitude and you will find a nexus of conspiracy theories floating around it (JFK, Pearl Harbor, etc.).

So yeah, the trauma of 9/11 made some on the left go a little nuts. It also made a lot of folks on the right go nuts (or even nuttier) in different ways, and eight years later we're still stuck in two wars as a result. But the whole Obama birther thing is a different kettle of fish insofar as the only "tramua" these people seem to have suffered from is living to see the day a black man got elected President.

For some of these folks, clearly it's a very deep trauma.