Time Immortal

After being branded as an anti-Semite and a 9/11 conspiracy theorist, former Liberal Party of Canada candidate Lesley Hughes is back in the news (or rather: back on the blogs) in an attempt to deny the claims made against her.

The Canadian Jewish Congress seems to have assumed that I am one of those who subscribe to a bizarre conspiracy theory that the world’s Jews were responsible for 9-11, a ludicrous idea I have never supported. As a result of the Congress’s assumption, I have been slandered as an odious anti-Semite, a claim accepted by the prime minister, by the leader of the opposition, and the nation’s media. I have also been labelled an extremist nutbar who has promoted, rather than investigated, the possibility that 9-11 was an inside job.

It should be noted that it was the Liberal Party itself which was the first to really label Hughes’ claims as anti-Semitic in nature, and who went to the CJC with them. Once that happened, the outcome was pretty much assuredly not going to be in Hughes’ favour.

Jay Currie, who basically broke and ran with this story, has this to add:

That said, it was not just a single article. You appeared with Troothers on a number of public occasions. Given that your name appears in the Troother’s publicity material it is a pretty clear that you have gone beyond the “just asking questions” stage. Something which, frankly, needed to be exposed to the voters of Kildonan-St. Paul.

There is a not-all-that-fine line between “investigating the possibility that 9-11 was an inside job” and bending/distorting extant facts to fit a narrative that assumes, from the get-go, that it was. Hughes’ writings fell, I think, into the latter category.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

Jay Currie has been busy, and deserves a ton of credit for breaking this story. Assists, as I understand it, go to Dr. Dawg and The Black Rod.

Briefly, what has transpired is this. Yesterday, Jay broke the story of Liberal Party of Canada candidate Lesley Hughes, who had for years been publishing Twin Towers conspiracy theories of an anti-Semitic nature on the internet. In one such writing, she asserted that Jewish businesses vacated the World Trade Centre in the days prior to the 2001 attacks.

(The “Jews were Warned!” meme is a fairly common one in the circles of those who insist that the most devastating act of Islamic terror perpetrated yet in North America was, in fact, an inside job or the work of the Israeli Mossad.)

Not twenty-four hours later, after initially defending his candidate and refusing to take action, Stephane Dion asked for, and received, her resignation from the electoral race in the Manitoba riding of Kildonan-St. Paul. This was a story that emerged, and was carried, almost entirely in the blogosphere — the mainstream media has been struggling to play catch-up.

And in a somewhat ironic twist, the Liberal Party’s “Team BC” website yesterday ran a story about an NDP candidate who is also a “troother” (e.g. a 9/11 conspiracy theorist), one Bev Collins by name.

Methinks that Jay has opened himself a rather large can of worms here. If you ever needed to see a quick demonstration of the power of the blogs, O Reader, look no further than this example.

Also: very sweet…I haven’t used the “Conspiracy nonsense” category in a while!

Update: Welcome, Steynians!