Back in the day I was an economics major at Texas A&M. The only professor I had for multiple classes was Morgan Reynolds. I had him for at least two classes and maybe three. I remember he was a major free-market guy, really into the whole conservative thing. But after I graduated I thought no more of him, except that he's one of maybe three professors whose names I can still remember after 20 years.

Then this week he suddenly turns up on the Internets. Turns out ol' Dr. Reynolds has been busy over the last few years.  He was the chief economist at the Labor Department during the first reign of George II and was also the director of the Criminal Justice Center at the National Center for Policy Analysis.  That's a right-wing think tank funded by Scaife, et. al. and the people behind mysocialsecurity.org, now renamed TeamNCPA.

Nothing to write home about so far, just another Aggie economics professor burrowed into the right-wing machine just like Phil Gramm, Wendy Gramm, and Jim Miller.

But then he starts telling people that the government, not terrorists, blew up the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.  He wrote a long column called Why Did the Trade Center Skyscrapers Collapse over at lewrockwell.com.  Since all of Dr. Reynolds's bio information mentions that he's a Professor Emeritus at A&M, the university president has issued a statement clarifying that his views do not speak for the university.  That URL may go away sometime soon, so I have reproduced it below:

The following is a statement from Texas A&M University regarding recent news reports about the collapse of the World Trade Center on 9-11.

Dr. Morgan Reynolds is retired from Texas A&M University, but holds the title of Professor Emeritus - an honorary title bestowed upon select tenured faculty, who have retired with ten or more years of service.  Additionally, contrary to some written reports, while some faculty emeriti are allocated office space at Texas A&M, Dr. Reynolds does not have office space on the Texas A&M campus.  Any statements made by Dr. Reynolds are in his capacity as a private citizen and do not represent the views of Texas A&M University.  Below is a statement released yesterday by Dr. Robert M. Gates, President of Texas A&M University:

"The American people know what they saw with their own eyes on September 11, 2001.  To suggeest any kind of government conspiracy in the events of that day goes beyond the pale."